Every game I can I track zone transitions for Oiler defencemen. The raw totals for the tracking stats and the glossary are at the end.
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 the better (blue) and worse (red) performances in each category. The colour coding is relative to Edmonton’s average for this season so far. 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: 73
Opponent: Anaheim Ducks
Score: 4-3 Bad Guys!
Zone Exits
It’s late so my comments are a bit abbreviated tonight. The zone exits by defencemen weren’t really the problem in this game tonight. The defencemen moved the puck reasonably well with two exceptions. Klefbom had an off game by his standards, especially relative to the other D. Gryba, meanwhile, barely got the puck out at all. That one zone exit, by the way, was a fairly weak one, passing it a few feet over the blue line with very little pressure on him. Puck movement is just not his game.
Zone Defence
That’s… a lot of red. It was a strange game by zone defence. The Ducks targeted Klefbom and Larsson equally and Oscar struggled forcing dump ins, while Larsson played a solid game in that regards. They targeted Sekera more than Russell and Sekera held his own quite well. Meanwhile, they absolutely attacked Nurse at the line. Now, Darnell didn’t get steamrolled here, but he struggled at times under the weight of it. I suspect that this might be a contributing factor to why Nurse and Gryba’s shot attempt numbers were so poor in this game (that and Gryba’s poor zone exits).
Puck Retrievals
Nothing exciting here. Fairly average.
Defensive Zone Passing
Nothing too exciting here. There were a few bad turnovers, but as a quantitative total, the Oilers D were fairly average by their standards in terms of defensive zone giveaways. Russell had a pretty solid puck moving game, with Sekera deferring to him on the breakout (not their typical pattern). The most glaring thing here is basically how Gryba never touched the puck. I posted a tweet-storm earlier in the day about how Benning has been poor since his injury on February 3rd, but it’s games like this that really highlight Gryba’s deficiencies.
Raw Total Tracking Stats
(click to enlarge)
Summary:
Again, comments are a bit brief tonight, but overall this wasn’t a terrible game. It just had terrible moments. The first period was a pretty solid one and the Oilers were unlucky to leave it with a tie. More accurately, Talbot had a bad game (after a number of great ones). The rest of the team played quite well, moved the puck well, rarely turned it over and did an overall solid job.
The second was poor and also mostly special teams (between powerplays, penalty-kills, and 4 on 4 action). The Oilers gave back what they gained in the first. Given equal goaltending, though, the game probably should have been tied (or at least within one).
The 3rd got a bit sloppy but was better than the second. The Oilers didn’t get too much going.
In a game with 10 powerplays, the Oilers did get the only goal. However, all that time killing penalties killed their momentum and their lone goal came with 7 seconds left. This was a heavy special teams game. At 5×5, Edmonton was terribly uneven, but overall average.
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
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