Back in December, I put out feelers for people to score the 12/17 Detroit-Chicago game. I even offered to pay. I ended up with data for the third period of the game that's an absolute treasure trove. (In case you ever want to do it yourself, a Hawks fan – known only as E. Gao – spent 18 hours recording the data.)
I have weeks of analysis that will come out of this, so I'm going to start with something basic: passing. First, let's look at some top-level passing stats:
| Total | Dz | Oz | D->D | D->N | O->D/N | O->O | |
| Det Inc | 22 | 3 | 15 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 13 |
| Det Comp | 102 | 45 | 34 | 30 | 15 | 0 | 34 |
| Det Tot | 124 | 48 | 49 | 31 | 17 | 2 | 47 |
| Det % | 82 | 94 | 69 | 97 | 88 | 0 | 72 |
| Chi Inc | 14 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 5 |
| Chi Comp | 46 | 25 | 14 | 24 | 1 | 1 | 13 |
| Chi Tot | 60 | 34 | 19 | 28 | 5 | 1 | 18 |
| Chi % | 77 | 74 | 74 | 86 | 20 | 100 | 72 |
Detroit was trailing 3-1 going into the 3rd, so we knew they were going to control the puck (and the passing) most of the time. Overall, they generated 2/3 of the total passes in the period. You can also see that Detroit was much more aggressive than Chicago – they made 47 passes in the offensive zone, compared to 18 for Chicago; they passed from inside their own blue line to outside of it 17 times to just 5 for Chicago; and they completed 30/31 d-zone passes compared to 24/28 for Chicago.
Regardless of the length of the pass, the passing proportions don't really deviate from the 2/3 ratio:
| Length | 0-10 | 10-20 | 20-30 | 30-40 | 40-50 | 50-60 | 60-70 | 70-80 | 80-90 | 90-100 |
| Det Inc | 3 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Det Comp | 0 | 16 | 28 | 21 | 17 | 11 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| Chi Inc | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Chi Comp | 3 | 6 | 9 | 14 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Detroit simply tried more of everything. A graphical representation is probably helpful:
Completed passes are represented by solid lines, while incomplete passes are dashed. Some breakout passes that must have gone along the boards are shown as direct lines from point-to-point, which might look a little funny.
At any rate, there’s a lot to come – individual passing; time of possession by zone; analysis of what happened when Detroit pulled Jimmy Howard for 1:22. If you have any suggestions, please fill up the comment box!
