Penguins Usage Chart: February 24

(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.)

The problem with making nice-looking charts is that sometimes you're looking at style over substance. That's not what happened with these; the data is still meaningful and fun to look at. The problem is that I was kind of comparing apples to oranges. As I've mentioned before, the size of the bubble is based on the player's Corsi rating relative to his teammates, and the y-axis number was based on the quality of competition. For some reason I got it into my head that using the QoC number based on relative +/- was correct, when it turns out that's actually not conventional—QoC based on Corsi is. This shouldn't come as a surprise considering that the rest of the chart is Corsi-based.

I'd like to stress that I feel this what I did was not exactly wrong, but unconventional and perhaps somewhat less useful than the typical chart that Rob Vollman came up with. So, with this edition, I'm switching to Corsi for everything, the way Vollman intended. That means the bubbles might move more than usual, but in return for the confusion, the data should be somewhat more meaningful. The bubbles will have a different vertical position than they would have with the old data, but that is all that would be different. Anyway, let's get on with it.

Click to embiggen (that's for you, PopRocks).

• The first thing you may notice about this chart is that Deryk Engelland is missing. He's really not; the problem is that he has a relative Corsi of exactly zero. His bubble, if it existed, would be at about the 10 o'clock spot on Simon Despres's bubble (56.3% offensive starts, -0.500 QoC).
• Beau Bennett has been faring well, but the dude's in a friggin' bomb shelter right now. That's right where he should be, though, until he gets his NHL legs.
• Paul Martin is back negative again. Regular readers of the blog and the blog's comment section will know why I feel this to be the case.
• Dustin Jeffrey did improve his lot last week. I'm still not ready to say that he's out of the woods, but his negative bubble definitely diminished in size. I'm not sure that's enough to justify playing him over Zach Boychuk, but if we're worried about which of those two is getting the playing time, the team is either doing pretty good or we've resorted to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
• Tyler Kennedy did well. He needs to keep this up.
• In the debate, such that it is, about which two of Deryk Engelland, Robert Bortuzzo, and Simon Despres should play, Bortuzzo is starting to get left behind according to the numbers. We shall see if Dan Bylsma will continue giving him chances or whether he'll end up rotting in the press box.
• If Joe Vitale weren't such a beast at the dot, he might be fighting for playing time. As it is, he's carved himself out a niche that's very difficult to replace. Good for him.
• Folks at Arctic Ice Hockey are pointing at Tanner Glass's bubble and saying, "We told you so!" to which I give a hearty, "Meh." I'm more concerned about Brandon Sutter, personally, than just about anyone the Penguins throw out on the fourth line.