Typically, hockey players are the opposite of a fine wine: they don’t get better as they age. In fact, according to Hockey Graphs, players start seeing their most dramatic decline as they enter their 30’s.
Don’t tell this to Lars Eller. Because at 30 years old, Eller is having one of his best seasons in the NHL — and it’s a start that is both sustainable and crucial to the Caps center depth this year.
Lars Eller’s focus on skating isn’t just about speed
We’ve now read a few articles about Eller and his renewed focus on skating this offseason. Samantha Pell (a guest on JRR this week), had a lot of good details in an article this week focusing on Eller’s offseason work (emphasis added):
There’s a few layers to unpack here, but most important: when NHL players talk about improving their skating, they are NOT just talking about improving their top-line speed. In Eller’s case, he talks about improving his balance and alignment more than speed.
This focus on balance and alignment fits neatly with something that Blue Jackets forward Cam Atkinson told the New England Hockey Journal last year… skating effectively as a hockey player is as much about agility and acceleration as it is about top-line speed:
So when Eller talks about improving his skating, he’s not just talking about increasing his speed so he can be an elite offensive player. He’s talking about a whole host of other abilities too, skills that have helped Eller on defense as much as offense.
Eller’s skating focus has drastically helped his defense
All that being said, let’s visual the defensive improvements that Eller has shown this year. First, Eller has been suppressing shot attempts at a career-best rate:
This has carried over to his expected goals against numbers, where he is again suppressing shots at a near-career high:
Granted, Eller’s on ice goal percentage does not quite reflect the above numbers, as he’s averaging around 3.34 goals against per 60 minutes. Yet even this has an easy explanation: the on-ice save percentage when Eller is on the ice is a comically-low 87.7% (the lowest in Eller’s career by a significant margin). This is a number you should expect to see increase, and Eller’s goals-against should concurrently drop.
What does this mean?
When we talk about a player improving their staking, it’s natural to think of improving top line speed or acceleration. Indeed, this is a big part of skating, and it’s part of what makes players like Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon so incredible to watch.
Yet skating can have ramifications beyond just pure offensive skill. When a player like Lars Eller says that they’ve improved their skating, it’s worth listening to them, even if they aren’t elite, flashy offensive players. Indeed, the value of improved skating can lie just below the surface.