An Autopsy of the Winnipeg Jets: Nino Niederreiter, Adam Lowry, and Mason Appleton
A series of postmortem analyses of the 2023-24 Winnipeg Jets
Pre-article ramble: So I accidentally scheduled this post for 7AM on Tuesday instead of Monday. Sorry it’s a day late. At least nothing is time sensative on it. I was wondering why I didn’t recieve any notifications haha.
We continue our series on the 2023-24 Winnipeg Jets, analyzing individual players, their performance, and their potential to contribute to a future championship team. Today, we focus on the Jets shutdown line that hard-matched against the other team’s best.
I’m going to start off with something I wrote last week, but we’ll update it with a few caveats.
HockeyViz’s synthetic goals (sG) model evaluates a player’s isolated impact on expected goals (shot quality and quantity), finishing, setting (influencing linemate finishing), penalty drawing, and penalty taking, projecting that impact for a typical ice time deployment.
As we noted last week, the sG model suggests two things:
The Jets had really, really good depth
The Jets lacked elite talent
This second visual uses a weighted average of Evolving Hockey’s GAR and xGAR models, optimized for predicting future performance:
While the models have some differences, wGAR similarly indicates that the Jets have substantial depth, with 11 forwards performing above league average—i.e., top-six performers on an average team. However, the team lacked top-end elite talent crucial for playoff success.
Both models suggest the Jets’ trade additions were significant upgrades at the top end but still far from elite.
That said, the models do suggest that the Jets had an elite third line. Both models suggested that Adam Lowry provided value equivalent to a typical top-line player and also agreed that Nino Niederreiter gave top-six value. The models weren’t as kind to Mason Appleton, which both placed him around a fourth-line value.
Overall though, that’s pretty good.
The trio were sent out together for 682.5 minutes of 5v5 ice time; that is more than twice as much as any other Winnipeg combination, and three times as much as any combination not consisting of Kyle Connor, Mark Scheifele, and Alex Iafallo together.
In fact, only four lines in the entire NHL played together more often.
Over those 600+ minutes, the Jets controlled 53.4 percent of shot attempts (Corsi), 59.1 percent of expected goals, and 61.1 percent of actual goals. There were 54 forward trios that played 250 or more 5v5 minutes together; the Lowry line was 32nd in Corsi, 12th in xGoals, and 13th in actual goal share within that group.
As a fun aside not related to this article, the Connor-Scheifele-Iaffalo combination were 50/54 in Corsi, 47/54 in xGoals, and 33/54 in actual goal share. Not great, especially when you account for that most of the actual goal share boost is goaltending.
Nino Niederreiter
Nino Niederreiter was added during the 2022-23 season for what I called a huge win. Adding a player of Niederreiter’s calibre for merely a second-round pick would typically be a big win for a trade deadline acquisition, and that’s ignoring the fact that he carried term into the 2023-24 season.
We’ll discuss this more in the next section, but there is a chance of some heavy confounding influences with potential multicollinearity. Lowry and Niederreiter were pretty heavily attached to each other’s hip, except in the odd shift right after the power play when Nino was replaced by Morgan Barron.
That said, the results are still heavily positive.
Niederreiter’s primary impact is via tilting the ice heavily in the Jets’ favour. After accounting for things like linemates, line matching, and such, the Jets create more chances than expected with Niederreiter on the ice, especially right in front of the net. They also allow fewer chances than expected.
He’s not an overly impactful finisher and more scores by shooting a lot from in front of the net. That said, Niederreiter isn’t as focused on simply shooting net front as a net front specialist—like Gabriel Vilardi.
Niederreiter does hurt the team elsewhere. He takes more penalties than he draws, and he has a somewhat negative impact on his linemates’ shooting percentage. He also has been quite bad on the power play.
I do somewhat discount power play performance on the Jets, as I think that a lot of it was heavily influenced by coaching, system, and structure issues. Also, being on the second unit tends to have a negative effect not yet adjusted for by public models, or at least that’s been my hypothesis for a few years now. It’s even worse on the Jets, who typically didn’t see the second unit until there were about 45-30 seconds remaining in the power play with the puck in Winnipeg’s own zone.
That said, Niederreiter has never historically been a strong power play performer, so I don’t think that’s really an area he should be looked at to provide value.
I would suggest moving forward the Jets look at possibly using him on the penalty kill. Niederreiter is defensively sound and—while he isn’t quick—is very smart. I went back and found that the only season where he was actually used on the PK, 2014-15, he actually performed quite well.
