For the last 11 games of the season, I’ve been tracking zone exits at even-strength by Oilers defensemen. The first post in the series is here. It explains some of the background and rationale for why I’m doing this project. The summary is that getting the puck out of the zone with control by passing or carrying it out has an enormous advantage over dumping it out. A controlled zone exit leads to an offensive zone attack the vast majority of the time. An uncontrolled zone exit usually leads to the other team coming right back in on the offensive. If you’re unfamiliar with zone exits, I highly recommend checking out either my first post, or this excellent primer by Jen Lute Costella here.
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When the Oilers were getting taken apart in the last Calgary game, I wondered why I picked up this project now. The last few games of another lost season seems like the last time someone would want to watch more hockey. Maybe I’m a masochist, forcing myself to watch every minute of a game well after the team itself seems to have given up.
I think, though, doing this project allowed me to get some enjoyment out of the end of this season. This is fascinating to me, breaking down a specific aspect of the game in detail. It forces me to watch for details I let pass by before: subtle moments in break-outs or positioning in the neutral zone. It reminded me, after all the losing, that I still obsessively love hockey… right down to its minutia.
Definitions
Controlled Exits include the defenseman getting the puck out of the zone by Passing or Carrying it out. The important thing is that possession is maintained into the neutral zone. I also recorded whether they Assisted on a Controlled Exit, meaning they made the primary pass before a forward either carried or passed it out.
Uncontrolled Exits include the defenseman getting the puck out of the zone but losing possession of the puck in the process. I categorized them into Dump-outs or Missed Passes and also recorded whether they Assisted on an Uncontrolled Exit.
Assists are useful in that defensemen who get the puck to forwards in a good spot usually help lead to Controlled Exits, while poorly placed passes often result in Uncontrolled Exits. However, the skill of the forward obviously plays a role here. McDavid can get a pass from behind his own net and skate it out himself. Korpikoski may flub an outlet pass resulting in an Uncontrolled Exit. So I’ve looked at the numbers both including and excluding Assists.
Raw Data
First, here’s the unsorted raw data. As usual, this is not immediately useful, but I have it here for reference.
I’m going to go through each defenseman and break down the numbers a little, putting them into context. Let’s start with the King of the Zone Exit himself.
Jordan “The King” Oesterle
Jordan freaking Oesterle. After his initial run of excellent zone exit numbers, I expected him to come back down a little bit. He didn’t. Jordan Oesterle’s ability to get the puck out with control is head and shoulders over every other defenseman and it’s not close! Oesterle has maintained his skills fairly consistently game to game too. He has not had a single game with lower than a 50% Controlled Zone Exit rate, while also having three games at 100%, more than anyone else. He’s very good at getting the puck out and you can count on him to do it consistently.
Adam “Small Sample Size” Pardy
Pardy looks surprisingly good here, which is interesting because I didn’t notice him being strong by eye while tracking this. There’s three factors at play here.
One is sample size. It’s been three games, so it’s important not to read too much into these numbers. If I have time to go back and track a couple games before his hand injury, I’ll do so.
Two is that this chart only tells you the percentage of Controlled vs Uncontrolled Zone Exits. It doesn’t tell you how often those events occurred. Turns out, this is quite revealing for Pardy. This next chart looks at the Controlled and Uncontrolled Exits per 60 minutes of ice-time. It’s sorted by Controlled Exits/60.
Aha! Where-as by percentages, Pardy looks to be almost as good as Oesterle, by actual Controlled Exits, he’s basically the same as Reinhart and Nurse (and Nikitin in one game). Overall, Pardy is fairly low event when it comes to Zone Exits. He doesn’t get the puck out with anywhere near the frequency that Oesterle does (who, by the way, is up at the top of the chart again).
The third factor to consider with Pardy is competition. For each of these games, I recorded how much of each defenseman’s own ice time was spent against the opposing team’s top point producer. These represent fairly heavy minutes.
Pardy is down at the bottom of that chart. In the three games he’s played (Calgary and twice against Vancouver), he’s managed to avoid the Sedins and Gaudreau. So Pardy has certainly received the softer competition for the games he’s been in.
Despite these caveats, however, it’s still important to point out that Pardy has done reasonably well in the last three games of the season. I just wouldn’t use that data as an overwhelming reason to bring him back in isolation.
Darnell “The Rookie” Nurse
Nurse is the most volatile of the bunch. While his average numbers look pretty good, his numbers game to game are all over the place. For example, Nurse had two games with 100% Controlled Zone Exits (a feat usually reserved for Oesterle) but also one at 0%. It’s not even tied to competition or minutes played. One of his best Zone Exit games came when he was fed huge minutes against Kopitar on the road in LA.
I suspect this inconsistency is Because 21 Years Old. He averages out looking relatively good but you never know which Nurse you’re going to get from any game in particular. Still, those good games give you flashes of what he could become.
Griffin “Steady-Eddy” Reinhart
Reinhart shows up in the middle of the pack, being neither a strong nor a poor puck mover relative to his Oiler peers. In contrast to Nurse, he has the least volatility game to game. Reinhart has been within 45 – 71% in 9 of his 11 games. By comparison, Nurse has only been in that “middle range” for one of his 10 games. More than any other defender, Reinhart has been the most consistent in his zone exits game to game.
It’s important to remember that Reinhart really settled in to finish out the year, especially once paired with Oesterle, so he may have shown much greater volatility earlier in the year.
