During the Senators' struggles last season, one common refrain for frustrated fans was that they wanted to see Tim Stützle get some development time at centre.
With the Senators playing games whose outcomes simply determined how low the team would finish in the standings, fans were clamouring for him to get a shot.
From the Senators’ perspective however, they wanted to bring Stützle along slowly and afford him the opportunity to develop on the wing where there were fewer defensive responsibilities.
Even as a winger, Stützle’s defensive metrics were abysmal. Asking him to transition to a position with more defensive responsibilities might have been too much. As a teenage prospect selected very high in his draft class, the Senators wanted to protect Stützle and guard his development.
It was a defensible position. Stützle has not played the position in over a year and the Senators wanted him to focus on what he was good at — the offensive side of the game.
Rather than dwell on the ebbs and flows of playing centre against some of the top young centres in the North Division, Ottawa kept him on the wing. They did move Stützle to centre in the third period of a blowout against Edmonton, but the move was short-lived. Stützle spent the remainder of the season at left wing.
It was much of the same for the start of the 2021-22 season, but after injuries to Shane Pinto and Colin White negatively impacted the Senators’ depth at centre, Stützle eventually had his number called.
Since the team’s November 24th game against the San Jose Sharks, Stützle’s predominantly played centre and he’s played quite well.
At five-on-five with Stützle on the ice per NaturalStatTrick.com, the Senators have generated 54.21 percent of the shots (CF%). 52.13 percent of the shots on goal and 54.64 percent of the scoring chances. From a goals perspective, Ottawa’s also come out ahead on the five-on-five goal metrics. The team has generated 55.56 percent of the goals and 55.83 percent of the expected goals.
This surge in performance has been huge because prior to Stützle centering the second line, the Stützle-Paul-Brown line was not generating anything remotely close to what the line is bringing now.
In 14 games prior to the change, the Senators generated 46.32 percent of the five-on-five shots (CF%), 48.28 percent of the shots on goal (SF%) and 47.78 percent of the scoring chances. The Senators only scored 30.0 percent of the total goals with Stützle on the ice.
The results weren’t particularly strong, so on the surface, it may seem weird to look at the Senators’ success now that Nick Paul and Stützle have swapped roles.
Maybe it is the small sample size. Perhaps the increased responsibility has benefited Stützle and made him a more attentive and engaged player in all three zones. Or maybe it’s something as simpler.
It’s no secret that Connor Brown and Nick Paul excel as forecheckers who do much of their offensive zone creation off dump ins and puck retrievals.
That works for them, but it may not necessarily play to Stützle’s strengths.
There’s no question that playing centre has afforded Stützle more touches of the puck. Rather than playing more of a north-south game that is tailored to the wing, Stützle can showcase his elusiveness and creativity which will help his line generate more controlled entries.
When I was recording the Common Sens Podcast with Hailey Salvian last season, we had the opportunity to talk to Troy Mann about Logan Brown’s development and whether he could be an effective winger at the NHL level. One of the things that he stressed was the importance of Brown as a playmaker and how playing the wing could limit his passing options and playmaking ability.
The arguments made to benefit Brown would also benefit Stützle. Playing down the middle will naturally open up more ice and create more passing lanes for him to exploit.
Beyond the territorial advantages created by Stützle, the two goals and two assists may seem modest — especially since three of those points occurred in one game against the Avalanche — but, his individual rates at five-on-five have spiked per NaturalStatTrick.com.
To put things in perspective, Stützle’s gone from being a peripheral piece to one of the Senators’ most dangerous attackers. His 10.67 individual scoring chances for rate (iSCF/60) is the highest on the team over its last eight games.
It’s a small sample size, but the results are very encouraging.
Equally as important, Stützle’s defensive impact is beginning to improve.
Using HockeyViz.com’s expected goals axis — which tracks the rate of expected goals for versus the rate of expected goals against — Stützle comes out looking pretty strong relative to his peers.
