Zach Werenski: Anticipation, Poise and Jump
Detailing the skills and techniques Werenski is using to control center and drive an excellent offensive season
Zach Werenski has long been a pillar of the Columbus Blue Jackets since bursting onto the scene as a powerplay quarterback two years after he was drafted from the University of Michigan. Every year since that point he has been accumulating skills and reinventing his game.
Werenski joined the league at an odd time. He, along with Jones and coaches Tortorella and Shaw, helped the Blue Jackets play a style driven by their blueline. Tortorella unleashed him as a “rover”.
Since then, young defensemen such as Quinn Hughes, Rasmus Dahlin, Cale Makar, Adam Fox and Miro Heiskanen have all taken the league by storm. At the same time, talented older defensemen like Victor Hedman, Erik Karlsson, Roman Josi and Drew Doughty have all played big parts on top teams. Werenski exists in an interesting space between this generational divide.
Since Seth Jones left, Werenski has been carrying a pair himself with substandard help and injured. The NHL has been largely robbed of Zach Werenski’s prime. Now, we’re starting to see just what that might look like.
Since returning from his ankle injury, Zach Werenski has transformed his playstyle and carried a flagging Blue Jackets club along with him. “Jump” has always been a part of Werenski’s game but now he’s weaponized it. Instead of playing safe he’s created safety for his teammates by acting with aggression and moving before the opposition can adjust.
In effect, he’s no longer “roving” in search of offensive opportunities but taking over center responsibilities in search of puck possession and transition security. This new style of activation, and a commitment to remain up-ice and make defensive plays there, is a complement to his stellar anticipation and puck poise.
Zach Werenski is now handling a high volume of puck touches across the ice surface and is using his consistency to create small and incremental advantages across this high volume. From this play style, the Blue Jackets are unlocking the games of Johnny Gaudreau and pushing Boone Jenner to new heights as well.
Setting the Table
I took a scroll through NaturalStatTrick to get an idea of how the Blue Jackets are performing with and without Zach Werenski on the ice.
Pretty much every player on the Blue Jackets performs better when Zach Werenski is on the ice. The following post better possession results (CF%) when away from Zach Werenski than they do when they share the ice with him:
Cole Sillinger
Yegor Chinakhov
Alex Texier
Jake Bean
Sean Kuraly
Patrik Laine
David Jiricek
Andrew Peeke
That might seem interesting. There’s a stable of players that should perform well with a good defenseman on the ice. What’s hidden here, is how Zach Werenski performs away from those players. The following players post better CF% when away from Werenski than he does away from them:
Yegor Chinakhov (by .03%)
David Jiricek (by .49%)
Nearly everyone on the Blue Jackets has improved shot attempt share when Zach Werenski is on the ice.
In doing this type of With or Without You analysis we can run into some sample size issues, for example Werenski and David Jiricek only played 40 minutes together, and the difference in deployment can be quite complicated to factor out.
Perhaps Jiricek and Chinakhov are facing easier opponents when away from Werenski but perhaps again they may be starting in the O zone less as well. Largely, it’s not something to be too worried about. If nearly every player on the team is better when sharing the ice with a player, it’s probably safe to conclude they are performing well.
When we use EvolvingHockey’s RAPM model, which helps peer through some of the teammate/competition/deployment noise, Werenski grades out extremely favorably for his all around offensive generation at 5v5.
Zach Werenski is a dominant offensive and puck moving defenseman. With him on the ice, the Blue Jackets are generating a quite significant goal differential. According to EvolvingHockey’s GAR metrics, Zach Werenski is the 5th best player in the NHL at producing Even Strength Goals Above Replacement and the best defenseman by that metric.
He loses a lot of value because of his Powerplay production, defense and penalty killing but even after that he ranks 25th among defensemen (having played at least 200 minutes all situations) with 8.8 GAR, in the same neighborhood as Charlie McAvoy (9.5) and Cale Makar (9.1).
He grades out poorly defensively, but as a player who logs massive minutes on, what could be charitably called, a very poor defensive team, I believe there’s wiggle room for him. At the end of the day his PDO is 1.028 room for regression but not outside of, his shooting percentage is about half of his career average and he’s driving an actual goal differential.
Similarly, Zach Werenski ranks 5th among defensemen with 200 minutes at 5v5 points/60 behind only Quinn Hughes, Victor Hedman, Cale Makar and Shea Theodore.
When Werenski is on the ice at 5v5 the goals flow in the Blue Jackets’ direction.
Let’s dive into the film to give you what you really came here for.