Nikita Nikitin and Adam Clendening – The Expendables
I only tracked one of Nikitin’s games, so I wouldn’t think much of his number. Puck-movement was never Nikitin’s major problem anyways.
Clendening did not move the puck well enough during his string of games. This is particularly galling since Clendening’s puck movement was supposed to be his strength. I’m not surprised he lost his roster spot to Pardy. I would be shocked if Clendening is back next year.
Andrej “Huh, I Expected That To Be Better” Sekera
Sekera does not look good here, which I was a bit surprised by. He certainly looks like a good puck mover and his corsi numbers are strong. You can’t get good possession numbers without getting the puck out of your zone and it’s not like Fayne is helping him much. It’s not just a high number of missed passes either. Sekera also has a higher rate of “dump-outs” than any other Oilers defenseman, just flipping the puck to the neutral zone with no clear target around.
There’s a couple factors to consider here.
First, last time I pointed out that Sekera was playing top competition far more than any other defenseman. Here’s that updated competition chart once again.
There’s Sekera at the top again. However, the gap is not as wide as it was after the first update, when Sekera was facing the top forward for over 40% of his time on ice. Since then, the Oilers have played more road games, where they don’t get the final change. In LA, Sutter managed to get Kopitar out against Nurse instead of Sekera. Reinhart ended up getting heavy minutes against Thornton in San Jose. In fact, even at home, McLellan tried Reinhart out in heavy minutes against Getzlaf and Gaudreau. This narrowed the gap between the defensemen, though McLellan still went back to Sekera against Vancouver, finishing out the year playing 50% of his TOI against Daniel Sedin. In any case, though Sekera did play harder competition than his peers, I don’t believe the gap was enough to explain his low Controlled Exit Percentage.
There is one more factor to consider. As with Pardy, it’s important to look at the frequency of Controlled Exits, not just the percentage. This is the same chart as earlier with Controlled and Uncontrolled Zone Exits per 60 minutes of ice-time. It does not include Assists (which we’ll come back to later).
That looks more like what I expected! Despite a low Controlled Exit Percentage, Sekera actually gets the puck out with control at a rate pretty close to that of Oesterle. The difference is that he also contributes to an extremely high rate of Uncontrolled Exits… far greater than anyone else. Sekera gets the puck out of the zone, one way or another, at a much higher rate than any other defenseman.
So, why does Sekera get the puck out so often? Well, look at his partner for the last 11 games. Down at the bottom is Mr. Mark Fayne, who stands out starkly compared to all other Oilers D-men. Fayne gets the puck out of the Oilers zone at a significantly lower rate than any other Oilers defenseman both in terms of Controlled Exits and in Total Exits.
In fact, if you look at the Total Zone Exits for each defenseman, you’ll see that everyone is in a pretty narrow range except for Sekera and Fayne. While Reinhart / Oesterle and Nurse / Clendening / Pardy get the puck out at a fairly balanced rate, Sekera does most of the heavy lifting on his pairing, taking care 2/3 of his pairing’s zone exits! I suspect, but don’t know, that this likely impacts his Controlled Exit Percentage.
So there is some context to Sekera’s low Controlled Exit Percentage, though you’d still like that number to be a bit better.
Mark “K.I.S.S.” Fayne
This leads us to Fayne, down at the bottom, indicating he’s the worst at zone exits of the bunch. However, I’d like you to note his number once you include Assists. It’s not incredible, but it does move him out of the basement and on par with the “middle group” of Nurse and Reinhart.
Remember, an Assist means Fayne passed it to a forward, who subsequently got the puck out of the zone. As opposed to passing it over the blue-line or dumping it out, Assists often involve a shorter and perhaps simpler pass.
This next chart has a lot more numbers in it, but it’s really just the same chart we saw with Sekera and Pardy (Exits / 60) but adds in Assists / 60. This time I sorted it by Controlled Assists/60.
Here, you see Fayne actually leading the team in Controlled Assists/60. What’s more, he actually has the lowest number of Uncontrolled Assists/60. Fayne, in these last 11 games, has been very good at getting the puck to a forward in the defensive zone so they can break out with control.
Now, even when you add in these Assists, Fayne still averages the lowest rate of Total Exits/60. He’s still not a good puck-mover. However, he knows his role and his limitations well. He’s your K.I.S.S. defenseman… Keep It Simple, Stupid. Fayne actually doesn’t attempt a Zone Exit all that often. When he does, the results have not been positive, given his low Controlled Exit Percentage. However, when he makes the short pass, gets it up to the forward in a good spot, he’s far more successful.
Summary
Jordan “The King” Oesterle can move the puck at an NHL level. Period. He’s money.
Darnell Nurse is inconsistent, showing his true potential some games and his Rookie in others.
Griffin Reinhart is consistently middle of the pack in regards to puck movement.
Clendening was not good enough. Nikitin is gone. Pardy looked fine in soft minutes and a small sample size but I wouldn’t bet the farm on him yet.
Andrej Sekera does the heavy lifting, but you’d hope for a little better.
Mark Fayne does best when he keeps it simple, but still isn’t much of a puck mover. If you want to know why he and Sekera have good possession numbers… I might have the answer in my next post.
Next Up
I’ll have Part 2 of my zone tracking project, looking at Zone Entries Against, up soon.
Spoiler alert: just because you’re good at getting the puck out of zone, doesn’t mean you’re good at keeping it out (and vice versa)!
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