Lars Eller and David Desharnais currently playing in Europe.

Here is a look at the current statistics for the Habs players playing in the  KHL, Czech Extraliga, NLA, SM-Liiga and the ECHL.

• Colby Armstrong is the most recent to sign a lockout contract, with the Utah Grizzlies of the ECHL. Scott Gomez, David Desharnais and Lars Eller have also just recently signed that’s why they have only played a handful of games. Andrei Markov was injured early on and missed a big chunk of games, but has come back and played well.

Feb 17, 2012; Buffalo, NY, USA; Montreal Canadiens defenseman Raphael Diaz (61) during play in the game against the Buffalo Sabres at the First Niagara Center. The Canadiens beat the Sabres 4-3 in a shootout. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Hoffman-US PRESSWIRE

We’re heading into the real lockout now, with the NHL announcing that they have cancelled the first two weeks of the regular season.

Andrei Markov has become part of the exodus of NHL talent, joining “The Charleston Chiefs” of the KHL in Vityaz Chekov. For anyone concerned about Markov’s knee, its nice to hear that goons like Trevor Gillies are on his team rather than targeting him.

With our great sorrow that these guys can’t be suiting up for the Habs right now, here’s the update on what they’ve been doing.

Tomas Plekanec showed he’s human, getting shut out of the scoring for the first time in Kladno for game 8. He’s still cruising at a goal and an assist per game in a continuing display of dominance on Jaromir Jagr‘s team. His scoring of ~60 NHLE points seems right within his established talent.

On the same squad, Tomas Kaberle is having a similar go of it with his 4 NHL team mates, although not so dominant.

Max Pacioretty has been snake bit on a team that has struggled. Ambri’s imported top line of Williams-Park-Pacioretty has failed to score in the last 2 games and the team has only 5 goals in the last 3. They sure could use Pacioretty finding the back of the net more frequently, with only one of his 12 shots going in.

Both Yannick Weber and Raphael Diaz seem to be finding life congenial in their native lands, both are producing at a strong clip, on much better teams that Pacioretty’s.

Andreas Engqvist seems to find KHL life preferable to the NHL, he’s gone a respectable .67 PPG but has only 1 goal in 20 shots. Maxim Trunev continues to look like he isn’t worth the time to check up on.

In the Eliteserin, Magnus Nygren is continuing to have a strong campaign, with regular top 4 duty and good offensive numbers. Collberg continues to not get ice time and has a lonely assist to his name. Pribyl would envy him, he can’t get in the lineup at all.

Using available statistics I have been able to cobble together some basic advanced stats for the players in the NLA, SEL and KHL.

Engqvist looks like he’s playing very well as a top six forward in the KHL although is not much of a potential goal scorer with that shot rate. Both Trunev and Collberg look like they are making the most of limited minutes. Nygren seems to be an offensive force at the SEL level, his shot and points rate is big for a prospect defenseman.

Pacioretty has almost the same shot rate in the NLA as the NHL, expect that and his goal scoring to rise dramatically as he adjusts. Weber seems to be putting on a tour de force in shots and Diaz is quite respectable.

Both Hudon and Vail had great starts to their campaigns and are among the top of their league’s scoring races. Bozon is largely meeting expectations. Galchenyuk has shown some definate talent

Mar 12, 2012; Buffalo, NY, USA; Montreal Canadiens defenseman Tomas Kaberle (22) brings the puck up the ice as Buffalo Sabres center Derek Roy (9) defends during the first period at the First Niagara Center. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Hoffman-US PRESSWIRE

We finish our look at even strength offense with the defensemen. As we saw in the first article, defensemen have very little direct effect on goals scored from their own goals scored.  Average shooting percentage for defensemen on 5 on5 is 4.01%, average shot proportion is 13.4%. With such a low proportion of the shots and a shooting percentage that is less then half then that of their forward compatriots, the average defenseman is scoring about 1 in 20 of his teams goals he’ll be on ice for. Unless they are at the very top of defensemen scoring they just don’t accomplish it enough to have a significant effect. Their effect on goals scored for their team should be through their forwards scoring.

Subban is the clear king of shots, but suffered from the worst shooting percentage. His first year he was above average there so I think his 2011-12 lack of goals was an abberation. I recall Dion Phaneuf went through a similar slump one season and rebounded solidly. Long term expect Subban to be clearly the best even strength goal scorer from the group. Subban combines a solid amount of team-mate shots with his own strong rate is a pretty good basis for team offensive performance. Normally a large amount of shots from a defensemen would be a recipe for weak team shot conversion rate, but Subban has generally played with a low shot defense partner in Gill or Gorges. Subban takes a large amount and proportion of shots but he seems to be making up for his defense partner’s lack of shooting opportunities rather than taking shots instead of his forwards.

Markov and Kaberle are pretty similar on offense. Both have solid shot producing and goal scoring rates but their most important contribution is how many scoring opportunities his team-mates are getting. Markov seems to be generally a bit superior to Kaberle but both look like quality offensive defensemen over these 3 seasons.

Diaz and Emelin have widely divergent goal scoring rates but that looks like a sample size issue, just a difference of 1 goal scored in a single season on even strength. Their shot rates are pretty much identical, its likely they are pretty much the same in goal-scoring terms going forward. The same process in reverse works for their team mates. Basically the same shot rates but Emelin had the better shooting percentage and thus goals scored. Long term unless one improves drastically expect pretty similar results.

Gorges is a fine defenseman overall but on the offensive side he seems to be clearly the weakest guy of the 6. Obviously the lowest shooter and goal-scorer with not particularly great team offense.

Looking at expected offense on even strength over 82 games and 16 minutes per game given team and individual goal scoring rates we see a clear separation between the top and bottom 3 defenders. Markov is the clear class of the field in terms of results and Subban and Kaberle are close. Diaz and Emelin’s results are divergent but they are based on a single season of data. Shot rates should be more reliable over that time frame and they show them to be virtually identical.

The roles of the defensemen are clearly divergent. Gorges and Subban have clearly been leaned on hard to play the tough minutes. That they generally get some of the stronger results are a good sign of just how good these two are. Markov is clearly been used as a a stronger second pair defender. Emelin and Diaz have about the same role as lesser 2nd pairing guys. Kaberle’s good offensive results are during generally soft minute usage over the last 3 years, which brings some context to why a lesser talent is keeping pace with Subban and Markov who had real defensive responsibilities.

Thanks to behindthenet.ca and stats.hockey.analysis.com for the databases to make this work possible.