The Penguins And Zone Starts
by GoPens! on Jul 19, 2010 2:11 AM EDT
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PrintI previously looked at how the players from this year stacked up when it came to shooting percentage, penalties, Corsi, giveaways and takeaways, and adjusted^ +/-. Today, I'm going to look at zone starts, and who on the Penguins was being advantaged or disadvantaged by the zone in which Bylsma deployed them most often.
Thanks to Behind the Net for supplying all of the data.
Zone starts add context to a player's numbers. They are calculated by first counting up how many offensive and defensive zone starts a player had at ES (this can be applied to the PP and PK as well, but I'm going to look at ES play). Then you divide offensive zone starts by the sum of offensive and defensive zone starts. As an example, say that a player was on for 100 o-zone draws and 200 d-zone draws. His OPCT (which is the zone start abbreviation) would be 100/(100+200), or 33%.
The context factor of zone starts is pretty obvious. If Player A hops over the board for a ton of offensive zone draws, while Player B is stuck taking a lot of defensive zone draws, it doesn't make sense to look at those two players in the same light. Player A's offensive and defensive numbers will be boosted, since he gets to start in the zone closest to the opposing goalie. Over the course of the season, he will have had a much easier time scoring points and improving his Corsi than Player B. Since we know that a lost d-zone draw costs the losing team about 0.25 shots on goal, this can have major effects for regular players over an 82 game season.
Here are the numbers for the Penguins last year (and for those who aren't aware, RATING is adjusted +/-):
The first thing that stands out to me is the trio of awesomeness that is Kennedy, Cooke, and Staal. They were the line that had the lowest OPCT this year, so it would be excusable if they had poor adjusted +/-'s and were in the negative when it came to relative Corsi. Yet that didn't happen. They all had positive relative Corsi's, high pts/60, and very good RATING's. The third line got a lot of praise this year for what they were able to accomplish, but it looks like they deserve a little bit more considering that they weren't the benefactors of most favorable circumstances.
Goligoski also stands out to me, as his case for the most underrated Penguin this year gets another boost. He didn't have the zone start benefit that Orpik, Letang, Gonchar, and Eaton had, yet he put up a better adjusted +/- than any of those guys, a better relative Corsi than three out of those four, and produced at a really high offensive rate. McKee also gets props for coming out positive in adjusted +/- while having such a low OPCT.
The biggest disappointment for me in that group was Gonchar. For a guy that had the highest OPCT among our defensemen, he wasn't dominating in Corsi and adjusted +/- like he should have. He's going to be tough to replace on the power play, but he really was nothing special while at even strength.
As to the other bad news, Guerin, Feds, and Malkin don't look very good. Malkin and Fedetenko were getting a huge advantage in terms of where they started their 5-on-5 play, but when you come out in the negative in both relative Corsi and adjusted +/-, then you're simply not playing good hockey. Guerin looks good in relative Corsi (though I suspect that has more to do with Corsby and Kunitz), but his adjusted +/- is low, and there's no reason a guy who is seeing a 60% OPCT should be anywhere near -0.37.
What do you guys think?
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Great Stat
Good job concretizing what we kind of suspected. The Staal line gets more kudos for their solid puck possession and zone responsibility. On the other hand, it is obvious that the physicality and speed of the game has passed Billy G. and Ruslan F. As for the Malkinmizer: when he gets indifferent, he gets careless with a bushel basket of turnovers—in either zone. Hopefully, as he matures—on a leadership level, so will his stats in this all important category. Good job!
Again another reason to
NOT resign Guerin !! he’s FINISHED !! very good Career, But Finished
I wouldn’t say he’s finished. He just should be finished on the 1st line.
I would love to have him back on the team playing a minimal amount of ES minutes, but getting PP time.
But if he’s a dime over $1.2 million, forget it. Sorry, Billy G. You can be as funny as you want on the ice and in the locker room, but you’re just not worth over that.
I've told [a 9 months pregnant] Nathalie that she can't have the baby on a game night. I'm not missing a playoff game. -Mario Lemieux in 1993
I think if Tangradi makes the team out of camp, I’d much rather have his big-body presence in front of the net than Guerin’s.
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
Here is a relevant (though not Penguins oriented) analysis of zone starts: Link
Courtesy of Kukla.
I'm gonna pain you dearly Woodhouse, when I peel all your skin off with a flensing knife, sew it into Woodhouse pajamas, and then set those pajamas on fire.
by Steckel Me Elmo on Jul 19, 2010 11:05 AM EDT reply actions
I like the zone starts stat as another way to put things in context a bit, but it’s not quite as relevant as it first seems. The difference between Staal and Malkin, on opposite ends of the spectrum, is just over 7%. That’s not a huge difference, and when coupled with Staal’s ability to win faceoffs vs. Malkin’s, you can expect that the Pens didn’t get possession in the offensive zone on the majority of Malkin’s O-zone starts while the Pens began with possession on the majority of Staal’s D-zone starts.
The real problem with this stat is that it doesn’t address total attacking or puck possession time. So what if a player started in the O-zone slightly more often than someone else? From my experience, over half of a player’s shifts begin while the puck is in play. And not only that, but the 58% isn’t really a percentage of ALL faceoffs, it’s just O-zone v. D-zone, excluding neutral zone faceoffs, which are more than a third of all faceoffs. So this is really a ratio rather than a percentage of the total. Much like we can look at a ratio of shots on net for vs. shots on net against, excluding blocked shots for and blocked shots against. It doesn’t really give you the full story, but it’s somewhat helpful.
by docciavelli on Jul 19, 2010 12:06 PM EDT up reply actions
I never really put much stock in zone starts either, because those that are measured are missing such a significant portion of face-offs. As well as other reasons you mentioned
But this was an article I found today and was (at least semi) relevant to this post, so I figured I’d pass it along.
I'm gonna pain you dearly Woodhouse, when I peel all your skin off with a flensing knife, sew it into Woodhouse pajamas, and then set those pajamas on fire.
by Steckel Me Elmo on Jul 19, 2010 1:04 PM EDT up reply actions
The difference between Staal and Malkin, on opposite ends of the spectrum, is just over 7%.
Staal and Malkin are both above 50%, so I don’t think you’d expect to find a major difference between the two. Billy G and Adams is a different story.
What zone start is useful for is that when you’re comparing Staal’s Corsi and RATING to Malkin’s, you can see that Malkin had a big advantage and still came out worse. I give Staal more credit and Malkin less credit than I did before. Once again, it’s not a major adjustment, but it’s still important context.
and when coupled with Staal’s ability to win faceoffs vs. Malkin’s, you can expect that the Pens didn’t get possession in the offensive zone on the majority of Malkin’s O-zone starts while the Pens began with possession on the majority of Staal’s D-zone starts.
I don’t really see how a player’s FO% is relevant. The only point of zone starts is to provide context for Corsi and other numbers, so that we can see who was in better spots more often and vice versa. What they did after they were deployed (i.e. their FO%) is a separate thing altogether.
The real problem with this stat is that it doesn’t address total attacking or puck possession time.
The stat isn’t supposed to address puck possession or total attacking time; Corsi does a very good job of measuring that. Zone starts help to place Corsi numbers in context.
excluding neutral zone faceoffs, which are more than a third of all faceoffs.
Some of the Oilers bloggers have looked at this and found that neutral zone starts don’t have an impact on Corsi or offensive numbers. I can’t find a link now, but I’ll hit you up if I get one later.
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
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