That would give him some added utility beyond his 5v5 specialization.
Niederreiter has always been a player viewed very fondly by proponents of hockey analytics. His ice time deployment over the bulk of his career has predominantly wavered between that typical of second and third-line forwards. Yet his performance, especially at 5v5, has been pretty consistently top-six level.
I think reducing his power play usage and giving him some penalty kill time could even amplify that performance further. A top-six calibre winger facing tough matchups while providing secondary offense and killing penalties on your third line is a luxury many teams would covet.
A three-year extension of $4 million keeps Niederreiter in Winnipeg and was a tidy piece of business by Jets’ GM Kevin Cheveldayoff. At the time, Evolving-Hockey’s contract projection model suggested a three-year contract with a $4.995 AAV as what the market typically pays for a player like Niederreiter, and players like Niederreiter tend to be undervalued by that market.
Sure, at 32 years old next season, Niederreiter is at the age where we’ll more-likely-than-not see decline. But, the Jets already have a lot of leeway for him to trend downward for the Swiss winger to not be plus-value, and that ignores the cap likely rising over those same years.
I think what’s interesting about Niederreiter is that he is a good example that hockey analytics is less about how you get results and more about whether or not you provide value.
Niederreiter, like Nikolaj Ehlers, has been a 5v5 analytical darling for most of his career, promoting shot and goal differentials much better than their ice time cohorts. The two are very different players though.
Between him and his two most common linemates, they all attempted to exit the defensive zone or enter the offensive zone at about the same rates. Niederreiter wasn’t all that likely to carry the puck for controlled entries or exits either.
He was, however, extremely safe with the puck; he rarely turned the puck over. When he did do chip or dump plays, the Jets were often able to attack the neutral or offensive zone in a manner to turnover possession to the Jets favour, especially in the forecheck. They created more opportunities per exit or entry than average.
You could say that Niederreiter is a transitional quality forward, where his controlled and uncontrolled transitions were more effective than most.
The biggest value Niederreiter provides is an elite ability to win battles in front of the net to generate rebounds.
Adam Lowry
I am somewhat skeptical the highly positive results for Adam Lowry this season are not somewhat from a misattribution of what should be for Nino Niederreiter. Regardless, Lowry proved me wrong and had a career analytical year at 30 years old.
Lowry may not have traditional offensive value. He tends to score fewer goals than we’d expect an average NHL player to score off of a certain quality of shots, and his linemates tend to score fewer than expected with him.
That said, the Jets created a dump load with him on the ice and the opposition created far fewer than they are accustomed to.
The net result is a highly effective shutdown centre who provides some secondary offense.
Don’t get me wrong. With Lowry’s poor finishing and setting, his influence on goals for rates aren’t as impressive as his impact on expected goals. But that’s not the main objective for when Lowry is on the ice.
This RAPM graph from Evolving-Hockey illustrates Lowry and his impact quite well. The Jets create far more shots (CF) and shots adjusted for quality (xGF) than average with Lowry on the ice, but they do score fewer goals (GF). That said, the net result is still a positive tradeoff… even if not as much as one would hope given the scoring chance and possession tilt.
There’s a legitimate argument that Lowry’s 2023-24 sG is inflated due to multicollinearity with 71% of his playing time being with Niederreiter and undervaluing his 11 “stone hands” goals off of 18 expected goals. Another factor is that the Jets didn’t really have any other dominant centres for their roster position, so Lowry looks good in comparison.
Still, Lowry is likely a much better player than most in his role, and even better than I tend to give him credit for.
The Jets have Lowry for two more seasons at $3.25 million AAV, which is a bargain for that quality of player. The real question for the Jets is who plays 2nd line centre and who plays on the right wing with Lowry, but we’ll get to that later.
Mason Appleton
If you were to ask Rick Bowness the second question, his answer would be Mason Appleton.
But that might not be the correct answer.
At least, not when you look at this.
According to HockeyViz.com’s sG model, Appleton was the opposite of Lowry at 5v5: the team created fewer and allowed more chances than expected. What he did provide was league average finishing and solid penalty killing. He also was a net positive in drawing more penalties than he took.
That said, the overall impact here looks quite negative. The biggest reason: both Lowry and Niederreiter were significantly better performers when away from Appleton than Appleton was away from Lowry and Niederreiter.
