Franson attempts to turn negative stat into positive
Cody Franson admits he should know better. It is a useless statistic, he tells himself. Just ignore it and move on. But as much as he tries, he just can’t do it.
The minus-20 rating that he had last season is too ugly to disregard.
“A lot of times it has nothing to do with you as to why a goal gets scored,” he said. “So it’s a stat I try not to pay too much attention to. But as a player it’s hard not to because everybody else does.”
Ever since the National Hockey League officially began keeping track of players’ plusminus ratings in 1968, the statistic has been met with growing criticism because it doesn’t say much about the player specifically. It tells you that a player was on the ice for an even-strength or short-handed goal. But it spreads the blame for the goal around equally.
It fails to say whether the player benefited from having good linemates or suffered from tougher matchups against opponents?
Two years ago, Mark Fraser led the Toronto Maple Leafs with a plus-18 rating while Mikhail Grabovski was a minus-10. No wonder assistant general manager Kyle Dubas recently said he “hated” what many consider to be a statistical dinosaur.
And yet, Franson cannot let it go.
“It was the first year I was a minus player and that stuck with me for a while,” Franson said. “Over the course of the summer that was something that bothered me. So I’m going to be working on that and getting better defensively.”
There are several reasons why Franson’s plus-minus rating went from a plus-4 in 201213 to minus-20 last season. The easiest explanation is that he went from being a third-pairing defenceman who was sheltered in the minutes he played to someone who was relied upon to play against tougher competition.
Franson averaged close to 22 minutes per game last season — about two minutes more than the previous year — and began 42.4 per cent of his shifts in the offensive zone — down from 45.9 per cent the previous season. Still, he was one of the best Toronto defenceman in terms of advancing the puck up the ice.
The problem was that on a poor possession team, there was only so much he could do. And while the Leafs scored their share of power-play goals — something that plus-minus ignores because of the man advantage — they were one of the worst at preventing goals when they were at even-strength or even had a man-advantage.
“If I’m a minus-1 in a game, no matter what else I was on the ice for a goal and I’m not going to be happy about it,” Franson said. “That’s really something that affects the outcome of a game. And it’s a stat that has a lot of effect on me individually. I’ve always been a positive and last year I wasn’t, so that’s something I’m going to try to improve upon.”
One thing that should help Franson is that he was here for the start of training camp. At this time last year he was still skating with the Ryerson Rams university hockey team because of a contract dispute that did not get resolved until days before the season started. The result, said head coach Randy Carlyle, was that Franson was playing catch-up for the first month or so.
Franson said part of the issue was forming chemistry with Jake Gardiner after having played with the stay-athome Fraser the year before. “I was the one who jumped up in plays,” Franson said of playing with Fraser, “so it was a little bit of a role reversal as you could say.”
He still finished the season with five goals and led Toronto defencemen with 33 points.
On Monday, ex- London Knight Nazem Kadri had a goal and an assist as the Leafs edged the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 in a shootout in London.
“I’m from here and I just don’t want to disappoint, I guess,” said Kadri, who had 20 goals and 30 assists last season. “Production will be hugely important for me this year. I’m an offensive player. My goal is also to become a player who is the whole package.”