Brandon Sutter is the Canucks’ 4th Best Centre and Shouldn’t be Protected in the Expansion Draft
By J.D. Burke
7 years ago
Photo Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin – USA TODAY Sports
Brandon Sutter’s counting stats don’t tell the story of a struggling centre lost in the Canucks lineup. He’s second on the Canucks in goals with nine, and his current pace has him on course for 46 points at season’s end.
On the surface, the Canucks are getting everything they could ask of Sutter. Sutter’s played everywhere. On the first, second and third lines alike. He’s a staple on the Canucks first unit power play and penalty kill too. There isn’t a forward role Sutter hasn’t at one point filled.
We’re at a point now, though, where the sample is such that we can begin to ponder whether that usage is in the Canucks’ best interests. Just as important, we can discern where Sutter fits in the bigger picture and how that should affect the Canucks’ plans with the expansion draft looming.
The fact of the matter is, Sutter hampers the Canucks ability control the run of play at even strength. That matters because score-adjusted Corsi is the leading predictive metric for future goals. He’s the single-worst qualifying Canuck by Cf% Rel. Tm with a -4.5% mark. Sutter’s aggregate impact on his teammates’ ability to leave in the black is negative to the tune of roughly 7.4 shot attempts per sixty minutes.
Illustrated at the team level, that difference represents the gap between the Arizona Coyotes and Tampa Bay Lightning. It’s massive.
This year it’s been the Sedins who’ve suffered his addition primarily. That’s something Jackson McDonald did an excellent job of highlighting in this post on how poorly suited Sutter is to play alongside them.
Since 2008, the Sedins have skated for over 100 minutes of TOI with 13 different wingers. With 12 of those wingers, their line has been above 51% in shot shares. The current line combination with Brandon Sutter is currently sitting at just under 47 and a half percent, four percentage points clear of the next worse linemate, Steve Bernier. The Sedins and Brandon Sutter have been Vancouver’s worst top line by shot shares of the behind the net era, and it’s not close. That is, in a word, bad. And it looks even worse when you include line combinations that don’t feature a Sedin.
Ideally, one would like to look at this and posit it’s just a colossal mismatch of players. In that event, Sutter wouldn’t be entirely to blame. That’s just not the case, though. Sutter’s career Cf% Rel. Tm is -4.4%. That’s the 58th worst mark in the league in that span.
The retort to these numbers, naturally, has been to evoke his underlying goal metrics. In that same time frame, Sutter’s had an aggregate impact on his teammates’ ability to outscore the opposition with a 1.1%. Shot quality exists, and the extent to which Sutter’s shown himself capable of suppressing opposition chances indicates he’s likely contributed positively to limiting just that.
It’s a question, though, of how much he’s contributed. You’d have to believe Sutter was doing something to raise his goaltender’s save percentages a full one or two points above league average season after season. The analytics community is in agreement after years of research that on-ice Sv% isn’t a repeatable skill, though.
If you genuinely believed Sutter was doing something, anything to boost his goalie’s numbers in the eight years that preceded this one, you’d have to agree then that he’s partially responsible for the 88.7 even strength save percentage he’s suffering this season.
In all likelihood, Sutter’s just been exceedingly lucky over the course of much of his career. I can’t imagine Sutter’s buoyed by his reputation as a defensive stalwart if he’s playing in front of league average goaltending.
Sutter isn’t really holding his end of the bargain on special teams either though. In spite of a sizeable portion of his points coming with the man advantage (much of which can be attributed to converting on an unreasonably high 25% of his shots) he’s been a considerable drag on the Canucks through this lens too.
One might expect Sutter would struggle on the power play. He’s only hit 40 points once in his eight seasons in the league. He’s been terrible on the penalty kill too though. The Canucks are surrendering 78 Fenwick events on the penalty kill with Sutter on the ice. The only centres who’ve performed worse through this lens are Brendan Gaunce and Michael Chaput.
There’s no way around it. Sutter’s been terrible defensively this season, and most seasons before it. He has a substantial impact on his team’s ability to limit opposition chances and goals. Wherein the problem lies is that this skill’s attached to his damning ability to limit his own team’s ability to score.
You can’t separate offensive and defensive contributions in hockey. To that end, Sutter’s likely always going to be fighting an uphill battle to contribute positively to his team.
Sutter is 27-years-old and been sub-replacement level by DTMAboutHeart’s WAR model every season to date. He’s three years removed from his peak performance years. This isn’t a situation that’s likely to improve either.
I’m open to the idea that there’s something lost in translation between Sutter’s contributions to the team and how that fleshes out statistically. The problem is, no amount of intangibles can cover the ground surrendered on the ice on a night-to-night basis.
For a player due $4.3-million this season and the four that follow, that could prove an albatross around the Canucks’ necks when they can entertain the possibility of being a competitive team again.
With the expansion draft looming, the Canucks are going to have to decide if they want to continue paying their fourth best centre the second highest mark for the foreseeable future. With the Sedins a staple of the Canucks past, present and immediate future and a pair of centres in their early-twenties as alternatives, where does Sutter fit?
A few weeks ago, Ryan Biech pondered whether to expose Markus Granlund or Sven Baertschi. That operates under the assumption that Vancouver will protect Sutter. Maybe it’s time they were shaken from that perch, though.
Canucks management is never shy about pointing to the shackles of no-trade protection brought on by the previous regime. There’s a lesson therein, and it applies to this particular player. Sutter has a full no-trade clause. It’s time the Canucks were on the winning end of a loophole. Good luck getting out from under that contract otherwise.
Perhaps the Canucks should expose their fourth best centre in the expansion draft.
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