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Revisiting Eastern Conference Finals With Detailed Tracking

September 4, 2016, 11:50 AM ET [15 Comments]
Ryan Wilson
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Over the weekend I found some more quality work that was done about the Penguins during the playoffs. The latest batch of interesting playoff data came from Corey Sznajder who was responsible for the excellent All Three Zones project where he manually tracked every single game from the 2013-14 season.

That micro-data tracking project has led to others expanding the horizons of what has been tracked and has helped create tangible evidence of what drives success in hockey, most notably Ryan Stimson's passing tracking project .

Corey put his expertise to work in tracking the Pittsburgh/TB series and I am going to pass along that work with a few thoughts of my own. His first part included breaking down the neutral zone.




The offensive and defensive zone get most of the attention but generating speed or preventing it in the neutral zone sets the potential for success in both of those zones. Here is how Pittsburgh's forwards fared against Tampa Bay



The two unheralded call ups did a really nice job attacking the Tampa Bay defense. Both Sheary and Rust made the most of playing with the two star centers. Crosby and Malkin create space. Sheary and Rust took it via their skating speed.

Bonino didn't generate a ton of entries on his own, but that makes sense considering who his two linemates are. The entries he did make were carry-ins more times than not.

Zone entries aren't Patric Hornqvist's thing. He just doesn't do a good job in this department. As you'll see later in this piece he will fare better once the team actually gains entry into the offensive zone. Considering how good Sheary is at entries and how great Sid is at everything this shortcoming is covered up nicely for Hornqvist.

Here is a look at the defensemen



No surprise to see Letang off in his own area. He is an elite defenseman who is one of the best at driving play.

Trevor Daley and Ian Cole don't generate as many entries as Letang but the times they do they carry the puck in. I expect to see Daley with that carry-in percentage, but it was a nice surprise to see Ian Cole up there (at least in the TB series).

Olli Maatta was battling some health issues and you hope that when healthy he starts tracking more towards where Dumoulin is.

So that was Pittsburgh's ability in gaining the zone. Once they were there how did they do?







First thing, what is a shot assist? It is exactly what it sounds like. A direct pass that leads to a shot. You can't score unless you shoot and the best players are able to create shooting opportunities not only for themselves but for others. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are unreal. You'll also notice that while Nick Bonino was leaning on his wingers for entries once they are in the zone Bonino is able to return the favor by using his IQ and hands to create offensive chances for them. Pittsburgh is fortunate to have those three centers being able to create like that.

Phil Kessel and Bryan Rust have no shame taking those shot assists and firing the puck.

Hornqvist picks up a little bit of the slack for Sheary. Sheary's value on this line is zone entries. He could stand to contribute a bit more in the offensive zone.

Here is the defense



Kris Letang, Trevor Daley, and Justin Schultz have no shame in shooting the puck, but also do so while creating for others. These three players are playing to their strengths. Brian Dumoulin is also creating for others but could probably shoot more.

Olli Maatta is again a little bit off and in the future I would hope to see him moving towards the upper right.

Ian Cole and Ben Lovejoy are also shooting the puck, but they just don't have the playmaking ability that the other guys have.

While the sample is only for the seven game Eastern Conference Finals it does give a nice little snapshot of how the players performed using modernized tracking methods. I don't think there were too many surprises, but this provides tangible evidence of what occurred. The more we see this kind of information tracked the better we can forecast future outcomes.

Thanks for reading!
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