Beck Malenstyn had the toughest deployments of any player in this entire era of the NHL.
By the Numbers
| Summary | |
|---|---|
| 6 | goals |
| 15 | assists |
| 81 | games played |
| 14.3 | average ice time |
| On-ice percentages | |
| 40.8 | 5-on-5 shot-attempt percentage |
| 40.9 | 5-on-5 expected goal percentage |
| 47.8 | 5-on-5 actual goal percentage |
Isolated Impact by HockeyViz
About this visualization: This image by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows how the player has impacted play when on the ice. At the top of the image is the team’s offense (even strength at left, power play at right) and at bottom is the team’s defense (with penalty kill at bottom right). In each case, red/orange blobs mean teams shoot for more from that location on the ice, and blue/purple means less. In general, a good player should have red/orange blobs near the opponent’s net at top, and blue/purple bobs near their own team’s net at bottom. The distributions in middle show how the player compares to league average at individual finishing, setting up teammates to score, and taking and drawing penalties. The number at center is Synthetic Goals: a catch-all number for the player’s impact.
Player Card by All Three Zones
About this player card: This image from Corey Sznajder of All Three Zones shows how the player compares to league averages in different microstats in the defensive, neutral, and offensive zones. Blue bars mean the player has a higher rate in that statistic compared to league average, and orange means a lower rate. The numbers are Z-scores, also known as standard deviations, indicating how far the number is from league average, where more than two standard deviations means the player is on the extreme edge of the league.
Player Card by Evolving Hockey
About this player card: This card from Josh and Luke of Evolving Hockey compares the player to league averages based on their impact on on-ice statistics. GAR means “goals above replacement,” where “replacement” means an average player called up from the AHL. xGAR is the same figure but assuming league-average goaltending. The numbers at top are the player’s percentile ranks overall and then for offense and defense alone.
Player Overview by NHL Edge
About this visualization: The NHL’s advanced statistics program, Edge, tracks player and puck movement. At left are the player’s numbers in various statistics along with the average number for that same stat among players of the same position and the player’s percentile rank in it. At right is a radar chart for various statistics, where the bigger the shape the better the player performs in those measures.
Fan Happiness Survey
About this visualization: At three times during the season, RMNB shared an open survey with fans, asking the following question for each player: “On a scale from 1 to 5, how HAPPY are you to have this player on the team?” The numbers above show the average score for the player in each survey period.
Peter’s Take
That was a weird way to play your first full season in the NHL. Like, I want to talk about how Beck Malenstyn played this season, but to do that you absolutely have to start with where and when he played.
Nominally a fourth-liner, Malenstyn played more than 14 minutes a night, more like a middle-sixer. And where he played was – and I mean this literally – unprecedented. Most NHL shifts start on-the-fly, meaning without a stoppage in play before them, but when a shift starts after a whistle, it suggests what the coach wants for the player. In the case of Malenstyn, Carbery wanted him on defense.
The chart above shows every NHL forward from the last decade and how often they started in the defensive zone versus the offensive zone. Malenstyn ranked 7th for most defensive-zone starts (behind this season’s Dowd and 2018’s Jay Beagle). Out of 3046 player-seasons, Malenstyn ranked 3045th in offensive-zone starts (ahead of only this season’s Nicolas Aube-Kubel). That ratio is simply the most extreme defensive deployment for a forward since the NHL started tracking zone starts.
That’s nuts.
The Caps controlled barely over 40 percent of attempts and expected goals when Malenstyn was on the ice, which is terrible, but I kind of expect terrible from his usage. The Caps got incredible results out of similar deployments from Dowd and Hathaway in 2022-23, but that couldn’t last forever. And thanks to fantastic finishing percentages (the Caps scored on 10.0 percent of shots and saved 92.3 percent of shots), those shifts went way way better than they could have. (And Malenstyn was well in the black until a late-season swoon, which we discussed in the Dowd review.)
So I’m punting on Malenstyn. He’s a fantastic skater, maybe Washington’s best, but he’s got apparent weakness getting the puck back in the defensive zone. And his usage was such an outlier, I don’t know precisely how to caveat his poor possession stats. I’m excited to see more from him in 2024-25, but I’m begging Carbery to give him an easier workload.
Player Summary by ChatGPT
What’s up, heckin’ puppers and doggos. Beck Malenstyn had skibidi toilet deployments in the 2023-24 campaign, but he played like epic bacon. With a 6’3″ frame and a gyat that’s no cap, this sigma baddie might have the makings of a real rizzler, and that’s no cap. The only question is “I can haz offensive zone starts?” and that’s no cap.
Malenstyn on RMNB
- Beck’s mission was to become a full-time NHLer. “I’ve had the taste of it before, and all the work in the offseason was to be here full-time. That’s the goal.” He nailed it.
- Despite overwhelmingly defensive deployments, his fourth line was contributing.
- In January, Beck and his wife Anne welcomed their first child, Beau.
- In March, Malenstyn appeared in some trade rumors.
Your Turn
How much will Beck Malenstyn’s underlying numbers improve if he gets normal deployments?