— This is the larger video showing examples of the skills I will be detailing, in the description are timestamps of the specific skills and techniques he is using. In this article I will also have large chunks of this video with written breakdowns—
Zach Werenski’s play across the sheet of ice follows a couple of values and principles. He’s historically been a good offensive defenseman and a “rover.” Now, his focus has changed or, perhaps, advanced.
Although he very much is still joining the rush, it’s no longer centered around creating numerical advantages. Instead, he’s looking to create possessional security and assume the responsibilities of the Center position.
Werenski his built out his skillset to support his desire to control the flow of the game through the middle of the ice but no single skill is more important than his anticipation and instincts to jump into the play.
Because he can read plays so well, and correctly judge changes of possession (when he’s not creating them himself), he can get up ice and even with forwards before many of his teammates.
What this means is he’s occupying the inverse of Belfry’s “Bergeron Dilemma”; where some centers struggle to put up points because they are so often behind the play as the result of putting in so much work to get the play started. Instead, Werenski has two or three strides advantage purely because he’s reading changes of possession earlier than his teammates and the opposition.
Improving Condition of the Puck
First, here’s a quick primer from Jack Han detailing how players can improve the condition of the puck in each zone.
Quick Summary:
Defensive Zone
Get off the wall
Beat F1
Neutral Zone
Create Width
Create Speed Differential
Offensive Zone
Move Through the Funnel
Shoot and Retrieve
Defensive Zone
Nowhere is Werenski’s ability to deploy his poise and anticipation more evident than on Retrievals and Breakouts. He’s long been considered a good puck-mover, his AllThreeZones numbers are historically excellent across a variety of retrieving and exit metrics, and he’s largely done it without help (his most common partners year-to-year since Seth Jones are Jake Bean, Andrew Peeke and Adam Boqvist/Erik Gudbranson).
Werenski makes his zone feel like it’s at the top of the hill because he’s so proficient at corralling pucks, diffusing F1 pressure via skating or passing and has excellent vision and stretch passing ability.
Retrievals and Breakouts
Simple Touches off of D Zone Faceoff Wins
Space Creation and F1 Manipulation for Partner
Skating Retrievals
Teammates Struggling
Anticipation Recoveries into Zone Exits
What makes Werenski special, at least to my eyes, isn’t just his ability to do difficult things but also in his ability to do easier things proficiently. It’s within this consistency that the play feels so tilted away from his net.
Put a different way, he’s capable of improving the conditions for his teammates and then exploiting those improved conditions. There just aren’t many advantages that Werenski leaves on the table. He sets picks and screens for his partner, draws forecheckers toward him then passes around them quickly, creatively and right on the tape, skates well to dodge pressure and uses the net for space.
First Touch-Beat F1-Weakside Activate
This is the sequence chain for elite puck-moving defensemen. Dmitri Filipovic and Darryl Belfry recently did a breakdown about what skills Thomas Harley is using to drive positive results for the Dallas Stars in a breakout season.
“He is often the strong side defenseman in the retrieval and then he’s also the weak-side D seconds later.”
This is one of Zach Werenski’s specialties. Oftentimes he seeks to only get the first touch on the puck. To the untrained eye, this can seem lazy. In reality, Werenski is baiting the forechecker into moving away from his partner and preventing himself from getting trapped on the boards.
He marries this intention with intuitive one-touch passing and great poise. He’s certainly capable of escaping high-pressure situations, with his feet or skilled passes, but far more often he makes the simple play that gets the job done equally well.
I believe this clip shows Werenski combining nearly all of his vast repertoire of game impact skills.
First, he retrieves the puck and delays before cleanly moving the puck to his partner. Having bought him time and judged the situation safe, he jumps up ice and offers a cross-ice passing option to Adam Boqvist.
Boqvist is a sneaky good lateral passer, the primary reason he works so well with Werenski, and hits him on the tape. The two have combined to bypass the first layer of the forecheck and Werenski is now drawing the third layer towards him.
He then moves the puck quickly through the structure again, completing a cross-lane pass from the middle exit to Boone Jenner with speed.
Jenner heaves a questionable backhand across the blueline but Werenski is paying attention and makes the recovery without too much fuss. From there, Werenski moves the puck to Jack Roslovic and sets up near the dot for an open one-timer threat.
Instead, he recovers the puck and makes an exchange with Adam Boqvist at the center point before throwing a puck on net, it being blocked and him recovering the puck once again. After that, he moves the puck to an open Roslovic and, having exchanged his position with Boone Jenner, goes to the net.
Jenner can’t get the shot through and the sequence ends. During this sequence of possession Werenski had six puck touches. Each of these touches beat a defender in some capacity and he either completed a pass to or across the center lane or received the pass there. He recovered 4 four pucks (the retrieval, two shots and the Jenner loose pass), created an exit and had a shot blocked.
