The prevalent topic for the last few posts, the focus placed on defensemen and the evolution of a changing position. The main takeaway being puck rushers getting phased out in favour of puck movers and outlet passing rearguards that can get pucks up to forwards.
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Defensemen are beginning to be valued for different skillsets, for instance, the ability to keep pucks in the offensive zone, playing that two or three feet inside the zone effectively – including pinches and positional shifts – and joining the rush in support. Few defensemen can effectively lead rushes and only when the opportunity presents itself – a low event situation. Most clubs have breakouts that focus on forwards hitting the offensive blueline with the puck, hopefully with three players flanking to lead a forceful attack with options.
Defensemen that can effortlessly skate and can support the rush, with the skills to play the first few feet in the offensive zone may have more value than puck rushers.
The risk of defensive foul ups and holes created by defensemen abandoning their positions to play heavy offensively reduces dramatically in the case of breakdowns or turnovers. At the very least, if a player moves from defense to offense, someone (in proper support) must cover up.
OBSERVABLE DATA
Using the data from Corey Sznajder and his zone entry tracking project, we can look at the effect of defensemen using zone exits from the defensive zone and offensive zone entries.
Zone Exits
Exiting the zone with area passes and careful dump outs to center ice are becoming more common. Puck rushing defensemen aren’t as required to move the puck up ice in controlled breakouts and dumping the puck in from the red line, as we shall see in the Zone Entry segment below.
According to the data, zone exits by defensemen are attained by a pass 55% of the time, in comparison to less than half that rate by forwards – who are the likely recipients of the pass. Defensemen carry out percentages are less on average than for forwards. This in turn shows the blue column indicating the percentage of passes for zone exits.
Zone Entries
An understated effect of analytics studies has been the way that dump and chase is played now. Today’s game has evolved the concept from just skating the puck up to the red line and flooding the zone to recover the puck while avoiding the goalie being able to get it first. Good puckhandling goaltenders gave teams a distinct advantage. From a previous post detailing some of this.
The dump and chase game which required a rushing defenseman to skate the puck to the red line and fire it into the offensive zone while forwards gathered speed to flood the zone and recover the puck. This strategy has been debunked as a less effective method of shot generation, and in its wake, so too, the puck rusher. On a side note, I think that the dump-in play is having a renaissance moment with teams discovering the importance of generating scoring chances below the goal line.
Dumping the puck is now about strategically placing the puck in a spot that improves the possibility of recovering it as a forechecking team. A derivative of utilizing dumps and chips is to force defensemen to pivot and turn, slowing their momentum and introducing an imbalance on the blades. Using the disproportion created by the pivoting motion, speedy forwards can maneuver past defenders and capitalize. This Adam Henrique goal is an extreme, although very enjoyable example, of using an area pass to get around the defenseman, thus avoiding a more dangerous one-on-one encounter with decreased chances of getting around to create the scoring chance.
I can watch this play on loop forever.
The data has also made it clear that dump-ins originating from defensemen aren’t recovered very often. This is a likely an offshoot from dumping pucks in for line changes or to ease pressure in the neutral zone without a proper zone entry strategy, essentially gifting the puck to the opposition. When puck are recovered though, they have the same propensity to generate a shot on goal, be it from a turnover, puck recovery or a cycle. The distinction may be the key here, understanding that shots can still be generated after a puck has been dumped into the offensive zone. The recovery and following sequence of events is critical to shot generation – and thus ensuring there isn’t a play going back the other way.
Most zone entries are achieved from forwards, and by a wide margin, even by entry type as exemplified by the chart below that breaks down zone entry types by position. Take note of the difference between defensemen and any forward position, in particular the carries per 60 rate being so much lower than any of the forward positions.
Gaining the zone is advantageous and can be crudely measured by the percentage of zone entries that generate a shot. After all, shot generation is the main goal, whether off a rush or from a cycle and zone time. Defensemen are on par with zone entries from a pass and significantly less from carry-ins according to Corey’s data.
The main point here is that even when rearguards did successfully gain the zone, they generated a shot much less often than when a forward carried it in.
Some attributable actions for that is due to the defenseman likely being part of a bigger picture setup. Instead of driving the goal like a forward might, they will gain entry, allow forwards to flood in and then attempt to set up the cycle – or fire a shot towards the net for forwards to exploit from high danger scoring chance areas.
Defensemen are changing. The skillsets are changing and the performance due to this has changed as well. As the game further changes and involves more elements of ‘total hockey’ – the ability to effortlessly slip between positions in accordance to the change in play and inherent risk – we will likely see more rover positions, a hybrid between forward and defense, rather than conventional positional limitations.
More to come as the position continues to evolve.
