Sleeper prospect: Deep dive on Mike Koster’s game

The art of deception, problem solving & pressure breakout retrieval skills

Mike Koster is a defenseman for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers and a 2019 5th round (#146 overall) of the Toronto Maple Leafs. After starting the season in a bottom pairing role, Koster flourished and made a statement in a top pairing role when the Gophers’ top three defenseman were away for the WJC on the gold medal winning team (J. LaCombe, R. Johnson, B. Faber). Koster possesses a lot of qualities I’m looking in for in a defenseman, so I took a deep dive on three of his NCAA games this season, tracking numbers and watching all of his shifts to see what kind of upside does he have, what are the strengths in his game and some aspects he can work on (development plan). 

The numbers

PNHLe

First, let’s take a quick look at Koster’s PNHLe numbers from Mason Black app Rank King. According to his model, Koster points projection potential at the NHL aren’t anything special, projecting mostly in 3rd pairing role projection/production. Although it’s always interesting to look at PNHLe to get some comparisons, it’s not a great way to project defenseman because it’s an offensive stat based on production (obviously there’s a lot more than that to the position) and it lacks some context like role, time on ice situations, etc.

Microstats

In the three games I’ve watched and tracked, I took some microstats on many phases of his game. It’s important to note that three games is a small sample size, so it’s not necessarily a predictor of future success. The goal of tracking microstats in these three games was to remove some eyes bias when watching the clips, to get an idea on some aspects of his game to watch more closely and to see how he did strictly in these three games. 

The first one I always want to track for defenseman is defensive zone puck retrieval on breakout. The way I measured it is to count all of his puck touches in the defensive zone below the circles (breakout attempts). I only counted his touches and attempts below the circles because I like to evaluate defenseman abilities to make plays on pressure breakout separately from their abilities to move the puck in neutral zone transition (which happens more between above the circle and the blueline). So, I separated his attempts in six categories: Zone exits by pass, by puck carry (skating with the puck), by dump (chip out), by successful exit assist (a completed pass to a teammate who successfully exit the zone), by unsuccessful exit assist (a completed pass to a teammate who failed to exit the zone) and by direct turnovers.

Looking at the numbers, it’s obvious that pressure breakout puck retrievals is a huge strength of Koster’s game. He managed a 70% successful exit rate (high quantity of touches as well). His turnovers rate (13%) is really impressive considering Koster is always looking to breakout in control, as well as looking for the best available play (not just the safest play). We’ll see in the video how Koster uses deception and great habits on breakout. 

The second one that I always track for defenseman is zone entry against. Defending the rush is the most important aspect defensively (without the puck) for a defenseman. It limits time defending in the defensive zone and directly affects puck possession by quickly transitioning to offense. 

Although the 46% controlled entries against seems high, defending the rush is actually a strength of Koster’s game (we’ll see in the clips). That number is higher because of a less successful showing defending the zone against Notre Dame (7 carry in), but besides that I’m confidant on a bigger sample size this number would improve drastically. There are also some contexts, like Univ. of Minnesota often finding themselves in a 1-3-1 (or 1-2-2 with an aggressive wide defenseman) with Koster as the ‘1’ back to retrieves pucks, so if the ‘1-3’ gets beat in control, the last D back has to defend to rush flat footed, which can affect the zone entry against in control number.

So these two microstats are must for me to track for any defenseman. The last one I decided to track for Koster is offensive zone puck touches to see how he created offense from OZP. I separated them in six categories: Unblocked shot attempts from outside the slot, shot attempts from the slot, shot assist, pass completed to the slot, pass completed & others (turnovers, blocked shot attempt, etc.). 

Koster does some things really well in the offensive zone, but we’ll see in the development plan section how he can improves his OZP. 

Macrostats 

I also looked at some simple macrostats  at even-strength when Koster was on the ice (Corsi for%, SCF%) to see its impact on his team overall possession play (like mentioned earlier, it’s a small sample size so not a predictor, it’s just to see the impact in these three games). 

