Oilers at Rangers: 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. The full post-game recap was written by Alex Thomas.

At some point I’ll write up a detailed description of each category and my specific rules for each. Once I do, I will provide a link to it in this summary. 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 and there’s a summary of each defenceman at the end. All time on ice stats are from www.naturalstattrick.com .

Game: 11

Opponent: New York

Score: 5-3 Bad Guys

Zone Exits

Zone Defence

Puck Retrievals

at f

Defensive Zone Passing

Summary:

General: The defence doesn’t seem as bad as one might expect based on a game when they were being terribly outshot. However, the real answer can be found by look at “Touches/60”. I don’t have an average per game to compare it to but trust me when I say that, compared to the rest of the games so far this season, that’s a pretty low total for the defense. When they got the puck, their zone exits weren’t bad (3rd period excluded wehre they racked up the uncontrolled exits). Their defence at the blue line wasn’t bad either with only Klefbom having an usually bad game (but also targeted very few times). The problem was all in-zone stuff. Blown coverage, wide open Rangers in front, and an inability to get the puck on their stick.

In addition to that, I think the lack of sustained zone pressure by the offence really impacted the shot attempt totals as well.

One interesting stat, only 39% (11 of 28) controlled exits by Oilers defencemen were converted into a controlled entry into the Ranger zone. That seems low to me, but honestly I have no idea because this is the first game I’ve kept track of that. I’ll keep tabs on that for future games to see if there’s some variability there. Among Oiler D, Sekera was the most effective at turning his controlled zone exits into controlled zone entries (4 of 6). Russell was the least effective (none of 3).

Now, that’s still better than uncontrolled exits, of course. None of the 15 uncontrolled exits by Oiler D-men resulted in a controlled zone entry into the Rangers end. In fact, 10 of those 15 resulted in the Rangers coming right back into the Oiler zone. Again, I’ll keep track of these stats for future games to see how the Oilers typically do there.

One note of Matt Benning. He took a lot of flak on Twitter last night for the game winning goal. I’d give the guy a little break. He didn’t have a bad game, even though his puck movement stats look fairly lacklustre. That was an odd play and it could’ve happened to anyone. I did wonder what in hell Lucic was doing in front of the net there, other than having popcorn and watching the go-ahead goal being scored. On the other hand, while Benning has looked fine by my eye these last two games, in both of them I’ve found myself surprised at how low his puck movement frequency is. He looks like a better puck mover than my tracking stats indicate, but maybe I’m deluding myself and giving him a low bar. Personally, I’d still like to see Oesterle back up.

Raw Total Tracking Stats:

(click to enlarge)

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