Jonas Siegenthaler had a chance to be a breakout player on the Washington Capitals to start the season and he’s shown no signs of slowing down his progression.
With Michal Kempny out to start the season the Capitals had to find someone to pair with John Carlson on the top D pairing until he returned. The man that won that job was Jonas Siegenthaler. The 22-year-old did fine in that role, but top defensive pair minutes and responsibilities were probably a little too much for him.
That’s not a knock on him. There are very, very few players in the game that can jump right in and play top line or top pair minutes. To expect a young player to come in and play against top competition and excel is wishful thinking. Siegenthaler did fine. That’s a compliment in this case.
Since Kempny returned on the 18th of October Siegenthaler has gone down to the third defensive pair. He’s been paired with both Radko Gudas and Nick Jensen and he’s looked good. He’s in a better spot for him right now.
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Something I always say about young defensemen is if you don’t notice them they are probably playing well. If you’re noticing a young defeseman they’re either putting up points or getting beat in their own zone.
That’s where Siegenthaler is to me right now, unless you’re looking for him during the game you don’t really notice him. That’s a good thing, because he’s not putting up points. That also means he’s not getting beat in his own zone constantly, which is terrific.
His numbers also say he’s having a pretty good season. When you look at Siegenthaler’s advanced stats they’re all good. He leads all Capitals defensemen in a lot of stats.
His Corsi% is 51.79%, first among lineup regulars. His scoring chance for% is 57.14% leading the D corps. His high danger Corsi% is 54.55%, again leading the defensemen and his expected goals for% is 56.62% which is once again top of the teams defensemen.
But were his stats maybe the result of playing with Carlson for a while? Quite the opposite. Siegenthaler’s stats have gone up since leaving Carlson. With Carlson, his stats looked like this,
50.83 Corsi%, 51.82 scoring chance%, 46.15 high danger Corsi% and 53.83 expected goals for%.
That pair also scored five goals and allowed four goals against in 131:25 of ice time. Siegenthaler has now played 101:46 without Carlson and has three goals scored while on the ice and two goals against. All of his advanced stats have gone up, some dramatically.
52.94 Corsi%, 63.95 scoring chance for%, 66.67 high danger Corsi%, and 60.23 expected goals for%.
Carlson on the other hand had played 155:04 without Siegenthaler and his stats have all dropped with none of them being good.
45.48 Corsi%, 40.14 scoring chance for%, 44.26 high danger Corsi%, and 45.90 expected goals for%.
I’m not going to try to convince you it was Siegenthaler that was raising Carlson’s advanced stats. All I’m pointing out is out Siegnethaler got better without Carlson, and Carlson got quite a bit worse. Quality of competition has a big say there.
Siegenthaler also leads or is near the top some other impressive stats. Something interesting is he’s drawn nine penalties which is by far the best on the team in terms of defensemen. The second most penalties drawn by a defenseman is four by John Carlson.
Siegenthaler also has only nine giveaways, which is pretty impressive for a young player. To compare, Carlson has 20 giveaways, Orlov has 12, Jensen has 11 and Gudas has 10. Again, ice time will have some say here and a guy like Carlson will try to make plays more than Siegenthaler will.
Finally Siegenthaler is tied for the team lead in blocks among defensemen with 31 tied with Carlson.
There’s still plenty of room for improvement. I still think he can get pushed off the puck a little bit but that’s not uncommon for young D men. That will come with time and adding more and more strength.
I think Jonas Siegenthaler has found his spot and found his comfort zone on the team and he is doing very, very well on the third pair.