After a disappointing 2023-24 season, the Seattle Kraken organization made important changes to its leadership structure. On the one hand, the Kraken brought in two big-ticket free agents in Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour–advertising both for their on-ice exploits but also their leadership and experience winning Stanley Cups.
On the other hand, the team shook up the coaching staff by dismissing bench boss Dave Hakstol and allowing his top assistants Paul McFarland and Jay Leach to depart. Into their places stepped Dan Bylsma, Jessica Campbell, and Bob Woods–along with an expanded role for holdover assistant Dave Lowry.
Jordan Eberle told Sound Of Hockey that this year’s group has “a different vibe.” “New coaching staff, some new players added. All in all, a new re-energized group.”
That said, the coaches aren’t exactly unknown quantities, having coached in the organization at the NHL or AHL previously. Ryan Winterton noted that it’s been an easy transition on the players mentally because “You know all the drills already.”
The only exception is Woods–the coach the team has tabbed to lead the Kraken defense and power play unit. Woods has experience coaching alongside Bylsma, but is a fresh voice for the players with his own coaching style and schematic preferences.
So, I wanted to take a look at Seattle’s one true outside coaching hire this past offseason. I dug into the data and film from Woods’ recent six-plus-year tenure with the Minnesota Wild, and a couple things stand out right away about how he got his defenses to play.
First, his defenses limit high-danger chances with ruthless efficiency. Woods’ teams stay disciplined to the inside protecting the “house,” and are more than willing to concede outside possession and high-low passes to the point that result in low-percentage chances. No team forced teams into worse-quality shots on a per-shot basis than the Wild. This is a credit to the Wild players, of course, but it is also by their coach’s design. I’ll explain further below.
Second, his teams play fundamentally sound, error-free hockey. The Wild prioritized structure over aggressiveness, but when the opponent slips up or takes a poor shot, the defense moves the puck out of harm’s way effectively–limiting rebound chances, avoiding defensive-zone giveaways and botched puck retrievals. All of this adds up to a defense that was not only annually above-average, but by some shot quality metrics the best in the league during Woods’ tenure.
Without further ado, let’s get into Woods’ experience and how his defenses have performed. In a Part II post, I’ll get into the schemes Woods has used, and what it can tell us about how the Kraken will play this coming season.
Woods is a hockey lifer and championship performer
Woods, a native of LeRoy, Saskatchewan, grew up playing junior hockey in Western Canada. In his draft season, Woods was a point-per-game defenseman for the Brandon Wheat Kings of the WHL, and the New Jersey Devils selected him in the 10th round of the 1988 NHL Draft.
He spent parts of the next three years with New Jersey’s AHL team, the Utica Devils, before settling in as mostly an ECHL player after that. Ultimately, he would total 164 AHL games and 644 in the ECHL, but he never broke through to play even a single NHL game.
As his career progressed later, Woods admits he started shifting his thinking about his hockey future: “Hockey was always a big part of my life, and it’s something I had a lot of passion for,” he said in his introductory press conference to local media. “Once you get later in your career you start thinking about what the future looks like, and I knew I wanted to stay involved with hockey.” Thus, during the 1997-98 season–while still playing defense for the Tallahassee Tiger Sharks of the ECHL–he added a new role: “assistant coach.”
The next year Woods began a career-defining partnership. He landed with the ECHL’s Mississippi Sea Wolves as a player-assistant coach under head coach Bruce Boudreau. That team ended as 1998-99 Kelly Cup champions, but perhaps more important to Woods was the relationship he built with Boudreau and just how much he learned about coaching: “I got to be with Bruce there which was a nice start. I learned a lot from him [in addition to] the coaches that I played for,” Woods explained. (Woods also played under Barry Trotz and Gerard Gallant, among others.)
Though Boudreau left the Sea Wolves after that championship season, Woods stayed on as a player and assistant coach for two more campaigns before finally hanging up the skates after the 2000-01 season. He could still play–he led the Sea Wolves in scoring his final season–but he had a new opportunity with the team: head coach.
