Kailer Yamamoto's Arrival Time - The Defensive Zone and Transition

Last time I wrote about the Edmonton Oiler's first-round draft selection from the 2017 NHL draft, it was to address the readiness of the player, by examining a popular narrative about the strength of the player and the importance of that factor on his arrival time in the NHL. This was done primarily through video review of offensive zone play with focus on his ability or inability to enter the middle of the ice against bigger, stronger players.

This time we'll again examine the same general talking point - the effects of a difference of strength - but with a focus on play in the defensive zone and in parallel there'll be discussion of the players' positioning in these areas so as avoid narrowing the scope of the piece to the detriment of its practical application. Shorter: it would be silly to proclaim any player never lost any battles if that was only the result of never being on time for one.

Before we begin in full, a few things. I'll reference back to the opening statistical analysis of the player I did, where I wrote about the outstanding possession metrics of the individual coupled with a contextual warning about the team's similar performance on the whole. Kailer Yamamoto's shot and chance numbers are all ridiculous against the entirety of the NHL - both individual and on-ice. What I mean to say, is, there'll not a hell of a lot of tape on defensive-zone #56. We'll see his effect on this, how well he does as a facilitator of the transition and as a disturber of inter-zone movement by the opposition. After all, one can look at the overall team shot and chance shares during his 9 games and say that he was simply along for the Corsi-dominant ride, but the possibility exists also that he was a major contributor in this area as the most skilled natural winger the team iced the entire season and that the difference between his and his replacement's talents in transition were in actuality close to as stark as the numbers imply, due to both his tremendous ability and his replacement's vacuous lack thereof.

Note: I write primarily through induced vomiting of my stream of consciousness and wanted to quickly re-factcheck and be more precise about my assertation of Kailer Yamamoto units spending less time in the defensive-zone, verifying that the percentage shares weren't just bolstered purely through increased offense. I found that in the Oilers pre-November 10th stretch last year, McDavid had 46.5 CA/60, 20.6 SCA/60, and 7.2 HDCA/60 with Yamamoto and 65.1 CA/60, 33.2 SCA/60, and 16.75 HDCA/60 without. That's incredible.

A second preface:  We're searching for an uncertainty from the start when we look for mispositioning from a fresh draft pick who's just made the team in his first camp. This is an area where if any doubt remains throughout the preseason that the player knows where the coach wants him to be, he'll be assigned elsewhere. You just don't often see a non-lottery pick get that kind of leeway from an NHL coach. If this were not a player who made the coach feel good about sending him over the boards, he would not have made the team. The argument against would be a counter that Yamamoto was simply the best of a bad bunch, but we should remember every coach's (ranging from reasonable to otherwise) preference to ice veterans even in spite of ability.

As such, the parallel track may be more interesting - just how important was Kailer to the strong possession game the Oilers played during his audition?

Just as McDavid mucks up all statistical analysis, he does the same often for video. It's much easier to get the puck up ice when the most prolific zonal transition player is a minute contribution from yourself away from doing all the work for you. This mostly effects the defencemen, but we'd be wise not to discount McDavid's effect on Kailer in the games they shared a unit.

As for the medium, I figured two types of games featuring substantial time-on-ice for the player would meet a good standard of thoroughness. One type being a dominant shot-share game, where we can observe how much the player influenced the possession dominance of the line he was on, then the opposite, so far as it exists, and we can observe how much the player had to do with a loss of the possession battle.

I dug up every 5-on-5 shift from these games, selecting those that I found were important: shifts of extended periods in the defensive zone, and every single breakout that either came up his side of the ice or involved him in some way good or bad. I've pointed him out in red where necessary to get the gist of the play on the first viewing.

(Another note, as you may have already figured out I am an absolute fiend for hockey systems and coaching literature, devouring everything on tactics and strategy that I get my hands on. That being said, I'm not an ex-coach with 35 years experience or some other equivalent character that you'd feel silly contesting on little details, so feel free to point out in the comments if I'm missing or misidentifying something.)

November 5th vs Detroit Red Wings

Here's an even possession game, which should offer plenty of transitional play despite the lack of defensive zone starts.

