Feed Me A Stray Cat
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Great article from puck prospectus. http://puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1467
The idea of tracking zone exits is to measure how good a defenseman is at, well, moving the puck and creating effective transitions. There is often a misnomer that because a defenseman is pegged as a "shutdown" guy, he is automatically superior defensively than a puck-mover who might have less physicality and know how in his own end.
However, take an interesting quote by Dave Tippet:
"I'll give you an example. We had a player that was supposed to be a great, shutdown defenseman. He was supposedly the be-all, end-all of defensemen. But when you did a 10-game analysis of him, you found out he was defending all the time because he can't move the puck. Then we had another guy, who supposedly couldn't defend a lick. Well, he was defending only 20 percent of the time because he's making good plays out of our end. He may not be the strongest defender, but he's only doing it 20 percent of the time. So the equation works out better the other way. I ended up trading the other defenseman."
The writer of the PP article has done his own analysis of some 200 games, counting defensize zone exits and their success rate. Here are the worst defensemen in the analysis:
Worst zone breakout defensemen
Volchenkov is one of the worst defenseman in the NHL at clearing the puck out of the zone. He might be good defending his own end, but it really doesn't matter if he can't clear the puck out and is stuck in his own end all the time.
Similar case for Salvador.
Now, the best defensemen at breaking out of the zone:
Best zone breakout defensemen
The list makes a good degree of sense. Nice to see Fayne so how high, which lends credence to what a lot of us think of his play.
The Devils should get real and realize that it is not necessary to ice both Volchenkov and Salvador. Put Anton in the press box and give Harrold more ice time.
The idea of tracking zone exits is to measure how good a defenseman is at, well, moving the puck and creating effective transitions. There is often a misnomer that because a defenseman is pegged as a "shutdown" guy, he is automatically superior defensively than a puck-mover who might have less physicality and know how in his own end.
However, take an interesting quote by Dave Tippet:
"I'll give you an example. We had a player that was supposed to be a great, shutdown defenseman. He was supposedly the be-all, end-all of defensemen. But when you did a 10-game analysis of him, you found out he was defending all the time because he can't move the puck. Then we had another guy, who supposedly couldn't defend a lick. Well, he was defending only 20 percent of the time because he's making good plays out of our end. He may not be the strongest defender, but he's only doing it 20 percent of the time. So the equation works out better the other way. I ended up trading the other defenseman."
The writer of the PP article has done his own analysis of some 200 games, counting defensize zone exits and their success rate. Here are the worst defensemen in the analysis:
Worst zone breakout defensemen
Code:
Player Touches Success%
Hal Gill 136 8.8%
Kent Huskins 114 10.5%
Anton Volchkenov 142 10.6%
Jeff Schultz 135 13.3%
Randy Jones 117 13.7%
Andrew Alberts 107 14.0%
Mike Komisarek 156 14.1%
Pavel Kubina 220 14.1%
Mark Stuart 112 14.3%
Nick Schultz 124 14.5%
Bryce Salvador 157 14.6%
Scott Hannan 149 14.8%
Nicklas Grossman 121 14.9%
Rob Scuderi 190 15.3%
Andreas Lilja 156 15.4%
Mark Giordano 206 15.5%
Cam Barker 128 15.6%
Ed Jovanovski 154 15.6%
Ladislav Smid 140 15.7%
Dan Girardi 165 15.80%
Volchenkov is one of the worst defenseman in the NHL at clearing the puck out of the zone. He might be good defending his own end, but it really doesn't matter if he can't clear the puck out and is stuck in his own end all the time.
Similar case for Salvador.
Now, the best defensemen at breaking out of the zone:
Best zone breakout defensemen
Code:
Player Touches Success%
Erik Karlsson 258 38.0%
Keith Yandle 225 35.1%
Grant Clitsome 162 32.1%
Brian Campbell 287 31.7%
Dion Phaneuf 200 31.5%
Nick Lidstrom 211 30.8%
Brent Burns 194 30.4%
Ryan Suter 205 30.2%
Sergei Gonchar 182 30.2%
Tyler Myers 156 30.1%
Mark Fayne 147 29.9%
Joni Pitkanen 211 29.9%
Alec Martinez 124 29.8%
Jake Gardiner 196 29.6%
Toni Lydman 149 29.5%
Andrej Sekera 163 29.4%
Christian Ehrhoff 150 29.3%
Brent Seabrook 265 28.7%
PK Subban 221 28.5%
Steve Montador 229 28.4%
The list makes a good degree of sense. Nice to see Fayne so how high, which lends credence to what a lot of us think of his play.
The Devils should get real and realize that it is not necessary to ice both Volchenkov and Salvador. Put Anton in the press box and give Harrold more ice time.
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