Looking at Appleton's historical performances, I’m not sure that’s fair.
Appleton’s career has been fairly consistent aside from this season, which looks like an outlier. The outlier could be real, like in the case of player changes such as injuries. That said, given how much time he spent with Lowry (77%) and Niederreiter (70%), there may be some heavy small sample effects.
The model may be overconfident in how much we should penalize Appleton and reward Lowry for that small time apart.
I’m not sure Appleton is a great player, and I’ve never liked him when he’s been placed in the Jets’ top-six. Whenever coaches have elevated Appleton to the top-six, the results have been heavily negative. But I think he’s actually a pretty solid third-line player, usually.
The questions around him are:
Will his numbers bounce back next year or is this really him now?
Is it okay using a player that seemingly cannot move up the line?
Should he really be third on the team for the percentage of 5v5 minutes played relative to minutes available in games he dressed?
Appleton is in the final season of his $2.2 million AAV contract, where he will hit unrestricted free agency if the Jets do not extend the winger.
The Third Line Moving Forward
There is no doubt the Jets’ third line performed very well, as noted earlier. Scoring nearly 3 goals for every 2 the opposition scores is a recipe for success no matter how you look at it.
I think Niederreiter is far more than just a quality forward to place on the third line and can move up when required, no problem. I think Lowry is one of the league's best shutdown forwards and worth a spot even if his offensive upside makes him limited outside of that specialized usage.
Appleton struggled according to sG and weighted GAR models, but he might be better than those models are giving him credit for. Despite that, I’m not sold on him playing there.
There’s a lot of evidence that the third-best forward on a line is substantially less important than the other two. This meshes with NHL coaches' tendency to put their forwards in pairs and rotate the third member.
I think that the third-line right-side position would be a good spot to ease in the younger forwards into the NHL.
Now, wait a minute. I know a bunch of you are thinking I’m crazy placing an NHL rookie like Brad Lambert on a “tough match-up shutdown line,” but hear me out.
As I mentioned earlier, the weakest member on a forward line has exponentially less impact than the other two.
Quality of teammate has a much larger influence on results than line matching and who you play against, and both Lowry and Niederreiter are quality NHL players to play with.
The Lowry line might not be best served as such a hard match-up line anyways.
Here’s the thing: players see far, far, far less specific line matching than people tend to believe. The average ice time for a forward Lowry, Monahan, and Scheifele faced against differed by less than one minute. Monahan saw the least amount of top-line forwards of the three centers, but it was still the most common opponent Monahan faced against.
But wait, there’s more…
Sure, the Niederreiter, Lowry, and Appleton trio faced top-line matchups more often than the average third line, and their overall results for the season as a trio were heavily positive, but almost all the value they provided was when they were not facing the other team’s best.
When the Jets lined up Lowry and Appleton against the other team’s best, the team had a 46.5% Corsi. They had a 46.9% Corsi for the minutes where both Lowry and Appleton were sitting on the bench.
However, the two together ate up the rest of the opposition, with a 54.7% Corsi against the middle of the roster and a 57.9% Corsi against the bottom.
If Corsi is not your thing, I will simply point out that the results are even more dramatic when looking at goals, although all three values are generally more favorable. The Jets just barely won their minutes against the best (8-7), but were much better without them (48-16). They did dominate the lower parts of the lineup.
The shutdown specialist line didn’t really shine against the other team’s best, but rather against the other team’s rest. The pattern is the same when looking at Niederreiter instead of Appleton, although all three values are better.
Aside: You might be asking, who did the best against the other team’s best? I’ll tell you! Surprise, it’s Nikolaj Ehlers. The Jets had a 51.2% Corsi against the other team’s best players (26 goals for, and only 6 against).
Final Thoughts
The Jets' defensive specialist, shutdown line did pretty well over the season. They won their minutes pretty handily while Rick Bowness tried to give them as much defensive deployment as he could.
For a good part of the season, the line was even the Jets’ second most commonly deployed line at 5v5, not their third. It wasn’t until the Jets added Sean Monahan that the “third line” was actually used as the team’s third line.
What’s missed by many is that the line didn’t actually do so well against the other team’s best players, but actually was more dominant against soft matchups. It was here that their strength, physicality, and aggressive forecheck took over.
They were good, but maybe misused.
SERIES THUS FAR
Up Next: Comparing two wingers as trade bait (pay-walled for premium tier)
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