Overall, his impact was really strong. The corsi numbers against Michigan was the only one below 50%, but it’s important to note that Michigan is an offensive powerhouse team and Koster played around 24 minutes as a top pairing D with tough matchup in this game with LaCombe, Johnson and Faber at the WJC.

Let’s watch some clips

Offensive play: Pressure breakout

As shown in the breakout stats tracking, puck retrieval is a huge strength of Koster’s game. In the first place, he uses great habits on retrieval: Picture of the ice before pivoting, multiples shoulder checks (board and center ideally), going fast to puck, great 1st touch with eyes up, puck placement (hip pocket deception) and not overhandling the puck.

Secondly, he’s great at being patient in order to attract pressure so it opens time & space for his support and helps them leverage their speed. At 0:21 in the video above, Koster shoulder check, put the puck on his hip pocket, waits until the pressure gets close to him, then makes a quick five foot pass to his winger for a breakout. At 0:46 on a DZFW, Koster wheel the net, puts the puck on his hip pocket while being patient to fake a middle breakout then quickly change the angle of his blade to exit on the wall. In this clip against Wisconsin, it’s a textbook example for Koster. As he retrieves the puck under pressure with a beautiful toe drag, he gets the puck to his hip pocket to fake the board play, then quickly slide the puck to the middle for a breakout in control. Beautiful deception and poise.

Thirdly, I love how he’s patient on his 1st touch to create deception by not showing the direction/play he wants to use. He uses that combined with his edges work to beat F1 and attract F2, which makes life easy for his forward. At 1:01, Koster takes a picture of the ice before pivoting, wait for his 1st touch making it looks like he’s going D-2-D, then quickly uses his skating to beat F1 with a cutback then uses a beautiful indirect pass to beat F2. That’s elite breakout abilities: being able to beat F1, soaking in F2 then giving a perfect pass to your forward who now have a lot of time and space. At 1:01, Koster shoulder check, waits for his 1st touch and creates deception by using a heel-to-heel (10 & 2, mohawk) to make it looks like he’s going reverse play, he’s now able to beat F1 and attract F2 for a middle play to his center. That’s high-end poise and uses of deception to problem solve in small area space. 

Offensive play: Neutral zone transition

Similarly, to his breakout play, Koster can really move the puck in transition. His habits are great. When he receives a D-2-D pass, he has a good 1st touch across his body, allowing him to underhandle the puck, have his eyes up and the puck in his hip pocket so he can either play fast by making a quick play stretching the ice (1st play) or to use deception to manipulate pressure. At 0:07, after he receives the D-2-D pass outside dot, I love how he skates to the middle ice (inside dots) to have multiple passing options on both sides. That’s great habits.

Second, Koster blends skills well. He can receive passes in crossovers motions (0:11 et 0:15). At 0:24, I love how he uses a weight shift to fake an over pass then quickly uses an indirect board pass for a up play. The play at 0:29 is pure gold. He retrieves the puck backhand to his forehand hip pocket into a weight shift + crossover to beat F1, then uses heel-to-heel to skate AT F2 to freeze him, then puts a backhand pass INTO an AREA to his forward instead of a direct pass so he has less pressure and more time and space on puck reception. High, high hockey IQ and great awareness of space. 

Offensive play: OZP

Often playing on the right side as a left-handed shot resulted in two things. Negatively, he often received pass on his backhand with no time and space so he had to rim to puck back low in the zone, resulting in a turnover or low offense play. Positively, when there was more time and space, Koster could use his best offensive zone skill: Blending a pass reception from his backhand to forehand with crossovers to walk the line and gain the middle ice. On the first clip, he walks the line beautifully and puts the puck on his hip pocket to fake a shot, then quickly beat the defensive winger to get in a more dangerous position to shot for a strong scoring chance. Overall, he exploits open space well in the offensive zone and move the puck smartly to his teammates, but could be a bit more dynamic to create for grade A scoring chances. 

