TRANSITION AND DEFENSE
(November 2003)
WHY OFFENSE RULES THE NEW NHL
(Dec 2009)
In the new NHL, the evidence suggests that offence wins championships.
If you look at each position individually then goalie is the most important position in hockey, but the 18 skaters as a group are collectively much more important than the goalie.
The abundance of good goalies in today’s NHL means that a lot of teams have a goalie that is capable of excellent play for a month or two.
The best goalies are not able to be the difference makers that they perhaps once were, and that means that goaltending ranks well behind a team’s offensive ability in terms of predicting their success.
REASONS FOR FAILURE TO ACCURATELY EVALUATE NHL DEFENSEMEN
(Jan 29, 2015)
The magnitude of a player’s impact is largely a product of opportunity. In hockey, opportunity comes in a few different forms – the most prominent one being ice time.
In hockey, defense is used to describe anything that contributes to a team’s ability to reduce the rate at which goals are scored against.
The best way to reduce picking pucks out your own net is to suppress the opposition’s rate of chances and attempts for.
Regardless of his rate of production in year 1, a defensemen should be expected to finish within 0.60-0.85 points per / 60 at even strength in his subsequent season. That isn’t a large spread.
The disparity we see between defensemen who consistently finish with a large sum of points year over year compared to those who don’t is largely the result of opportunity in the form of ice time.
Production is moreso a product of opportunity than of skill.
DEFENSEMEN OFFENSE INCREASE
Generally speaking, the average defenseman contributed 16.2% of all on-ice shot attempts
Teams are either a) having their defensemen shoot more often, or b) choosing defensemen who tend to shoot more often. Either way, it’s generating a greater share of attempts from the point, and it’s coming from the top on down
fourth showed a pretty drastic drop in zone starts over the years, suggesting teams have moved towards a sort of defense specialization for them. That’s certainly supported by their drop-off here.
Teams are gradually realizing that they need more-complete defensemen — ones that can move the puck, not merely stop it — and whether by strategy or selection, they’re getting it.
EVALUATING DEFENSEMEN WITH ANALYTICS
Defense is the sum of actions that reduce the number of shot attempts your team surrenders over the course of a game,
“This can take numerous forms (breakouts, cycling, pinching) that involve a player’s team being in possession, and that may or may not translate to offense. But they definitely translate to fewer chances for the opposition which arguably makes them defensive skills and not offensive.”
The ability to keep the puck out of the defensive zone becomes especially critical when considering the role of randomness.
playing in the defensive zone means putting yourself at the mercy of randomness.
BETTER WAY TO EVALUATE DEFENSEMEN
two other things, which I believe to be integral to a defenseman’s job requirement:
· The ability to support the puck across the two blue lines
· The ability to prevent the opposition from supporting the puck across the two blue lines
supporting play, overlapping on the attack, and distribution are all pillars of what teams should look for.
Defensemen have been traditionally difficult to evaluate and predict scoring for, but measuring their impact on how teams transition and generate offense is a reliable way to do that.
How teams move the puck and generate offense continues to be something of immense importance when trying to predict scoring.
ROLE OF THE MODERN DEFENDER
As much as we like to believe in the idea that offence and defence are equal, they aren’t; in a game where you win by goal differential, offence has a much easier time doubling as defence, than defence has doubling as offence.
Offence is the role you want to play 100% of the time, while defence acts more as crisis management
The “transition game”, as it’s commonly referred to, is the next wave of NHL defense.
A transition-focused defense is more valuable than a traditional “stay-at-home” one.
This new group skates even better, joins the rush even more, and are essentially third wingers who’s goal is to move the puck upward and cut it off before it gets back, rather than letting the play come to them and trying to solve an invasion once the territory has already been claimed.
REDEFINING DMEN BASED ON TRANSITIONAL PLAY
In looking at entry assists (a pass occurring in the neutral or defensive zones that precedes a shot), both for and against, we can quantify how effective that defensemen is at generating offense in transition, as well as suppressing those chances.
the rate at which defensemen are on the ice for entries that directly lead to shots is both repeatable and predictive of future scoring.
entry assists is a specific skill to measure how effective a defensemen transitions from the defensive zone to the offensive zone.