Said another way, Zach Werenski got off the wall, beat F1, passed to width and speed differential, moved through the funnel and shot and retrieved pucks.
Neutral Zone
I’ll touch more on some of the better aspects of his neutral zone and rush play in the next section but it’s still important to illustrate how he realizes the advantages from improved conditions.
Though he does create width and speed differential with his skating through the neutral zone, more often that is the responsibility of a forward. Zach Werenski owns the middle of the ice but it’s through his passing and distribution that he realizes the “improved conditions” that his wingers create.
Stretch Passing
Zach Werenski loves to build danger through retrieval and breakout sequences, but if you give his advanced forwards space in the neutral zone, he will take advantage. It’s this heads up stretch passing that has unlocked Johnny Gaudreau in the back half of this season.
Middle Drive
In all aspects of his game, Zach Werenski prioritizes the center of the ice. His first pass after retrieving pucks is through a layer to the middle. If he can’t pass it, he’s trying to skate and handle there.
If he’s not passing to the middle of the ice, as we just saw, he’s moving it to a teammate with time and space and skating there for a quick return. It’s this last habit on breakouts, weakside activation, that has taken him to the next level this season.
Neutral Zone Activation
Entries and Middle Lane Drives
Rush Shooting
Chance Setups
After activating to the middle, and often receiving the puck because of how easy he’s made the return pass (and because of chemistry with common partner Adam Boqvist), he continues to occupy this space through the neutral zone. From here, Werenski can move the puck to his teammates and skate into support positions or he can carry the puck himself.
Often, he moves a puck and attacks the gap between rush defenders on his way to drive the net. This is the Blue Jackets preferred F2 behavior after crossing the blue line. I think this delineation is important. Zach Werenski isn’t just roving for advantages he’s fully occupying a forwards responsibilities because he’s in the right position.
This goal video takes a while to get there but you can see he is perfectly prepared to handle the distribution duties that come with occupying the middle of the ice.
From there, he continues to play up-ice. He’s not extending a leash or leaving a void that he’ll have to return to, he’s filling a role or a responsibility that would extend to any other player in his position. If he’s dumping the puck, he’s forechecking and playing there until a turnover or his team gains possession.
It’s in this focus not just on offense but on possession that Werenski has also made an impact. Through his driving the middle he’s causing problems for the defense that require a response.
He and Seth Jones, under Head Coach John Tortorella and Assistant Brad Shaw, were early adopters of pinching to keep plays alive in the offensive zone. Now, Werenski has taken the next step. He pinches, moves the puck to a teammate and immediately jumps to beat his man to the middle of the ice for return shooting opportunities.
If he doesn’t get a shot he lands on the net to pick up rebounds. If he doesn’t find those, or the puck doesn’t make it to the net, he’s moving through the center which gives him a speed differential advantage for recovering pucks along the boards.
Offensive Zone Movement
Turning Pinches into Middle Opportunities
Playing for Possession Behind the Net
Off Puck Net Drives
Shooting off the Pass
In the following clip, you can see all of these habits come into play. At first, he’s activating into a dangerous weakside shooting position. Because he’s in that position, he takes advantage of the Senators’ compressed defensive shape and recovers a rebound along with boards and has time and space to spare.
Boqvist rims the puck, Jenner continues and Werenski pinches to pressure the recovery and regain control. Werenski fights through Kubalik’s check, moves the puck to an open Boone Jenner and immediately slides to the middle.
He doesn’t get the puck for a shot opportunity but he does move through the middle to the far-side dot where Severson finds him across the ice. You’d expect a one-timer but Werenski has his head up and finds Gaudreau on the back-door. No goal but a lot of danger created downstream of a pinch along the boards.
Despite his snake-bitten finishing, his style of play and the constant improvement of play conditions for his teammates is driving the aforementioned 5v5 goal differential.
Driving Forces
Zach Werenski uses his anticipation and poise to improve the condition of the puck, drive the interior and create danger. Through that motion he sustains and ensures possession and drives a 5v5 goal differential.
Furthermore, his versatility across this variety of domains, combined with his selflessness and use of teammates, means he’s a player capable of taking what the defense is giving him.
Against poor neutral zone or defensive teams he slices them apart with stretch and crosslane passes. Against stout teams he moves the quick efficiently to the correct person and is content to choose his spots for this high danger creation attempts.
When his partner is activated, he’s a competent distributor from the blueline.
