We’ve got a little journey to take with this article.
No one visiting this corner of the internet is a stranger to everything that Alex Vlasic did in his first full NHL season, a substantial step forward that solidified his future with the Blackhawks and earned him a healthy contract extension which ensures he’ll be a piece of the puzzle as this team (hopefully) begins its ascent.
But simply saying that Vlasic was “good” last season does not satisfy the hockey-hungry minds around these parts. So, we’re going to dive a little deeper into the numbers from Vlasic’s 76 regular-season games to explain what he accomplished last season and how he reached those accomplishments.
The short answer for what Vlasic did last season is give the Blackhawks a better chance for success during 5-on-5 hockey than any other player on the team. Vlasic played more 5-on-5 time than anyone Chicago skater last season(1333:36) and was on the ice for 50 Blackhawks goals and 51 by opponents — a minus-1 goal differential that was best on the team. That he accomplished such a feat on a team that won only 23 games, amassed just 52 points and had an overall goal differential of MINUS-ONE-HUNDRED-AND-ELEVEN!!!! should serve as testament to how well Vlasic performed.
The basic statistics are modest, with Vlasic scoring two goals and adding 14 assists, although none of that should be perceived as an issue. The possession-based data from Natural Stat Trick starts painting a more vivid picture of what Vlasic accomplished last season than those other numbers do. Among the 10 Blackhawks defensemen who skated at least 100 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time last season Vlasic was:
- Second with a 45.36 percent share of shot attempts (CF%)
- First with a 48.52 percent share of expected goals (xGF%)
- First with a 44.86 percent share of scoring chances (SCF%)
- Fourth with a 41.78 percent share of high-danger chances (HDCF%)
And he accomplished all of that despite ranking seventh out of those 10 blue-liners with an offensive zone start percentage at 44.34.
Vlasic also teamed up with Seth Jones on what was, by some distance, the best D pairing for Chicago last season. Those two skated 857:30 of 5-on-5 ice time together and turned in an xGF% of 46.93. Only the Wyatt Kaiser-Nikita Zaitsev duo was better at 52.27 in a substantially smaller sample (117:52) and significantly easier minutes (56.72 percent share of offensive zone starts, compared to 47.75 for Vlasic/Jones.
And, as a quick aside: the D pairing with the most dungeon-esque starts was Vlasic and Connor Murphy, checking in at 35.29. Despite that, the duo had an xGF% of 45.36, which was third-best among Chicago D pairings last season. The Blackhawks even enjoyed a 10-7 goal advantage in the 151:49 of 5-on-5 ice time that Murphy and Vlasic were together. It’s a smaller sample, sure, but if Murphy’s health recovers next season, it wouldn’t be a shock to see Vlasic-Murphy attempted as Chicago’s primary shutdown pairing come October.
Pretty much all aspects of Chicago’s collective performance was better when Vlasic skated. Using Natural Stat Trick’s “relative” stats, we can quantify that. While Vlasic was on the ice, decreases were noted among the rates of opponents shot attempts (down 7.47 per 60 minutes), shots on goal (down 4.68/60), goals (down 1.03/60) and scoring chances (down 5.21/60). And the Blackhawks overall expected goal share increased by 6.08 percent with No. 72 among the five skaters.
Simply put: the 2023-24 Chicago Blackhawks were better in terms of quality and quantity of puck possession when Alex Vlasic was on the ice.
All of that explains what he accomplished last season, using statistics that are more macro in nature. To get a better idea of how all that happened, a closer examination is needed and we have the microstats for such an endeavor, thanks to Corey Sznajder’s All Three Zones project.
The short answer, though? Vlasic moved the damn puck out of the offensive zone better than pretty much any Chicago defenseman. And sometimes, he completed this task with gorgeous stretch passes that led to prime scoring opportunities the other way:
The chart below from Sznajder’s work covers about one-fourth of Vlasic’s 5-on-5 ice time (about 320 minutes out of 1,333), so it’s not a comprehensive sample but it’s still a decent dataset overall. And the section worth focusing on here is the fifth one entitled “DZ Retrievals/Exits.”
Now, the rate at which Vlasic was touching/retrieving the puck (the top two dark blue bars in that section) is indicative of how poorly the Blackhawks possessed the puck last season. If opponents are driving possession — which was the case in damn near every Chicago game last season — then the team’s blue-liners are likely touching the puck most often. The interesting part here is how well Vlasic successfully retrieved the puck and turned those retrievals into zone exits. Again: he simply got the puck out of his own end at a rate well above league averages, hence the blue bars accompanying those statistics. Yes, some areas in that section still need work, but Vlasic’s numbers have signs of quality play that others do not.
See?
Some other charts from Sznajder’s site offer other ways to visualize what Vlasic accomplished last season. This first one combines statistics for retrieving the puck in the defensive zone and failed attempts at exiting the zone with possession of the puck. Note that Vlasic is in the top-right quadrant of “Best Puck Movers,” where common D partner Seth Jones is the only other Chicago occupant:
This chart focuses on the rate of puck retrievals in the defensive zone and the rate of successful exits of the defensive zone with possession. Again, Vlasic’s in the ideal top-right quadrant (and hey there, Kevin Korchinski!)
If there’s one area to work on for Vlasic, it’s improving his ability of denying zone entry for opponents and denying scoring chances generated off of those zone entries. There’s plenty of red in that portion of the initial player card for Vlasic above, but another look at the data suggests this was a problem for pretty much everyone on Chicago’s blue line last season. Every qualifying Blackhawks skater is in the “Turnstile” bottom-right quadrant below:
There will be time for such improvement, though. Overall, Vlasic earned that substantial raise he received after the season ended and, should he continue at this current level of performance or even continue ascending northward, a $4.6 million cap hit for someone contributing at his level could quickly go from adequate compensation to one of the better value deals in the entire NHL.
