Last night, the Caps somehow acquired Kevin Shattenkirk without giving up a significant piece of their roster or a top-five prospect. Shattenkirk is a skilled, offensive-minded defenseman and arguably the best player on the Caps’ blue line.
While it remains to be seen how the Caps will use Shattenkirk, here’s a high-level look at the newest member of the Caps and how he stacks up compared to his new teammates.
Domenic Galamini’s HERO chart is a visualization of how a player ranks at his position across different stats. His ranks are based on depth charts. For defensemen, it goes top two, top four, bottom two.
Shattenkirk’s HERO chart shows that, in terms of puck possession, he’s comfortably a top-two defender. He’s also top-four in terms of offensive production at 5-on-5. Without significant weaknesses in production or possession, Shattenkirk easily fits the profile of a top-pairing defenseman.
Next, here’s a look at how Shattenkirk compared to his fellow blue liners in a few key categories over the last three seasons:
| Player | Goals | Assists | Shot Attempt % (relative) | Goals For % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alzner | 12 | 24 | 50.4 (-2.6) | 57.4 |
| Carlson | 26 | 98 | 51.5 (-1.2) | 56.3 |
| Niskanen | 13 | 82 | 52.9 (+1.2) | 57.0 |
| Orlov | 12 | 44 | 54.3 (+3.3) | 60.1 |
| Orpik | 3 | 38 | 52.0 (-0.6) | 57.1 |
| Schmidt | 4 | 30 | 52.7 (+1.3) | 56.7 |
| Shattenkirk | 33 | 97 | 53.4 (+2.6) | 52.9 |
*The goals and assists are all strengths, the percentages are at 5-on-5.
A few observations from the chart:
- In terms of raw point totals, Shattenkirk leads the way among the Caps blue line. And this is while playing for a weaker offensive team and without the benefit of feeding pucks to Alex Ovechkin on the power play.
- Shattenkirk’s possession numbers hold up over the three-season span. The Blues tilted the ice more with him on the ice than when he was on the bench.
- The goals-for percentage is a little low, but this is likely due to team effects, as the Caps have the best goal differential in the league over this time, so everyone except Shattenkirk has benefited from playing for the Caps during that span.
There’s more to break down on Shattenkirk in terms of the style and pace of play that leads to these numbers as well as what his role may be the rest of the season. We’ll have more on all of this in coming days, but for now, it’s clear that the Caps have acquired a player capable of playing top-pairing minutes and who may be the best defenseman on the team.