It’s his desire to exploit the defense where the advantage is that makes him a perfect fit for an interchangeable system. Like we see with defensemen in Florida, the right person for the job is the closest one. He doesn’t activate and and play the center position because he’s good at it, though he is pretty good there, he does it because it creates the most threat and because it’s just the right way to play.
All-in-all, he’s the type of player that understands his teammates skillsets, seeks to deploy his skills within them and constantly works to enable their performance. When surrounded by better players we should expect him to continue to find new ways to express his skills and create teamwide offense.
Zach Werenski is the architect of the Blue Jackets playstyle, captain material if you ask me.
Future Considerations
Defense
Werenski still has room for improvement. His defensive numbers are quite reasonable, all things considered, as garish as they look on the RAPM. The Blue Jackets do give up more chances with him on the ice but after HockeyViz adjusts for his teammates he doesn’t look so bad.
I don’t necessarily think Werenski will ever be a particularly dominant shot-suppressing, cycle-stopping defenseman. He has an excellent stick and uses is like a precision instrument to dislodge pucks from carriers. His defensive value is going to be primarily brought by exiting the zone and through possession elsewhere.
Still, if he could create more turnovers with active neutral zone defending, the Blue Jackets would be in an even better position. He has the skating and footwork to be good there but he tends to default to more absorb style defending. His motor tends to run low and he doesn’t close on puck carriers with a speed that surprises them.
Still, his stick placement is usually disruptive and he employs modern weak-side fold and forward skating techniques. The components for a solid neutral-zone disruptor are there.
It’s entirely possible, in fact probable, that the Blue Jackets forwards aren’t applying enough backpressure to enable him to play aggressively. Yegor Chinakhov and Adam Fantilli are certainly fantastic skaters but the rest of the CBJ forward corps isn’t exactly aggressive or intense in their tracking.
If the Blue Jackets upgrade their center-spine, or Fantilli, Sillinger or Voronkov take significant growth steps in forechecking, we could see Werenski round out his game in this area.
Florida is a perfect example of how a dominant forecheck can turn into better neutral zone defense. If Columbus can find a better forecheck scheme, perhaps that too can result in downstream improvements.
There’s room for a better fit across the board for the Blue Jackets defensively. Zach Werenski tends to puck watch and, especially in their in-zone structure, his low motor results in a passive approach. In a previous season where he played a man-on-man system, he had good defensive numbers all around.
I wrote recently about the difference in Carolina and Columbus’ top-units in a film breakdown recently and Zach Werenski certainly isn’t alone in his tendency to puck-watch.
Perhaps moving away from a bogged down conservative and shot block forward system like Boston and Vegas, and towards a man-on-man as a means for aggression system like Carolina or Florida would pay dividends for a young and fast Blue Jackets team.
In any case, as the Blue Jackets mature, I think we should see Zach Werenski’s stock continue to rise especially if he can stay healthy and even moreso if the Blue Jackets can find him a quality partner. Maybe then the NHL can truly be treated to this excellent defenseman’s prime.
Powerplay
Zach Werenski has really only been a good powerplay quarterback in his rookie season. In that season he posted 5.29 Points/60 on the powerplay which was good for the 12st best defensemen who had accumulated at least 100 powerplay minutes.
From 18-19 to 20-21, he put up three seasons all in the 4+ points/60 range and since the “rebuild” or since adding Patrik Laine his points/60 has never crested 4.
His current season is at an all time low and the Blue Jackets have an absolutely dismal powerplay. Johnny Gaudreau has been the main feature and he too isn’t a particularly stellar powerplay creator.
It’s possible that Zach Werenski never totally crests high point totals, in part because of the powerplay struggles. If the Blue Jackets are to succeed in the playoffs while he’s on the team, he’ll have to find a way to create more stops in the neutral zone or become a better powerplay QB.
Finishing
Zach Werenski has historically been an excellent finisher who uses a quick release and clever shooting locations to maximize the efficiency of his talents. He lead all defensemen in goals with 20 in 2019-20.
This season Werenski is shooting 3.06% at 5v5, the lowest mark of his career, when his normal career average is 5.6%. 5 of his 8 seasons up to this point have been greater than 6%.
His sG performance has him as a poor finisher. Perhaps he’s due for some positive regression, he has 17 high danger shots on goal but only 1 has scored, according to NHL Edge. That accounts for a 5.9% HDS% where league average is 14.1%.
Considering he’s had two major surgeries on his shoulders perhaps this might just be life after injuries. Looking through his NHL Edge data for shooting speed, his 2023-2024 shot speed numbers look about even with his 2021-2022 numbers. Speed isn’t everything and he certainly looks to be the part but perhaps shooting accuracy adjustment is something that will take a little more time post-injury.