Playing most of his minutes alongside the team’s best defensive forward in Nick Paul has helped in that regard.
Together with Brown and Stützle, that line has been Ottawa’s best defensive line this season and Stützle definitely deserves some credit for helping make those around him better too. Interestingly, Evolving-Hockey.com’s defensive value metric (DEF) ranks Stützle as having the greatest defensive value (2.7) on the team - slightly ahead of Paul (2.6).
What’s really intriguing however, is how well the Stützle and Batherson combination has worked for the Senators in their limited minutes together.
There is no question that Batherson has been the team’s best offensive player through the quartermark of the season.
According to NaturalStatTrick.com, the two have only spent a shade more than 75 minutes together at five-on-five. The Senators have not scored a goal with them on the ice together, but the team has generated an expected goal percentage of 64.0. Looking at the HockeyViz.com graphic that I used earlier, it is easy to see that the pair are generating a ton of quality goal opportunities while giving up very few.
Why is this important?
Josh Norris has been playing predominantly with Brady Tkachuk and Batherson to this point. If Stützle can play at a high level with Batherson, it could help D.J. Smith redistribute his offensive talent and spread it out more across his two top lines — while allowing Nick Paul and Connor Brown to revert to more of a third line role.
If Stützle can continue his growth at the centre position, it certainly takes a lot of pressure off the Senators. In a league where it is cost prohibitive to add a skilled offensive player through trades or free agency, the version of Stützle that we are witnessing right now could pay huge dividends for the organization.
General manager Pierre Dorion blamed injuries to Shane Pinto and Colin White for negatively impacting his team’s start to the season earlier this week. It’s worth pointing out that their respective absences may have potentially created one of the most positive and important developments of the season.
Stützle may wind up being the skilled centre this team desperately needed and together with Norris and Pinto, that’s some enviable depth down the middle if everything breaks right.
So, when the Senators started the season without any guarantee that they had the prototypical number one centre in their midst or that the Sens would have any chance to select one in the 2021 NHL Draft, giving Stützle some runway to play centre made sense.
What internal factors helped fuel the decision, I don’t know. But, if the Senators recognized some statistics and saw growth in Stützle’s defensive game, D.J. Smith and his staff deserve credit for making the change.
Stuetzle has looked decent at centre by the eye test. It is impressive to see the numbers. I think part of that could be that Paul is way better on the wing than at centre. It will be interesting to see how this goes as the sample size gets bigger.
It makes sense that Batherson and Stuetzle would work well together. They have great chemistry on the PP. If Batherson leaves the Norris line that takes away a lot of playmaking. I don't know who slides in there to make things work. It becomes a bit of a robbing Peter to pay Paul situation.
At some point in the future if the Sens have Paul-Pinto-CBrown as their nominal 3rd line (win practice DJ would give those guys lots of minutes) then I think we are looking at a strong team.
Top six candidate I can see in the pipeline include: Sokolov, Jarventie, Greig, this year's 1st rounder. Time will tell how all these things work out, but the future does look promising for the Sens forward corps.
Well written, thank-you for this.
Another benefit of Stützle to centre would be White to the wing. I understand there will be a discussion about buying out White this summer, with this being the last year they can do so at 1/3 the cost, but there are some arguments for not buying out White.
White was on an 18 goal pace last season, playing 3rd line minutes mostly with Nick Paul and Evgeny Dadonov, which was slightly better than his 16 goal pace in his rookie season. White has shown he can score. There's no reason to think he can't get 20+ playing 2nd line minutes with better offensive players. Also, he's Chabot's best friend, which isn't a huge consideration, but is still something to consider if they decision is close to a coin flip. I believe it would have to be a distinct advantage for them to buy out White, and if it isn't, they won't.
Jarventie is just 19, and has 9 points in 19 games playing against men in the AHL. He's off the his second WJC, and could very well be the final piece to the Sens top6.