Lars Eller is good, actually. Read on for a very bad metaphor.
By the Numbers (Washington only)
6
Goals
9
Assists
63
Games played
12
Minutes per game
On-ice percentages
54%
Shot attempts
54%
Expected goals
45%
Actual goals
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 blobs 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 conducted an open survey with readers, 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.
Slavoj Žižek on Eller
Consumers feed ourselves a fantasy – sniff – that Eller could ever become a world-historical individual – by Hegel’s reckoning. This exposes the contradiction at the heart of hockey: To aspire, one must enslave oneself to one’s aspirations …and to the market!
Peter’s Take
Compared to 2018, Lars Eller isn’t particularly fast, and he can’t particularly score. But if you’re looking for a dependable, defense-first third liner on an affordable contract, you can scarcely do better than this good Dane.
For Andrew Mangiapane and Taylor Raddysh (two players who will make provocative season reviews soon), both were at their best with Eller. In two hours of play together, that trio controlled 68 percent of the expected goals. Only two lines in the league did better: Hagel-Cirelli-Kucherov and Hyman-Draisaitl-McDavid. Decent company, but let’s not be silly: the finishing capabilities of those lines are universes beyond Eller’s. The Caps had a 5.2 shooting percentage when Eller, Raddysh, and Manngiapane were on the ice together. They just don’t score.
The last time Eller had an individual expected-goal rate above the 50th percentile for a forward was 2020. The last time he had an actual goal rate above the 50th percentile was never. If you were waiting for Eller to take the next step in his scoring, the problem is no longer with his performance; the problem is with your expectations. This is the player he is: boring and good, the boiled potato of professional hockey.
Personally, I like a boiled potato. I’m of Irish descent. I don’t know any better. Sometimes you need a bunch of bland, starchy calories to take some shifts. That’s great, until you need secondary or tertiary scoring, like Carbery did down the stretch and in the postseason. That’s when you need the loaded tater tots of professional hockey. The Caps don’t have that. They’re going to see if that’s on the menu this summer.
Listen: I’m not feeling good about the whole potato metaphor. But I have a lot of these reviews to write. If I’m not allowed to get a little stupid with them, I’ll never finish.
Tiger on RMNB
- In November, the Caps got Eller from the Penguins in exchange for two draft picks.
- Here’s the frank version of why the Caps got him.
- Eller missed time in December due to illness. It seemed significant. He was on IR and everything.
- Prior to the deadline, we heard the Caps were still trying to upgrade the third-line center position. Hmm.
- In Washington’s only win over the Canes in the playoffs, Eller played just over nine minutes.
Your Turn
We all know he won’t be back, and we all agree that’s the right move for this team, but where should Eller go now? Who needs his dependability most, and why is it New Jersey?
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