Preventing entry assists that lead to shots is as much as skill, given this sample, as overall shot suppression.
We need to move beyond the traditional, positional requirements of the defensemen and think of them more as attacking fullbacks and box-to-box midfielders. This will in turn redefine the rest of the team’s positions and responsibilities, ultimately arriving at a much more fluid and supportive style. But, more on that in future posts.
ROMAN JOSI – BREAKER OF SCALES
(Oct 2020)
Being able to make a breakout pass or skate out of the zone is basically a requirement to stick at the NHL level now, though.
When I did my 2013-14 zone entry tracking project, most defensemen dumped the puck into the zone once they got the red line, only carrying the puck on about 20-percent of their entries. The league average now is still kind of low (31-percent), but it’s a pretty big increase from where we were before
A defender joining the rush can be a very effective tactic if it’s creating an odd-man situation or taking attention away from better players on the ice. If they’re just entering the zone & keeping the puck along the wall or settling for low percentage plays, well then it’s kind of a lost cause.
TWO NON-NEGOTIABLES FOR MODERN DEFENSEMEN
(Jan 25, 2020)
In transition the vast majority of NHL Ds are content to sit back and let their forwards play with the puck.
In the OZ a majority of NHL coaches still want their Ds to sit at their points and shoot pucks quickly off low-to-high passes.
Non-Negotiable 1: Defending the Rush
When playing on defense, the best way a player can create value for his/her team is to turn the other team’s possessions into 50/50 puck battles.
Non-Negotiable 2: DZ Retrievals
DZ retrievals are the toughest part of the game.
The retrieving D-man has the duty to make a continuation play and to only punt the puck as a last resort.
SKATING DOWNHILL
(April 2021)
In theory, it should be easy for a defender to play for a team like the Avalanche. The play is usually in front of you, and everything is going downhill fast,
The main component being how their D (or the first player to retrieve the puck in the defensive zone) is instructed to beat the first forechecker to create an odd-man situation up the ice.
It’s better to have your D involved like this because the whole point of having them involved is to create a numerical advantage at the line or in the offensive zone.
RELYING ON DMEN TO GENERATE OFFENSE
(April 2021)
It is not necessarily good or bad to have an offence driven by defencemen
Despite the emphasis placed on defencemen who can make the “first pass” out of the zone, 61% of the time it’s forwards who ultimately carry the puck across the defensive blueline.
I’ve expressed skepticism in the past with the idea that having defencemen lead the rush is necessarily a good thing – If the defender is leading the rush, usually a forward has to stay back or stationary at the line to cover.
HOW TO READ THE PINCH
(Dec 2021)
Numbers
The first rule any defenseman is taught is to count numbers. How many opponents are in front of me? Are there any behind me?
Forward #3 High
Most hockey teams preach to have a 3rd player high with the defensemen. This is a support player for the defenseman and for the forwards lower in the zone.
When deciding whether to pinch, looking and reading if there is an F3 high can alter the decision to pinch or not. If there is support from F3, there is a lower risk if the pinch down does not work.
Weakside winger movement
Another person to read is the opposing weakside winger. Their movement dictates options and tactics for both teams. Is that player coming across the ice between the 2 defensemen? Does the weakside winger stay wide to give width?
Speed
The most dangerous thing in hockey is a speed differential. Positive and negative speed differentials dictate space creation.
Most strong side wingers do not have good speed so their main threat is a pass. The most dangerous pass options are the ones with a speed differential. If the center is gaining speed, a simple chip or bump pass is an easy way to break the pinch and get an odd-person rush.
Pinch
The most common thing to think about is if a “chip” or “ middle bump pass” can beat you easily. If so, a pinch is likely a poor option.
I’ve been around many coaches that talk about a defenseman’s cue to pinch is on a rimmed puck. Everyone knows it’s coming and that another player must cover for that pinching defensemen
· Numbers – Do I have F3 support?
· Speed – Am I effectively a cone to go around or actually disrupting play?
· Cleanliness – What are the chances the opposition can execute?