Schultz shows promise
So far, so very good with blue-liner acquired in Gilbert trade
Nick Schultz came to Edmonton billed by the Oilers as a shutdown defenceman.
Will the 29-year-old live up to that billing? It’s a fair question, given the spotty play of many recent Oilers acquisitions including Nikolai Khabibulin, Patrick O’sullivan, Kurtis Foster, Cam Barker and Colin Fraser. They all came in with high hopes, too.
The good news, though, is that both with his old team, the Minnesota Wild, and in his first five games with the Oilers, Schultz has played strong hockey, especially in his own zone.
In acquiring Schultz, the Oilers gave up Tom Gilbert, a defenceman who was playing strong hockey against strong competition, the definition of a capable NHL blueliner. After suffering through a horrendous defensive slump at the start of the 2010-11 season, Gilbert rid his game of a lot of chaos. He started to play simpler and tougher defensively, while maintaining his strong puck moving.
So what of Schultz? To get some idea of his game, I studied video clips of the even-strength goals against where Schultz was on the ice for the Wild.
Schultz was on the ice for 25 goals for and 35 goals against at even strength, giving him a rating of minus-10, which tells us pretty much nothing about Schultz as a defender. Why? Very often players are on the ice for a goal against and are at no fault on the play.
In his 62 games with the Wild, Schultz played 1,038 even-strength minutes. On review of 34 of those 35 goals against (I couldn’t locate one of them), he was the person who made the primary defensive mistake just three times. On 13 other goals against, he made some smaller contributing error. He made no mistake at all on the other goals against.
Let’s compare that to Gilbert. In 819 even-strength minutes this season with the Oilers, Gilbert made five primary goal-causing mistakes. In total, he made 15 mistakes that contributed to goals against.
If we express these same numbers as ratios, Schultz made a mistake that contributed to a goal against 0.23 times for every 15 minutes of even-strength play.
Gilbert made such a mistake 0.27 times for every 15 minutes with the Oilers. Their numbers are almost identical.
Their numbers are also better than any other Oilers defenceman and far better than most of them: Ladislav Smid, 0.31 per 15; Andy Sutton, 0.43 per 15; Theo Peckham, 0.46 per 15; Corey Potter, 0.47 per 15; Jeff Petry 0.49 per 15; Cam Barker, 0.51 per 15; Ryan Whitney, 0.63 per 15.
Based on these numbers, it may well prove out that Schultz is a slightly safer defensive defenceman than Gilbert. Gilbert is more of a flow player, getting the puck, then moving it fast and well. Schultz is more stayat-home. You won’t find him getting caught up ice on a two-on-one. In his own zone, he often collapses toward the slot area, cutting off passing lanes. He will give up ice along the boards to prevent more dangerous plays, such as a shot from the slot, or a pass through the slot. He doesn’t make the all-too-common mistake of puck watching or even puck chasing. He is almost always covering his man at the right moment in the right way, with his body between the attacker and the goalie.
In the video clips. Schultz was also adept at defending two-on-one breaks; he forced the shooter to shoot rather than allowing the much more dangerous cross-ice pass.
He’s not a rough player, but he’s good at taking the man and tying up his stick. He’s not a big hitter, but blocks a lot of shots. Without the puck, he reminds me of cagey Nicklas Lidstrom — though, of course, Schultz isn’t nearly the player that Lidstrom is with the puck.
In his first five games with the Oilers, Schultz has three points, as many as he had all year with the Wild. In his own end, he has pretty much put on a clinic almost every shift on proper defensive positioning, give or take the odd line-change snafu.
He will get beat now and then because he’s not the biggest and fastest player, but he’s not going to get out-thought on the ice.
I still have reservations about the Oilers moving out a defensively solid, puck-moving defender like Gilbert, but the first impression of Schultz is that he’s a strong player, even if he’s yet to play against the toughest opponents, that task job still going to Smid and Petry.
When it comes to the essential task of helping to create scoring chances for the Oilers, Schultz’s efficient passing has helped the team get 22 scoring chances at even strength in his first five games.
In his own end, he’s made mistakes on 13 scoring chances against. Generally speaking, if a defenceman is even on scoring chances, he’s doing his job. So far, so good with Schultz. In fact, so far, so very good.