NHL Zone Entry Data: Winnipeg Jets Seasonal Review

Part way through the season we started recording Jets zone entries at even strength and their affects on Corsi for our post-game reviews. The way in which we recorded the information evolved as time went on. Due to this truncated time (and that two of the games being partially missed) the sample size is unfortunately only twelve games (minus two periods).

Here is how things break down:

For dump-ins, misconnected passes in the neutral zone and line-change dump-ins were not counted. The player selected is the player who dumped the puck. A success is determined if the Winnipeg Jets recover possession in the offensive zone.

For carry-ins, the player selected is the player who crossed the blue line with the puck. A success in carry-ins is a tad more wishy-washy, but it's about 3 solid strides into the zone of full unchallenged possession.

This data is only based off the eyes of the author, so it is safe to say there may be some sample bias.

Individual Players Data:

*players are in average ES TOI/GP order

*Cormier and Gagnon's data was removed as their TOI and GP were both significantly smaller than the other players

Interesting but lets place the data per game to even the playing field (a bit):

• the data seems to support what many at AIH were saying about the under utilization of Burmistrov and Wellwood
• the data seems to say that Tangradi was a lot stronger in pushing the play forward than players like Jokinen, Wright and co.
• it should be noted that Tangradi's ZE data exploded after he was placed on a line with one of either Wellwood or Burmistrov... hmmmm....

Well let us take a look at how players attempted zone entries and how much success extended from their attempts:

• Antropov's data is a little skewed from only 6 games played, although Miettinen, Santorelli and Wright only played one more
• although this doesn't break down each individual circumstance and what is going on, it appears that players like Jokinen, Burmistrov, Santorelli and Tangradi should actually carry the puck in more and chip it in less
• although this doesn't show all neutral zone situations, it does go against the MSM stream in regards to Burmistrov narrative about him: carrying the puck too often into the attack zone, not dumping it often enough, and when he does gain zone entry nothing comes from it

Now let us look how the team did as a whole:

• similar to Eric T results at nhlnumbers.com, carry attempts result in far greater chance Corsi events
• interestingly enough, the percentage of Corsi events that result in shots and goals is much greater for carry-ins than chip-and-chase