Avoiding the Disaster Of Nikita Zaitsev

I’m like you. The moment I saw the rumor circulating that Edmonton apparently has interest in acquiring Nikita Zaitsev from the Maple Leafs, I was wary. Here’s another underperforming player-of-interest on a bad contract that the Oilers can’t seem to get enough of. At least this time he’s a right shot defenseman. Maybe there’s something to this guy and- like Jake Gardiner- all his weaknesses are just blown WAY out of proportion by the Toronto fishbowl media. So I looked into him and… to put it simply, my trepidation is entirely warranted.

The Who

Nikita Zaitsev is a 6’2, 193lbs Russian RD who has spent the past three years of his career playing in Toronto. His time career so far has seen him take on mostly 2nd pairing minutes alongside Jake Gardiner where Zaitsev had to act as the responsible half of the duo. After a 36-point rookie season, he has seen his offense fade into irrelevance to the tune of 5 goals and 13 points over 60 games in 2017-18 and 3 goals and 14 points over 81 games last season. He’s currently heading into the 3rd year of a 7-year deal at a 4.5mil AAV signed back in 2017.

The Why

Zaitsev’s ‘availability’ is a two-fold matter. He has reportedly requested a trade out of the organization and- from what I’ve read from a variety of sources- the trade request seems linked to his usage. Of course, this also conveniently comes around a time when the Leafs are in rather desperate need of cap space for use re-signing a few more significant players (Marner, Kapanen and Johnsson).

Whether or not the report of Holland’s interest is accurate, it’s wise to get in the habit of applying scrutiny to any such report- especially given our team’s historical issues with pro scouting. In keeping with such, I’ve broken down all the myriad reasons why Holland and the Oilers should avoid Zaitsev like the plague.

The What

First off, Zaitsev’s raw numbers really don’t look particularly bad at a glance. He’s within spitting distance of an even 50/50 split with his opposition in most metrics and only really has one glaringly bad total- a HDGF% of 45.7% this past season. What should raise some alarm bells is noticing that these numbers are actually much worse once you factor in how the team performed overall. Much to my chagrin, Toronto has been a great regular season team over Zaitsev’s career to the point where many of their running totals rest in the mid-50s. This lays out the foundation for why Zaitsev just isn’t worth it.

The greater issue that manifests within Zaitsev’s game is a consistent inability to keep up with his team. He shows up with a noticeable minus in virtually every category of team-relative (expressed as rel. ___%) statistical evaluation- both in process and result.

2018-19

rel. Corsi For = -2.91%
rel. Fenwick For = -4.44%
rel. HD Chances For = +1.29%
rel. Goals For = -8.71%
rel. HD Goals For = -12.5%

What can be seen here is that he’s a slightly negative player by process (shots and chance share numbers) but a substantially negative impact on results (goal share numbers). This generally means one of or a combination of three things: 1. he had a run of awful luck, 2. he’s generally a drag on his team’s results or 3. he’s playing the hardest minutes on the team against the best opposition. It’s important to use larger sample sizes when trying to draw conclusions out of a data set so the following numbers will help us decide between #1 and #2.

2016-17 to 2018-19

rel. Corsi For = -2.7%
rel. Fenwick For = -3.4%
rel. HD Chances For = -1.08%
rel. Goals For = -8.53%
rel. HD Goals For = -7.8%

This shows that he’s quite clearly a drag on his team’s results while only being a minor drag on their process numbers. In order to further qualify the validity of this conclusion, it’s important to confirm what sorts of minutes he’s playing. For the following, I’ve utilized the numbers from the same 3-year time span as presented on PuckIQ and Natural Stat Trick.

TOI w/ Gardiner: 2008:52 (2nd pair; ~37.3% of TOI against Elites)
TOI w/ Rielly: 877:04* (1st pair; ~43.5% of TOI against Elites)
TOI w/ Muzzin: 296:43 (2nd pair; ~37.3% of TOI against Elites)
TOI w/ Hainsey: 204:39 (2nd pair; not enough sample)

* almost all his TOI w/ Rielly was from 2016-17

You can clearly see that, outside of his rookie season, he was used almost entirely as a 2nd pairing Dman playing typical, unsheltered 2nd pairing minutes. Next is a breakdown of goal share totals with and without various partners:

Partner/GF% Together/Zaitsev GF% Away/Partner GF% Away/Diff.

Gardiner/ 51.6%/ 43.3%/ 65.8%/ -22.5%
Rielly/ 40.2%/ 50.2%/ 55.8%/ -5.6
Muzzin/ 50%/ 43.5%/ 70.4%/ -26.9%**
Hainsey/ 48%/ 50%/ 56%/ -6%

** small sample size

Here we get the real crux of the issue. As far as goal share results go, his partners are unanimously worse off when playing with him than they are away from him. Sure, some of this might be able to be chalked up to playing with a better player (Rielly when the partner moves up) or playing softer minutes (3rd pair if the partner moved down) but I’m not convinced it’s enough to account for the significant disparity shown. Lastly, let’s do the same but with high-danger goal shares:

Gardiner/ 59.8%/ 45.2%/ 65.1%/ -19.9%
Rielly/ 46%/ 51.5%/ 53.7%/ -2.2%
Muzzin/ 33.3%/ 30%/ 80%/ -50%**
Hainsey/ 40%/ 50.5%/ 52.6%/ -2.1%

** small sample size

Clearly, this theme is one that’s bound to continue. I’ll leave the statistical evaluations at that, but keep in mind all that is just the case against him without the practical considerations for his contract, cap hit and the team’s serious needs elsewhere on the roster.

When factoring in all of the above along with the myriad problems that would surround two cap-strapped teams making a trade of this type, I’m inclined to assume this is just Toronto media trying to drum up faux-interest in their heavily devalued ‘asset’. However, I’d be lying if I wasn’t at least a bit concerned having been a tad scarred by Chiarelli’s tenure.

We’ll just have to cross our fingers and hope!