Woods helmed the Sea Wolves for five seasons–an important time when he developed all aspects of his coaching. “At that level, you have your hands on everything. You do a lot of different roles and you learn to be pretty efficient [delivering your message],” Woods said in an interview with KJR Radio.
With that experience in hand, Woods left the ECHL in 2005 to reunite with Boudreau as assistant coach for the Hershey Bears. The collaboration was again immediately successful. The two reached the pinnacle of AHL success, a Calder Cup, in Year 1. (Woods had earlier won the Calder Cup with the Bears as a player in the 1996-97 season.)
The partnership continued for another season-plus until Boudreau was hired as coach of the Washington Capitals midway through the 2007-08 season and Woods stepped into the head job for the Bears.
As it turns out, the 2008-09 season was Woods’ only full season as an AHL head coach, but it was a memorable one, with Woods and Hershey again hoisting the Calder Cup at season’s end.
From there, Woods climbed into the NHL ranks, taking an assistant job on Boudreau’s Capitals staff (alongside Dean Evason) in the 2009-10 season. After the Capitals fired Boudreau and his staff midway through the 2011-12 season, Woods moved with Boudreau to Anaheim, where they coached together for another couple of years.
In 2014, Woods left Boudreau’s staff to take a job as general manager and head coach of the WHL Saskatoon Blades. He held these positions for two years until he got a call from then-Sabres head coach Dan Bylsma with an invitation to coach the defense and power play for Buffalo during the 2016-17 season.
“This was too great of an offer to pass up,” Woods said at the time. Referring to Bylsma specifically, Woods said, “It’s a chance to work alongside a Stanley Cup winning coach who also coached in the AHL. It’s an example I’d love to follow.”
Unfortunately for Woods and Bylsma, their Buffalo stint ended after that season. Back on the open market again, Woods found his way back onto a Boudreau staff, now in Minnesota.
Woods would end up coaching defense and the penalty kill unit for the Wild for the next six-plus seasons–even through a transition in head coach from Boudreau to Evason during the 2019-20 season. Woods’ time in Minnesota ended on Nov. 27, 2023, with the team’s firing of Evason.
When Bylsma and the Kraken contacted Woods this summer, it seems it was an easy decision for Woods to reunite with his former colleague. “[Bylsma has] such a passion for the game,” Woods said. “He’s got a lot of knowledge for the game. He’s very detailed. He’s a guy that makes it fun to come to the rink. You know, it’s not a grind. You’re grinding, but you’re having fun doing it.”
Perhaps most significantly, Woods saw that he’d have an important voice in building the next Kraken contender. “[Bylsma] gives you a voice. I thought that was the thing for me [in Buffalo] is he really allowed me to be able to have more to say and more involvement and just grow as a coach. I just took it from there [and] it just helped me grow.”
Woods’ NHL defenses have been disciplined and productive
How have Woods’ NHL defenses fared under his voice? While he hasn’t been able to replicate his minor league championships yet, his NHL defenses have consistently ranked among the league leaders in just about every important metric during his time in the league.
During Woods’ six full seasons in Minnesota (2017 to 2023), his teams ranked seventh in goals against at even strength, and 11th in goals against overall. That track record is solid, but his teams’ performances get really impressive when you try to sort through luck and goaltending effects and focus on shot quality only.
According to HockeyViz and Evolving Hockey, Minnesota’s even strength and penalty kill units were above average in suppressing opponent shot quality every season during Woods’ tenure.
Add it all up, according to Evolving Hockey the Wild were the best team in the NHL at suppressing opponent shot quality at even strength (2.05 xGAA per 60 minutes) during Woods’ six full seasons. For its part, MoneyPuck has the Wild third during this timeframe (2.28 xGAA per 60 minutes), just narrowly behind Dallas and Boston.
How have Woods’ defenses accomplished this success? A few areas stand out. From 2017-23, Woods’ Minnesota teams:
- Avoided defensive-zone turnovers (fewest giveaways in the league).
- Efficiently recovered and broke out pucks (second best in avoiding “botched” defensive zone retrievals in 2022-23, according to All Three Zones).
- Prioritized defensive structure over aggressiveness and physicality (seventh fewest takeaways; second fewest hits).
