As the Blue Jackets have struggled to get to their "A" game early this season, we have seen a lot of players taking punches across CBJ social media. Near the top of that list is Zach Werenski, who has definitely not looked like himself so far.
I'll preface this by saying that I do agree with the take that Zach has more to give. He has not looked like his usual free-wheeling self, often choosing the safe play as opposed to taking chances and trying to generate offense.
So, I thought, lets dig a little deeper and pick his game apart. It didn't take me very long to come to one clear and obvious conclusion: Zach is just fine. Maybe our expectations are just too high.
Borderline elite numbers.
Lets talk about his productivity over the last two seasons, since he really broke out and emerged as an elite NHL defenseman. In that time, he's played 156 games, scoring 163 points (55 goals). That's a 1.04 point-per-game average.
Would you believe me if I told you that he's just one two point game away from surpassing that average this season? Zach is currently, quietly, tied for the team lead with 6 points (all assists) in 7 games. 4 of those assists are primary assists.
The Blue Jackets have only scored 17 goals, so he has been in on more than a third of this team's entire offense. He's been the primary setup man for almost a quarter of it.
Werenski is also leading the team with a +7 rating, which is 3 ahead of his defense partner; and 5 clear of anyone else on the team. I get it, the plus/minus category is not the telltale metric for measuring defense that it once was. But, even if we dig a little deeper, everything looks fine from my perspective.
Per MoneyPuck.com, Zach has a 47% CORSI rating, which I think directly correlates with his deployment. So far, he has played 48% of this team's minutes, which is frankly unheard of-even for a guy of his caliber.
Notably, he's started 18.7% of his shifts in the defensive zone, which is 4% higher than any other season in his career to date. Simply put, Rick Bowness and his staff are leaning extremely hard on their #1 defenseman due to the injuries on the blue line.
In spite of his low CORSI rating (he's never been below 50% in his career), the Blue Jackets have a 57.1% goal percentage with him on the ice. Taking these two metrics into account tells the whole story: when #8 is on the ice, this team is getting out of their own end, and scoring at the other end.
What does that mean? Well, this guy is playing pretty good. I suppose the word to use here is "talent". Elite talent.
About that eye test...
I get it, and I agree: the eye test has been bad. Zach has looked pretty casual with and without the puck, almost like he's tired. But, hear my argument out: he probably is tired.
Through 7 games, he's averaging 29:22 per game, which is about two and a half minutes more than he's typically gotten over the previous three years. He also leads all skaters in the NHL by roughly that amount (Buffalo's Owen Power is second, at 26:45 per game).
I would say to those of you concerned by his game: be patient. Once Ivan Provorov returns to health, those minutes are going to come down. Zach Werenski will have fewer defensive zone starts, which will lead to less minutes overall, which will lead to him getting back to doing what he does best: leading this team offensively.
In fact, I would argue that he's already doing that anyway.
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