Bruins re-sign Kevan Miller?

I'll follow on with cshea and veritas in playing devil's advocate. It speaks more to the state of the Bruins D than his actual ability level, but statistically Miller was one of their top 3 D. There is a fair chance that next season he is their best d-zone defenseman if Zdeno continues his slide (again speaks to the state of the D).
Here are the Bruins D ranked by Corsi (5X5)
Name / Games /Age / AAV / CF%Rel / CF%
Colin.Miller / 42 / 22 / 0.603 / 2.81 / 52.23 - RFA
John-Michael.Liles / 81 / 34 / 3.875 / -1.33 / 51.78 (include Carolina stats) - UFA
Torey.Krug / 81 / 24 / 3.4 / 2.74 / 51.21 - RFA
Kevan.Miller / 71 / 27 / $ 0.80 / 0.33 / 49.78 - UFA
Zdeno.Chara /80 / 38 / 6.917 / -0.16 / 49.54
Adam.McQuaid / 64 / 28 / 2.75 / -1.51 / 48.84
Tommy.Cross / 3 /26 / 0.6 / -2.99 / 48.33 - RFA
Zach.Trotman / 38 / 25 / 0.625 / -0.59 / 48.19 - RFA
Joe.Morrow / 33 / 22 / 0.863 / -2.19 / 47.27 - RFA
Dennis.Seidenberg / 61 / 34 / 4 / -2.81 / 47.09
Matt.Irwin / 2 / 27 / 0.8 / -1.07 / 44.9

The options for signing 3 guys from the outside that are either much better players or almost as good but cheaper aren't great. A quick look at UFA guys in their late 20's comes up with:
Name / Team / Games / Age / AAV / CF%Rel / CF%
Jakub.Kindl / DET / 25 / 28 / 2.4 / 6.39 / 55.22
Korbinian.Holzer / ANA / 30 / 27 / 0.75 / -0.08 / 50.63
Kris.Russell / DAL / 23 / 28 / 2.6 / -4.28 / 49.8
Kevan.Miller / BOS / 71 / 27 / 0.8 / 0.33 / 49.78
Eric.Gryba / EDM / 53 / 27 / 1.25 / 1.08 / 49.44
Roman.Polak / T-SJ / 97 / 29 / 2.75 / -3.65 / 48.88
Jordie.Benn / DAL / 65 / 28 / 0.7 / -4.82 / 48.81
Yannick.Weber / VAN / 45 / 26 / 1.5 / 0.95 / 48.31
Brian.Strait / NYI / 52 / 27 / 0.775 / -4.26 / 47.14
Matt.Bartkowski / VAN / 80 / 27 / 1.75 / -1.78 / 45.8
Michael.Kostka / OTT / 15 / 29 / 0.8 / -4.27 / 44.06

Kindl is the most intriguing guy on the list. He ran the shuttle in Detroit before getting some time in Florida after the trade. The rest are really not much on potential upgrades. Some of those guys are going to get paid just based on the lack of competition and the comparable contracts CShea put up.

I'll say it again that I wouldn't have done a 4 year deal at that rate, but rationally looking at it there is some justification.

There is justification for bringing him back, but not for four years. The handwringing on my part is primarily because of term and redundancy with McQuaid. Plus, by what I understand Carlo is probably closest to contributing from the current young D crop, who also as a similar game.

My big problem is it is completely short-sighted, and it shows a lack of understanding when it comes to the needs of this team. The decision making is so poor that, as others have noted, I am not mad I'm depressed, defeated even. I think that's worse. A large part of this is Sweeney trying to rebuild while contending, and him and Neely are just not adept enough to pull that off. As a result, they end up in between in purgatory without really making steps in one direction or the other. It is just bad asset management. My only remaining hope is that they drafted well. Otherwise, they are a dumpster fire of suck.

Read an interesting (if not wonky and advanced stat heavy) article about measuring defensive zone effectiveness that may help explain the appeal of our friend Kevan. I still think the deal is for too long and kind of sucks given Miller's old style game and redundancy with McQuaid, but it was interesting to read.

Intuitively, many think it should be possible for a skater to impact Sv%, so the work continues. However, the most fundamental question that we are all asking is really, ‘What are the best tools we can use to measure a skater’s defensive contribution?’ So – let’s attack the problem at a slightly higher level.

Click to expand...

Earlier I introduced Scott Cullen’s metric of (Scoring Chances / Corsi Against). Most players in the league come out in the 10-20% range of this number, meaning that 10-20% of their shot attempts against are ‘Scoring Chances’.

In order to make this metric somewhat more intuitive, I want to center it on the concept of ‘Keeping Pucks to the Outside” – a simple, easily understood concept that is core to defensive-zone play.

Click to expand...

My own hypothesis for why we get this result is that there may be a connection between a defensemen’s play-style/skill set, and his resulting shot rate/KPO% stats, in a sometimes off-setting fashion. For example, Polak and Weber’s ‘stay at home’ style may help them lock down the front of the net defensively, while it causes them to struggle on the shot rate side of the equation. On the other hand, some of the league’s more dynamic defensemen (not listed, but Doughty and Klingbergboth come out at roughly -2% KPO% Below Average) may have quite strong Corsi stats, but their play-style causes them to give up higher quality chances against as a result. Granted – this is just a hypothesis – only more study and time will tell.

Click to expand...

I think what we're seeing with this stat is that Miller is one of the better 'stay at home' defensemen in the league in terms of preventing good scoring opportunities. That's a pretty valuable thing, even if the deal is still questionable.

edit: those two lists certainly pass the eye test.

Miller is the one guy who really challenges my somewhat strong belief in analytics. His possession numbers were good last year even during a stretch of games where my eyes were telling me that his errors were directly causing GA. He's definitely an odd case.