- Eliminated the second-chance opportunities (second fewest rebound attempts against and fewest rebound goals and expected goals against).
- Maintained shooting-lane coverage (ninth in blocked shots).
Most importantly, his Wild teams forced their opponents to shoot from the exterior. I’ll get into how his schemes are designed to achieve this outcome next time, but the numbers are extreme. No team in the league suppressed shot quality on a per-shot basis better than the Wild. Let’s break it down.
Woods’ Minnesota Wild teams gave up the fewest total 5-on-5 shot attempts that MoneyPuck categorized as “high danger.” On the other hand, the team conceded 10th most “low-danger” shot attempts.
Unlike the Bruins or Hurricanes, who aggressively tried to kill all shot types, Minnesota’s design was clear–protect the middle and concede the distance shot, which is unlikely to threaten. Then, clean up the rebound and break the puck out of the zone. This is further evident if we compare opponent shot quality with total shots against. Most teams appear along an apparent trendline, but the Wild under Woods were an outlier. They were willing to live with some shots provided they won the shot quality war.
Indeed, Evolving Hockey has the Wild conceding by far the lowest-quality chances on a per-shot basis in league. How extreme was the result? The difference between the Wild and the second-place team, Boston, was larger than the difference in average per-shot quality between Boston and the 26th-place team, Winnipeg, in this metric.
MoneyPuck is again slightly more conservative on the Wild defense but still puts Minnesota atop the league in limiting both high-danger shot quality and overall average per-shot quality.
HockeyViz creates shot heat maps that show where teams create or allow shots. From a defensive perspective, blue is good (it indicates the team is allowing fewer shots from that area of the ice than average) and red is bad (it means more shots). The more intense the color, the greater the impact, good or bad.
Minnesota’s defensive heat maps during Woods’ tenure show the unmistakable common trend we found in the data above–fewer dangerous chances in the slot; more from outside. (Note that the 2023-24 heat map only covers the time when Woods and Evason were still coaching the Wild.)
Of course, we should be cautious to avoid allocating all of the “credit” for this success to Woods. Head coaches have the last word on systems and philosophies, of course. But the consistency in the results across multiple head coaching administrations (Boudreau, Evason) does underscore Woods’ role.
More importantly, we cannot discount that the Wild have good players, particularly on defense. Indeed, the team’s performance limiting high-danger chances the year before Woods arrived (the 2016-17 season) and during the partial season after Woods’ firing were pretty similar to the results above. On the other hand, that sample around the margins of Woods’ tenure is much smaller than the six-plus seasons of excellence described above.
Furthermore, talent alone does not always equal production, particularly defensively. When introducing Woods in July, Bylsma hinted that Woods had the benefit of good players in Minnesota, but framed Woods’ ability to connect with star players as one of the coach’s strengths. “Bob has coached . . . some pretty big-named [defensemen] and [has been] able to establish a relationship with those guys and get them to play their best.
“I think [the] good thing about Bob is you’ve seen him do it with lots of different types of [defensemen] in the game. Carlson, Fowler, Suter, Spurgeon, they’re all in different spots. They’re all different players, [and Woods has] been able to establish a relationship with all those players and get them playing their best.”
Woods’ adaptability, attention to detail, and the relentless efficiency of his defensive approach made the Minnesota Wild very difficult to beat the last seven seasons. How did he draw up his defenses and what can we expect in Seattle? We’ll turn to those questions next time.
Woods’ resume coaching the power play is short but positive
Bob Woods wasn’t responsible for coaching the power play unit during his time in Minnesota. Instead, he coached the penalty kill and did so effectively. Minnesota was above average in suppressing opponent shot quality when the Wild were on the PK in every full season Woods was there before slipping in his final partial season before his firing.
Woods last coached an NHL power play alongside Bylsma in Buffalo, and he also did that with strong results. Woods’ power play unit was first in the league in goals scored per 60 minutes and ninth in expected goals per 60 minutes. These results stood in marked contrast to the team’s even strength offense (not coached by Woods), which checked in at 28th (third worst) in 5-on-5 goals per 60 minutes and 24th (seventh worst) in expected goals per 60 minutes.
