DO ZONE STARTS MATTER
WHY WE SHOULDN’T CARE ABOUT ZONE STARTS
(Feb 2012)
Considering one of the best offensive players in the game with one of the most significant offensive zone biases in the game is only on the ice for at most an additional 4 goals a season as a result of their offensive zone bias, I think we can chalk up the zone start effect as mostly insignificant.
the majority of the players probably only see a zone bias affect their stats by at most one or two goals a season. It’s pretty much not worth consideration.
DO ZONE STARTS REALLY MATTER
For players that have a significant defensive zone bias we would expect their F45 play to exhibit an increase in FF20 and a decrease in FA20 resulting in an increase in FF%. In bold are the circumstances where this in fact did happen. As you can see, this isn’t the majority of the time. It is actually kind of surprising that these heavily defensive zone start biased players didn’t see a significant and systematic improvement in their fenwick rates.
For offensive zone start biased players we would expect to see their FF20 decrease, FA20 increase and FF% decrease when we remove their zone start bias. This is mostly true for FA10 (only Wellwood deviated from expectations) but less true for FF20 and FF% and overall the adjustments were relatively minor.
I suspect again any benefit/penalty of any zone start deployment will largely be overshadowed by the players individual ability and the quality of their line mates.
the effects are probably not as significant as we think they should be.
IMPACT OF A ZONE START
Part of the reason for this is that when you start in the defensive zone you are playing with weaker quality of teammates than when you start in the offensive zone. My reasoning is that players that get used primarily in the defensive zone are often weak offensive players as if you are a good offensive player you will be given offensive opportunities.
So, my theory is that players who start in the defensive zone are weaker players overall.
That said, the impact of zone starts on a players stats is fairly small to the point of being almost negligible for the majority of players.
IMPACT OF STARTING IN DZ
(April 2013)
the impact of ZoneStarts is negligible
I’m also inclined to think that what may be true at a team level as far as the faceoff effect on Corsi isn’t necessarily true on an individual level.
HOW MUCH DOES ZONE START MATCHING MATTER
Zone-start matching is a zero-sum game.
Starting your fourth line in the O zone more often will minimize damage, but reduce scoring, and thus lower the pace, while starting the top line there will increase scoring, but increase your own damage.
Turns out, this doesn’t matter nearly as much as you’d think, for a few reasons:
Most players are not that buried – even “25% offensive zone starts”, which seems like a harsh number, often represents something in the order of 2 O and 6 D faceoffs during a game. Yes it can add up, but it’s still in the end just four zone starts more in the d zone. Not that much in the context of 20 or more shifts per game.
Most shifts start on the fly, not with a faceoff. So a players ability drives defensive (or offensive) zone starts to a large extent, not the other way round. Put another way, good players tend to force faceoffs in the o zone, and bad players tend to get stuck in the d zone, and faceoffs (or goals against!) are part and parcel. So good or bad zone starts can be a symptom rather than a cause of good or poor numbers.
ZONE STARTS DON’T MATTER MUCH
Zone starts don’t generally have a significant impact on a players overall statistics
Do zone starts matter? Yes, a bit for some of the more extreme zone start usage players. For the majority of players its hardly worth considering
HOW MUCH DO ZONE STARTS MATTER (2 ARTICLES)
Bad players tend to end up with more defensive zone faceoffs because their opponents tend to get more shot attempts against them, which leads to more opportunities for their goalie to freeze the puck and more defensive zone faceoffs.
The same idea is true in reverse for good players, and it all adds up to a false correlation between the traditional zone start measure and possession numbers.
An average player should expect roughly 60% of his shifts to start on-the-fly, with the remaining 40% divided up between the offensive, defensive and (most commonly) neutral zones.
What this implies is that the actual difference in coaching usage between players is a lot smaller than we previously thought it was,
a player who starts in the defensive zone is more likely to have his second faceoff of a shift in the defensive zone than the offensive zone. This trend also holds (albeit in the opposite direction) in the offensive zone,
bad players end up with more defensive zone faceoffs due to their inability to drive possession, which incorrectly inflates their defensive zone start percentages.
very few players require significant adjustments to their numbers due to their zone starts.
While it’s true that more accurate numbers are always better, it’s certainly becoming clearer that outside of a handful of players the effect of zone starts on possession aren’t as great as we may have thought, and may actually be negligible for a large portion of the league.
ZONE STARTS, CORSI, AND THE PERCENTAGES
I just haven’t seen any convincing evidence that zone starts would change a players CF% much more than 1-2% and for most players considering zone starts in player evaluation is not important.
What the zone starts signify is a style of play. Players with a heavy defensive zone start bias are likely asked by the coach to play a defense first game and in many cases generating offense is not an important issue. The result is often a relatively minor deviation in a players CA/60 but a major deviation in a players CF/60 from the overall team stats.
So, it seems that Ozone% is likely an indication of style of play, or at least an indicator of the main objective of the players on the ice, and we have seen that this can have a major impact on shot attempt rates
Players with a heavy defensive zone start will generally have a positive impact on his teams save percentage and a negative impact on his teams shooting percentage. Conversely players with a heavier offensive zone start bias will generally have a positive impact on his teams shooting percentage and negative impact on his teams save percentage.
ZS IMPACT ON PLAYERS STATS
At the micro level yes, the location of face offs impacts outcomes. On the macro or aggregate level they are minimal.
The higher the offensive zone start percentage the higher the CF%.
There is a zone start impact on a players statistics but it is very minimal and for the majority of players can safely be ignored.
Zone starts don’t drive CF%, CF% drives zone starts.
We need to think of zone starts more as a result, not a cause.
shots drive where face offs occur, where face offs occur do not drive shots
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