Cross post from mine on reddit.
Explanation: http://imgur.com/a/FjPv2
The source of this idea
Chara plays against the toughest completion, the opposing team’s best players, more than anyone. Our top 2 lines play against basically equal competition, Julien avoids starting those lines in the defensive end most of the time, with the exception of Bergeron, who is insanely trusted and sent out to win defensive zone draws a lot.
The Bottom 3 in terms of quality of opponents is the Merlot Line, Campbell being the most trusted, Paille neutral, and Thornton being sheltered and getting most of his faceoffs in the offensive zone. Obviously they don’t want him playing defense while the other two are okay.
Like Thornton, they don’t want Krug playing in the defensive zone. He is an offensive force and they avoid his defensive play as much as possible.
The bubbles show Corsi relative to the team. Yellow positive, white negative. The bigger the circle, the further from neutral. Lucic is basically neutral (needs to pick up his game). Eriksson faces the same competition and gets the same offensive zone faceoffs, but he is much better at generating shots and not allowing shots than Lucic, thus his huge circle. Iginla is somewhere between them.
This shows that while Krejci plays against good compaction, he gets more offensive zone faceoffs and his Corsi relative % compared to the team is pretty awful. He is an outlier with poor possession play, he needs to improve going forward. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Bergeron, who starts in the defensive zone more often than not, has a huge positive Corsi. This is why Bergeron is basically considered a God.
Thornton should have to challenge someone for a job when he returns because he has been awful.
