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(See here for more information. The position of the bubble is determined by the coaching staff; the size and color of the bubble are entirely up to the player.)
First up, let's take a look at the Corsi-based chart after yesterday's win over the Sabres.
Click to embiggen.
Bullet points:
- As I said last time, more games = more separation. We're finally getting enough spread on the bubbles that I don't have to move a bunch of labels out of the way.
- Paul Martin is positive now. This corroborates what we've been seeing on the ice. Brooks Orpik is getting worse, not better.
- The bubbles for James Neal and Evgeni Malkin have moved up quite a bit to show what we know to be the case: they're seeing stiffer competition than any of the other forward groups while still playing a very offense-oriented role.
- Dustin Jeffrey is getting wrecked out there.
- Matt Niskanen's bubble moved sharply toward defense this week, which is good to see given that people have generally considered him a bottom-pairing guy his whole career.
- Beau Bennett's bubble is in a really weird place. He's like the anti-Jordan Staal from last year. He faces really stiff competition, but taking 64.3% of his faceoffs in the offensive zone.
- Tyler Kennedy did not have a good week.
And now let's take a look at the Fenwick-based chart:
This one embiggens, too.
- With a Fenwick chart, bubbles shouldn't move, but they can change size and color.
- Deryk Engelland and Robert Bortuzzo are both positive on this chart, while Martin and Bennett are negative. Simon Despres's dot got a whole lot smaller.
- Fenwick does James Neal no favors, either.
The Fenwick chart is here mainly as an illustration. I'm not sure how useful it is other than to show that some people's defensive strengths lie more in shot blocking than actual positional defense.