Thomas Harley is the subtle success of the stars

If you were asked to predict the tone of an article from Thomas Harley before the start of the season, it would probably be the opposite of the one written today: praise and exaltation for the 47 points scored by the Stars defenseman. last year and how he wore them. on. Unlike the current tone, which is one of mystery. Where did last season’s Harley go and who becomes the 23-year-old puck-moving player?

Indeed, Harley was a storm last year. His 15 goals led All Stars defensemen by a country country by a mile. It was a brilliant regular season that built off his previous run with the Stars, when he was baptized in the 2023 playoffs. The hype was real when he scored nine points in 19 playoff games (tied with Tyler Seguin), then he moved to the next level. It was easy to understand then why some fans felt like Jim Nill’s two-year, $4 million average annual salary transition contract was something of a gamble. Harley was more well known than John Klingberg at the time of their contracts, but only one of them got the maximum term.

Did Nill sense something was wrong or did he think he needed more proof? No. Harley was given a transition deal because the Stars can’t give everyone the maximum term at the same time. If Nill didn’t believe in Harley, then $4 million wouldn’t represent the absolute floor of what he’ll be worth in the near future. However, after 16 games into the season, it is clear that Harley has struggled to stand out. With all these new faces, the blue line is a somewhat predictable work in progress.

Why does it seem like Harley is just another cog? Is something wrong? What’s going on with the player who seems to have more offensive potential than the team’s perennial Norris candidate, Miro Heiskanen?

Absolutely nothing.

This goes beyond the usual caveat that things are too early to analyze. On the one hand, an element of expectation bias is at play, in addition to what we think of modern defenders – what Harley embodies down to the elegant movement, it should be. As the game evolves into a transition game between multiple zones, a false dichotomy is created between defenders who score and those who do not. And this distorts our expectations. Harley scored a lot of points last season at a very young age for a defenseman. If he doesn’t score as many points, does that mean less value?

No. In fact, there’s a strong mathematical argument for “who cares” when it comes to Harley production. In 2018, Travis Yost conducted research on blue line scoring and its impact on teams. Naturally, the more a player shoots, the more points he accumulates. The plot twist is that having a point-producing defender does not lead to more points for the team. This is because defenders are more likely to pick up assists, which are often just white noise. This was true for Harley last season. Nearly 40 percent of his production came in the form of assists.

There is obviously no statistic to define the true value of a defender. But the cool thing about Harley being such a dynamic player is that with so many extra elements to his game, we can evaluate them piece by piece. Below is a look at the ingredients of Harley’s impact on above-average goals.

Here we see its impact on goals scored above average (blue), goals against (orange), power play (pink), shots on goal (powder blue), penalties drawn (green) and penalties drawn (yellow); the latter two are important because the chances of a goal being scored increase if someone takes a penalty. The results are unambiguous.

Harley is head and shoulders above his defensive partners in terms of impact on goal differential. Certainly, most of his impact comes from his ability to stimulate the offensive pace of play (he leads the blue line in shots on goal per game). But he’s also remarkably disciplined, which I think is an understated defensive skill because it means you don’t take shortcuts. And he’s above average on special teams. Harley’s only flaw is his defensive impact on goals and his ability to draw penalties. Overall, not a bad combination.

If this data illustrates anything, it is the adage that “being good means being invisible.” This makes no sense as impact players should obviously make a difference, but as with Esa Lindell, who also ranks highly on this scale, the value of a defender from one shift to the next does not is not always obvious. Perhaps that’s why, regardless of expectations for who Harley should be, Pete DeBoer’s estimate is significantly higher, considering the defenseman plays an average of 22 minutes per night. Not only is that a slight increase from last season, but it’s also second on the team behind Heiskanen.

It’s easy to see why the diminishing expectations for Harley began before the season even began. The offense that Dallas has been so praised for has stabilized in the postseason. And Harley, whose goal numbers were never going to hold up, became one of the many reflections of the Stars’ playoff failures. Except that as at the start of this team’s season, Harley’s play, like Lindell’s, has become less noisy. He was still get the job done in the playoffs to control territory, ranking eighth among playoff defensemen in expected goals percentage. Harley may not be scoring goals at the absurd rate of last year, but his job is to control all three zones with his cutting edge work, lateral movement and playmaking. His job is to win the territorial battle, not to do Jason Robertson’s job for him (a story for another time, perhaps).

However, respect for all the wrinkles and punctuations in Harley’s game should not be confused with acceptance of all that he brings to the table, whether great, good, modest, or bad. The Stars are in search of the Stanley Cup. That means Harley will need to bring the heat at crunch time. My argument is that he is already doing everything necessary to be above criticism. For Cup aspirations, Harley must make its own case for the greatness it appears poised to achieve. In this regard, we are still waiting.