Oilers vs Flames: Tracking Stats

The following stats were tracked during manually during the game. The raw totals for the tracking stats and the glossary are at the end.

At some point I’ll write up a detailed description of each category and my specific rules for each. You can find more information on Zone Exits here and Zone Defence here. Feel free to leave any questions in the comments or on Twitter (@wheatnoil).

I’ve highlighted some of the better (blue) and worse (red) performances in each category. All time on ice stats are from www.naturalstattrick.com . I’ve provided some commentary after each section and at the end. Feel free to fire me a question or comment if you have one about the numbers.

Game: 49

Opponent: Calgary Flames

Score: 7-3 Good Guys!

Zone Exits

This wasn’t a good game for the Oiler defence across the board. We start with the zone exits, where the team was below average. Only Benning put together a reasonable game in this regards. Klefbom only had 3 exits all game. The rest were not good enough either. This team will need to be better than that on nights where the opposing goalie isn’t a sieve.

Zone Defence

This was a funny game for zone defence. I coded a lot of denials but overall the Oilers allowed more controlled zone entries than they typically do. The zone denials, themselves, were also not particularly effective. A lot of them involved breaking up the play at or just inside the blue line and sending it back, but not maintaining possession. It’s a good play, but Calgary just reloads and comes back in. Only 28% of targeted zone entry attempts by the Flames led to a dump-in. These numbers don’t include the 9 controlled entries of untargeted entries, most of which were odd-man rushes. Only Larsson had a good number in this game. You can see from the total numbers that the Flames preferentially target the left, which has been a consistent theme for them in past games I’ve tracked and I think is in large part due to Gaudreau. Larsson and Benning at least managed to hold the line somewhat, though they still allowed a high frequency of controlled entries. Kris Russell… struggled.

Puck Retrievals

I wouldn’t read much into this chart. The numbers are low here on account of the aforementioned few number of dump-ins.

Defensive Zone Passing

This doesn’t look terribly bad in regards to turnovers, but it’s worth noting that the majority of the defensive zone turnovers I recorded happened in that awful first period that the Oilers somehow escaped with a 3-0 lead. The Oilers settled down a bit after that. As far as puck movement went, Sekera had the strongest game by my tracking, with Benning coming in second place.

Raw Total Tracking Stats

(click to enlarge)

Summary:

This was a strange game to watch in that I was highly disappointed with the overall performance but thrilled with the outcome. It feels great to stomp the Flames, sweep the season series and have a 9 point lead on them in the standings. However, this was still a poorly played game by the Oilers. Sekera and Benning had the strongest game. Sekera did it playing Top 4 minutes while Benning did it playing the right side, which was the principle side of attack by the Flames. The rest of the team left something to be desired pretty well across the board. The Oilers will need to be better.

That said, two points and breathing room in the standings!

Definitions:

Zone Exit

Controlled Zone Exit: Getting the puck out of the zone maintaining possession

Carry: Skating the puck out of the zone, the defenceman keeps possession himself

Pass: Passing the puck out of the zone, the team maintains possession

Uncontrolled Zone Exit: Getting the puck out of the zone but losing possession to the other team

Dump: No clear target when getting the puck out

Missed Pass: Appears to have a clear target but pass is not complete

Zone Defence

Times Targeted: Number of times a defenceman was specifically targeted by the opposing player on a zone entry against

Denied Entry: Defenceman prevents the opposing team from entering the zone, forcing them to regroup or causing them to lose possession in the neutral zone

Controlled Entry Against: Opposing team is able to enter the zone with possession of the puck (maintained for at least one second)

Dump In Against: Opposing team is gets the puck into the zone but without possession of the puck

Untargeted: Controlled and Uncontrolled Entries against where either a defenceman was not the primary player targeted on entry OR an odd man rush not directly caused by one of the defencemen

Defensive Zone Passing

Total Touches: Number of the times the defenceman clearly has the puck on his stick in the defensive zone

To D-Partner: Successful defensive zone pass to another defenceman within the defensive zone

To Forward: Successful defensive zone pass to a forward within the defensive zone

Turnover: Other team gains possession of the puck after the defenceman clearly had possession of it

Puck Retrieval

Total: Number of times the defenceman is the closest to the puck off of an uncontrolled entry to the zone

Successful: Defenceman retrieves the puck and successfully either gets it out of the zone or passes it a teammate, retaining possession

Failed: Defenceman either turns the puck over after retrieving it or the other team gets possession off the uncontrolled entry