Defensive play

Gap control (defending zone entry): Koster defends to zone really. He’s really good at defending the neutral zone and closing space by skating forward (soft lock angling), which is a really important attribute for modern defenseman, even more for smaller one. From the start of the video to until about 0:26 seconds, we can see how Koster uses forward skating to defend the rush, especially when he’s in the middle of the ice and needs to close play on the wall (like on a change of side across pass). He uses his stick well to close the middle of the ice and forcing to opposite player into an area along the wall, then quickly goes stick-to-stick to prevent a shot when the opposing player can’t cut anymore to the middle.

From 0:36 to 1:02, we can see how he defends when the puck is already on his side of the ice. He does a great job gaining the inside dot so with his positioning and stickwork he can force the forward to stay on the outside. Technically, his backward skating is fine. He uses complete lateral stride to maintain speed and his upper body is in a stable position, allowing him to keep strong balance. I also like how he limits his number of backward crossovers to not get exploited and stuck in a vulnerable position.

In the last clip of the video (1:06), we can see his in-zone defending: He shoulder checks to identify threat, closes space quickly with his feet and stick, leverage his strength well in battle to keep strong body position and forces the carrier high to denied to back of the net and the possibility to change to point of attack. His size may create some limitations in his in zone defensive play, but overall, he’s very efficient for the reason just stated below. He also defends the net front well by front shot and tying sticks.

Development plan focus

1.     Forward skating jump and stride. Like we’ve seen, Koster is actually a strong skater with great edges work, agility, weight shifting and backward skating. So overall, his skating is not a huge concern for me, but getting more jump & explosiveness in his 1st few steps (like a 0:10 in the video) will help him getting quicker on puck retrieval for more time and space and will help him creating more separation after beating F1.

2.     Separating his upper body and stride when carrying the puck. In the video, after a great defensive play and strong edge work + weight shift to jump and carry the puck (0:03), you can see how Koster’s upper body in not stable (goes up/down) when carrying the puck forward. What it does it that Koster is doing 1 stickhandle / by 1 stride, limiting his ability to gain speed and to change direction by separating his upper and lower body on a lateral cut. 

Skating and skills/development coaches + specific work in the gym can help point 1 and 2. 

3.     Offensive zone play. Like we saw in the clips and with the numbers, Koster does some really good things in the offensive zone like walking the line, getting shots through & exploiting open space with the puck. What I haven’t seen in the three games I tracked (as shown by the offensive zone microstats) is some high-end passing/playmaking to the slot area and some, but not a lot of off the puck movement to exploit higher-danger area lower in the offensive. As we can with Koster heat map actions from In Stat, most of his action in the offensive zone comes from the blueline:

The plan to improve his passing to high-danger area would be: Tracking his puck touches and making sure he’s getting an high quantity of touches so he has more opportunities to make plays. Obviously tracking his high-danger area pass progression. Video work to translate his deception habits, patience, exploiting of space, problem solving skills and skills stacking that we saw in his breakout and neutral play to his offensive zone play.

To improve his off the puck movement, doing video work of where is the open space and when to activate a switch or a drive and working on these plays in practice is the best ways to makes it a constant habit. After, you can see with OZ heat map if it’s translating to game. 

Conclusion

I’m a big believer in Koster’s game. As for more specific defenseman characteristics, he’s great on pressure breakout puck retrieval and a really strong NZ defender, the two most important skills I look for when evaluating/recruiting/developing defenseman. For his overall game, as we saw, his hockey intelligence is really high, from using deception, exploiting space, problem solving, skills stacking and confidence in making play, which gives him high upside, in my opinion. If his development continues in the right direction, the Toronto Maple Leafs may have fond a real diamond in the rough that fits their style of play perfectly.

All clip taken from In Stat hockey