Analytics with Alison: The Giordano-Oleksiak Impact

Coming into the season, the Kraken's defense was deemed to be an area of strength and thus far that's held true. There have been some growing pains, but according to Evolving-Hockey.com, in even strength play, Seattle is currently ranked eighth in the league in limiting offensive quality against.

Among the defenders on the roster, no other pairing has upheld that standard quite like the duo of Mark Giordano and Jamie Oleksiak. With Giordano back in the lineup after missing six games (COVID protocol), the reunion of these two on ice could be an important piece of the blue line as the Kraken seek to return to their winning ways.
"I think they've had some good minutes together," Dave Hakstol said. "It's been a significant number of games that they played together in combination. For whatever reason, the chemistry between the two fits and works on the ice."
Through 27 games, while there has been some shuffling of defensive pairings along the way, Giordano and Oleksiak have spent the majority of their ice time together (169:19 even strength per NaturalStatTrick.com), and only one Kraken pairing, (Jeremy Lauzon and Adam Larsson) has been together more (191:06 per MoneyPuck.com).
But contributing is about more than just being on the ice a lot, right?
Let's dig in.
We talked about the Seattle defense's ability to limit quality against, but no pair is stingier than Giordano and Oleksiak. According to Money Puck, when together the two allow just 1.7 expected goals against per 60 minutes of play. That's solid for the team, and it's also the eighth best rate of prevention among any NHL defensive pair with 75 minutes or more of ice time together this season.
The visual below shows the Kraken defense when the captain and Oleksiak are on the ice. Blue marks areas where shots occur at a rate below league average, while red marks the same for shots happening at a rate above league average. When we look at defense, the more blue, the better.

With these two on the ice, the overall impact of the Seattle defense is 36% below league average according to HockeyViz.com.
But what Hakstol likes about this pairing isn't just their ability to defend.
"The big thing is just first off having the mindset of playing and doing the job defensively first, getting us out of our own end, and then reading off of one another," Hakstol said. "When there's an opportunity to go (you need to) make sure that you know one guy's taking care of things defensively when his partner is up ice. The two of them have been able to do a good job with that."
On the offensive side of play, it's worth noting that Giordano ranks tops among Seattle defenders (and third overall) in shot attempts per 60 minutes of play (13.5) while Oleksiak is the best blueliner in terms of individually creating offensive quality (.25 individual expected goals per 60). So, in this duo, you have one player who's sending the puck to the net a lot, and another who is
getting to more dangerous areas
.
Here's how that translates to on-ice offensive impact with this pairing playing.

Put these two areas of influence together and the Giordano-Oleksiak pair tilt the ice the Kraken's way in terms of overall shot quality more than any other with 59.5% of all expected goals (per Money Puck). That's not just best on the team, it's 12th best in the NHL.
As Hakstol said, these two players have shone some "pretty good chemistry" while being able to push play in the right direction. The goal now is for this play to become part of a winning combination for the team as a whole.