How are the Oilers' lines faring in each type of start? Is Tom Renney giving the right guys o-zone starts? Should he go to an extreme Vigneaultesque strategy?

To shed some light on these issues, I've used play-by-play data to separate ice time into three categories:

Offensive - the most recent faceoff was in the attacking zone and no player from that faceoff has left the ice.

Defensive - the most recent faceoff was in the Oilers' defensive zone, all players from it remain on the ice.

Neutral - the most recent faceoff was in the neutral zone and/or a change has taken place.

The Oilers have changed their lines around a lot more than the Canucks, for example, so it's not as simple to break down. I've decided to look at Shawn Horcoff, Eric Belanger and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins individually and group all the time together where none of those were on the ice. Much of that was with Gagner or Lander in the middle. Hockey is messy with more fluid positions than other sports, but this should give us a good idea who is doing what in each zone. On top of the usual teammate and opponent effects, we are dealing with small sample sizes. Try to take the exact numbers with a grain of salt and focus on the patterns. Here is a table with the Corsi rate in each type of ice time:

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After a recent article comparing Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskong and Sean Couturier, Woodguy made a comment speculating that the quality of defensemen playing behind these rookie forwards might be influencing their results. Here is elite recruiter Derek Zona's reply, which shows the ice time for defensemen playing with each of those three. Using my database, I looked at Nugent-Hopkins's numbers with each defenseman. The results were pretty interesting.

There was a very strong pattern, with RNH putting up decent numbers in front of the better defensemen and really struggling with the weaker ones. To measure this I use a different method for adjusting for zone starts than DZ does, which I've outlined here. Unfortunately, they're both called zone start adjusted Corsi (ZSAC), the most obvious name to give to a metric that adjusts Corsi for zone starts. Zero represents what a team of average players would get with the same type of ice time.

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Author's note: I'd like to give thanks and praise to 2+2er atakdog, who really started this project. Much of my work is just his with different presentation

The new CBA opens up the opportunity to change the points system in the NHL. How does the current points system affect the way teams should play? Does it encourage cautious defensive play? Should it be changed?

Relative to what?

These questions cannot be answered without comparing the current points system to something else. It seems like Bettman and the owners love having a skills competition shootouts break a tie and would not change to a system getting rid of them. If they're still going to give an OT/SO loser something, the simplest alternative system is 3-2-1-0 - three points for a regulation win, two for an OT/SO win, 1 for an OT/SO loss and nothing for losing in regulation. While there are fancier options such as 5-4-3-2-1-0 (regulation win - OT win - SO win - SO loss - OT loss - regulation loss) I think the 3-2-1-0 system is the only viable alternative, so I will compare that to the current setup.

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The numbers onslaught continues with a look at adjusted scoring chances by quality of opponent, or Corsi Rel QoC. I've grouped the Oilers by line according to the quality of competition they've faced in order to get an understanding of how each is performing against his closest peer group.

All data compiled and published by Dennis King and mc79hockey.com. Zonestart adjustment methodology courtesy the incomparable George Ays. Quality of competition data courtesy the dashing Gabriel Desjardins and behindthenet.ca.

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One of the recurring themes for the 2011-12 Oilers has been sheltered minutes and who is receiving and benefiting from them. Tom Renney has been most protective of Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle - the two have played against third-level competition with an inordinate amount of offensive zonestarts. So while the raw scoring chances tell a story (Hall and Gilbert are amazing), adjusted scoring chances tell a larger, more detailed story.

Adjusting the scoring chance data for starting position puts two-thirds of the chosen line, the players who have received the greatest benefit from Renney's line matching and zonestart work, on equal footing with the veteran line, who have carried the load for the Oilers thus far.

Thanks to the incomparable George Ays, we can do that.

George took the data from his own scoring chance project for the Rangers, plus the data from Neil Greenberg's data for the Capitals and modeled scoring chances as JLikens modeled Corsi. While the sample size is extremely small and subject to enormous variance, George should be able to zero in on a more targeted number as the Scoring Chance Project wraps up 2011-12. The results of of George's model shows "...an offensive zone start would be worth 0.425 scoring chances."

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This is one of the stat side of things that I either don’t understand or don’t agree with. I can see the relationship between shots generated and powerplay goals. But obviously the quality of the shot plays a role in how many goals actually go in. Is the arguement that over time high quality chances are unsustainable?
--Peacecountry, in the comments .

A quick check of the data from the last four years via the venerable and terrifying Gabriel Desjardins shows the relationship between shots per sixty minutes of 5v4 time on ice and power play success (power play conversion percentage) is extremely strong, with an r^2 = .400 So, given our sample size, 5v4 shots per 60 predicts 40% of power play success.

But the Oilers are 24th in the league in shots per 60, which is a mountain to climb if they want to have a top 10 power play. Put simply, four teams in the last four years have had a top ten power play by percentage and finished in the bottom ten of the league in shots for per 60 with the man advantage. The teams to pull off this feat were Philadelphia and St. Louis in 2008-09, Minnesota in 2009-10 and St. Louis in 2010-11.

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The Oilers are having an uneven season, which as the panels and pundits are quick to remind everyone, is to be expected from a team full of young gunz!© But the same panelists are quick to mention the improved overall talent level and exciting brand of offensive hockey the Oilers are playing. Tyler at mc79hockey talked about the improvement on the power play, but the improvements elsewhere have been less obvious.

But the pundits have been blinded by the percentages. Through the early-going, the Oilers are riding even strength shooting percentage to score a few more goals, but that won't continue. What the panelists and pundits have missed is the improvements in their own zone. When it comes to even strength play, it's not team offense that has helped drive team improvements, it's team defense.

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I tracked zone exits for one period out of sheer curiosity after watching what I thought was an inordinate number of touches by Jeff Petry prior to the puck leaving the zone.  I was right.  Petry handled zone exits ~80% of the time when he was on the ice with Theo Peckham:

Peckham touched the puck 9 times in the defensive zone and moved it forward just once on his own, noted in bold above. He got the puck out of the zone on his first touch, but it was a desperation clear and the puck went back to the Bruins. Of his other 7 touches, 6 of them were almost immediate passes to Jeff Petry, typically before Peckham could take a full stride. Remember the numbers from Jonathan's study - Peckham played 7 minutes at even strength and didn't move the puck out of the zone at all. In the game against the Bruins, he moved it once in the first period. Now there's a man who knows his limitations.

Jonathan Willis tracked all zone exits for an entire game in an effort to determine who was driving possession:

For last night’s season opener against the Penguins, I decided to see which Oilers’ players spent the greatest amount of time moving the puck either a) out of the defensive zone or b) into the offensive zone at even-strength.

But it's on the other side of the neutral zone where Eric from Broad Street Hockey has focused his tracking efforts, which he outlines in his article, Zone entries: Individual contributions to team success.

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