Again using HockeyViz visuals, we can see that the power play was more effective at generating high-danger chances (darker yellow) relative to average than the even-strength offense, which struggled to create shots overall.
Woods’ year in charge of the power play also stands in contrast to the seasons before and after his tenure. According to HockeyViz, Buffalo’s power play unit was 10 percent above average at generating shot quality in Woods’ 2016-17 season, but below average in shot quality in both the 2015-16 and 2017-18 seasons.
That said, again, there is no denying that Woods was working with talent on the ice. There were elite offensive talents in Buffalo, including Jack Eichel. But in his introductory press conference, Woods was quick to downplay the need for a singular offensive talent to run a power play: “I don’t think you have to have the superstars [to succeed on the power play]. It definitely helps and creates that little bit more threat, but I think if you have five guys out there on the same page with a mission and a plan I think you can create a lot of good opportunities.” That work has begun in Seattle.
Next time: Woods’ schemes in action
As mentioned, I’ll return with a follow-up post shortly that gets into the defensive schemes Woods deployed in Minnesota to achieve the results described above. I’ll also touch on what we’ve seen in the preseason and what we can expect from Seattle moving forward.
Do you have any other questions you would like to see addressed? Drop a note below or contact us X, formerly known as Twitter @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey.
Curtis Isacke
Curtis is a Sound Of Hockey contributor and member of the Kraken press corps. Curtis is an attorney by day, and he has read the NHL collective bargaining agreement and bylaws so you don’t have to. He can be found analyzing the Kraken, NHL Draft, and other hockey topics on Twitter and Bluesky @deepseahockey.
Curtis, very comprehensive and impressive work. I think you have shown how defensive systems in hockey can be very succesful when everyone is on the same page. With the Kraken, speed up the middle will produce more break aways when the other team is kept to the outside. This makes it easier to intercept the puck and moving to a team mate because you already know where he is going to be. This is an area the Kraken can improve on and if they do, good things will happen. They will be a hard team to play against this year, I hope.
Curtis, thank you for all this excellent information. Enjoyed seeing you guys at Sound of Hockey fest and looking forward to your next part on Woods and the defense.
Not related to this article, something I wonder about is: does anyone keep track of or figure expected goals for shots that are blocked? I would think it would go a long way towards estimating part of a skater’s defensive value if one could see that he saved X number of expected goals over a season, or over the course of the playoffs. In some instances, that number would be close to 1.0 on a shot where the goalie is out of position, and the D-man (Jamie Oleksiak, say) prevents the shot from reaching an open net. In many others, though, it might only be .05 expected, if he’s blocking something shot from the blue line, for instance.
Thanks.
– Chuck
Interesting. I’ll keep my eye out for it. I haven’t seen it broken out as such in public sources, but then again I haven’t had cause to dig for it specifically. I’ll follow up if I do find something like this.
And thanks for coming to the fest. Looking forward to more stuff like that in the future (and hopefully better stuff too after some learning from the first one).
In looking at your 2017-23 charts, the Kraken logo really kind of stood out. The first one shows only the Kraken in that quadrant labeled good defense, bad goaltending. The second one has the Kraken far to the right of any other team in the fewer shots, more danger. The fourth one again has the Kraken to the far left in more shot quality per attempt.
I know this was not the point of the article but could you consolidate what all that means and net it out?
Happy to. And I’m going to touch on some of this in Part II. First I should note that this data covers only years 1 and 2 of the Kraken, not last season. So, it’s an incomplete snapshot of Seattle’s full defensive performance under Hakstol/Leach, but it gives you an idea.
The net of the Kraken data to me is that the Kraken defense was good at suppressing the total number of shots, but conceded an inordinately high number of true high danger chances. This was a hot topic of conversation in the first season in particular–defensive gaffes, turnovers, and/or blown coverages leading to point blank chances for the opponent. I attribute this mostly to issues with discipline, puck retrievals, breakouts etc., but I do think the in-zone coverage was subtly different and may at least partially explain that data (when compared with the Wild, for example). I’ll take touch on that in Part II.