Encouraging words on Muzzin’s play, added responsibilities

There are conflicting sets of incomplete data in the early season evaluation of Jake Muzzin’s play. From a quick, primary evaluation, he has been held without a point, and his minus-five rating ties him with Christian Ehrhoff for the worst on the team. From a secondary look, his pristine 63.7% Corsi-for rating furthers the evidence that he remains among the best defensemen in the entire league at pushing play towards the attacking end of the ice.

But plus-minus is a mostly useless statistic, and there’s no sense in trying to form any conclusions on possession rates after a scant four games of data. So for an evaluation of Muzzin’s play, I turned to Associate Head Coach John Stevens, whose track record with the defensive end is reflected in the club’s league-best 2.26 goals against per game since Stevens joined the organization prior to 2010-11.

“I think Muzz will tell you himself, I don’t think he was happy with his first game. I think he was trying to put what was going on in the offensive zone at the front of his game instead of building his game from the back end, and Muzz knows that. I think Muzz has played much better lately,” Stevens said. “I think Muzz has always been a better player who focuses on the same thing – being a really good defender and being a shutdown guy. That’s what he was when he played our best hockey, and then the offense will come natural to him because of the situation he ends up in because he’s a really good defender. I mean, he’s playing against top guys every night, so he first and foremost needs to shut guys down, and then the offense is usually a byproduct of doing that well. I think he’s done a good job of getting his focus back in relation to that. We’re four games in, and those numbers, you can paint whatever picture you want to paint. I think in our opinion, Muzz has played better. I thought he and Marty had a good game for us last time, but clearly as a team, we all need to get better, and that certainly relates to Muzz as well.”

With Robyn Regehr’s retirement, additional opportunities on the back end have opened up for players looking to pad their responsibilities with penalty killing detail. Muzzin is one of the players to have benefited, and his shorthanded time on ice average of 2:57 is over two minutes greater than his average penalty killing usage per game last season.

“With guys leaving, I’ve talked about it before with transition of teams and guys stepping up and stuff like that. I look forward to getting out there and penalty killing, and shutting down and trying to kill other teams’ momentum and preventing goals,” Muzzin said. “It’s been going well. [I have to] continue getting better at it. Each night is a new challenge with different personnel and different teams, they’ve got different stuff. It keeps you on your toes a little more.”

That challenge tonight will come in the form of a skill-laden Colorado Avalanche man advantage that enters play Sunday with a 41.7% success rate (5-for-12) that leads the league two weeks into the season. Muzzin has been a part of a Los Angeles penalty kill that has been successful in 17 of 20 shorthanded situations (85.0%), placing the team in an eighth-place tie with the St. Louis Blues. If they continue that rate through the remaining 78 games, they’ll post fine defensive numbers.

“He’s done a good job there for the most part,” Stevens said of Muzzin, who has been on the ice for one power play goal against. “We’ve spent some time over the summer talking about that role. There were a couple areas that we wanted him to focus on. When he gets himself in position, he does do a good job of blocking shots, and he’s got a skill set where he can get to loose pucks and clear pucks because he’s got a heavy stick, and he’s got a good skill level that allows him to get pucks out under pressure. With Muzz, it’s more about positioning – getting himself in the right position initially, and then making the plays from there instead of being too busy and scrambling around and trying to get to where he should be already. I think he’s made good strides in that area, and again, I think as a group we need to continue to get better in those areas.”

Jake Muzzin, on Colorado’s power play tendencies:
We look at the video and look at what they’ve been doing the last couple games, and we know they’ve got Iginla, who’s a shooter, and quick guys down low – MacKinnon and Duchene – guys who’ll shoot and go to the net. We’ll look at it and come up with a plan to try and stop it.

Muzzin, on Colorado doing away with morning skates while on the road:
Whatever you’ve got to do to get ready for the game at night is what you’ve got to do. If they think that’s the way to do it, and maybe it is, then that’s what you do. I think each guy’s different. Some guys like to skate, some guys don’t. I know a lot of us weren’t on the ice yesterday, so today was an opportunity to get on the ice before the game and get ready,get a feel. I don’t know the science behind getting the most energy or maximum energy before a game, but I think it’s all maybe a little bit mental as well. I don’t know.

Muzzin, on whether the wonky schedule has altered the players’ routines:
Yeah, we’ve had a couple days off here. I’d kind of like to get into it and go jut a little bit more. You just take your days, take your rest when you get ‘em, because you know down the stretch that there are going to be some tough periods throughout the season where you’re going to wish you had a day. A little more time to look at stuff, and I think it’s helped us from our start – our first three games, obviously – and you get a little bit more time to look at what you’re doing and correct it a little bit.

Muzzin, on whether the upcoming schedule game affects how he exerts energy tonight:
I think we’re going to go hard no matter what – if we played tomorrow or we play today. I think it might be in your mind. It’s like, ‘Well, … three days, no game coming up, so leave it all on the table tonight.’ Especially being in the hole that we’re in that we need to win, so we look to do that tonight.

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