• Kailer makes a good case for himself here, those simple exit passes are a lot more valuable than they appear at first, and the team missed good execution on these plays from a lot of their wingers all year, one of the reasons why I always shout about the wingers when the outlet passing of the defense is mentioned(though I will say the current D-corps wasn't above NHL average in execution there either).
• Something we'll notice a lot is how a good first few steps and a high-octane hockey brain combine for much more than the sum of their parts. If a player can position yourself well in real-time, they can get away with being slower than the average guy. If you process the game quickly and add plus skating, you get a guy like Kailer Yamamoto.
• Notice how he's always looking around to make sure where the layers of the opposition are, and that he's in the correct seam. Some wingers can end up second to the puck when they should be on the inside of the opposing team's point man, because they're not keeping up their vision.
• At the play starting at 7:42 left in the first, game time, you see some good defensive anticipation to close a gap followed by using that skating to break free on the transition.
• He uses his feet well in the next play, too, several times as well as a successful breakout on "Russell-Gryba" difficulty level.
• In general he makes himself a very easy target to pass to, through separation, creating his own lane, and just generally handling the puck well.
• There's one moment where if he's going to dump the puck in, he should be dumping it harder and just immediately changing, instead of chasing from an outside position, losing the battle and delaying the wholesale change.
• …My mouse is on the screen at some point. Sorry.
• He doesn't seem wise to Detroit's pick plays, that's a rookie thing and it gets the vets all the same half the time.
• He gives up creating his own lane when the team collects a rebound at 11:35 left in the 3rd, but Nuge likely blasts that puck up the wall without looking either way.
• This is a well-played game in the DZ and NZ from a (usually) F3, in my opinion.

October 14th vs Ottawa Senators

This is one of the games taken from category dominant. A tragic result, sure, but this time on the McDavid line was a success by process, and while sometimes a large shot attempts advantage can be mostly erased by narrowing to count only shots on goal, this is the opposite case.

• A couple of early plays I can nitpick about positioning too deep against the point man (especially on the DZFOL), they end up in fairly harmless releases, but a more dangerous passing play can be made when Yamamoto leaves all that space and time to the defencemen with the puck.
• The goal against comes early, and is an error in communication between Patrick and Kailer. If Maroon is going to cover the centre slot like that, he needs to actually take the man. The way it went, he doubled up on coverage and then ended up not even contesting the shot, which is the type of defensive breakdown necessary to make a three-on-five play look like the five is outnumbered.
• The next shot against is just a teammates giveaway, Kailer shouldn't be expected to come off the wall there but the poor pass in the neutral zone is on him. Ottawa is obviously in full trap mode at that point in the game and the type of clean-ish possession he had between the bluelines was a precious commodity.
• Yamamoto follows the puck too closely when he should be in the centre lane on the play at 15:30 left in the 3rd, if that puck comes off the wall with any kind of force, it could easily get past him to the Senator in front of the net alone. That doesn't happen, but by process that's a poor play.
• He sneaks free at the blueline for the perfect anti-trap stretch pass and uses his feet well to get out clean, a rare misplay on the pass by 97 or the puck would've been in the back of the net coming from the defensive zone in about four seconds flat.
• This wasn't a strong performance in the plays highlighted. There was still a net positive contribution on the night from the player based on the offense delivered, but in the areas we're looking at there's some rawness to be seen. It was a strong night by the numbers almost solely because once the unit was in the offensive zone, they stayed there, not because they got in at will. In fairness, this is understandable to a degree given score effects and the opposing team's tactics.

October 19th vs Chicago Blackhawks

Another dominant game, from an even higher shelf. The 97 line plus the Swedish top pairing laid waste to the Toews and Keith shutdown unit. Eight shots on goal by our subject himself, of eleven attempts at even strength. Another game where, if I show only his errors, know that that wasn't the story of the effort overall on that night. We're looking for what we're looking for, though.

• The first two clips and  several throughout feature defencemen not displaying much ambition for creating clean exits, which hurts a winger's ability to participate in a breakout.
• The goal shows what can happen when you generate clean breakouts with 97 on the ice.
• Yamamoto's very active away from the puck, he gets a stick on almost anything near him and I believe he gets a piece of the puck in the late first period scramble.
• For the first time in the review, Kailer just completely loses his check on the first 2nd period clip, for some reason skating outside-in on the carrier, except, on the wrong side of the puck. Already bad, but he wipes out in front of the perching linesman.
• In that very same shift, he ends up getting the better of a battle and crashes the crease offensively, completing an effort that very well encapsulates the players' competitiveness and all-shift-long effort level.
• The next shift features a shot against that the player had nothing to do with.
• Throughout this game and throughout this feature, we see Kailer Yamamoto's closes on the point man quickly, every time. He'll score some goals and draw some penalties from those plays every year of his pro career.
• He also stretches out defending structures very well as the first man out of the zone, and knows which lane to drive.
• This was a good game, he forced Duncan Keith to make quick decisions time and time again, capping the game off with a brilliant rush one-on-one against the future Hall of Famer who is famous for being excellent in those situations. Could have drawn a penalty and sealed the game on the rush he did have the puck, and on the one with 30 seconds on the clock he took the defenceman entirely out of the play by dashing up the ice at the first sign of a turnover. 
• That was on a shift where the player stayed on for the faceoff after his OTF shift, with seconds left on the clock, at 19 years-old.

October 17th vs Carolina Hurricanes

Here's another more even game, at least by shots on goal. There's a hard matchup against Slavin-Pesce, who defended well but didn't have adequate forward support to make use of their admirable stifling of the McDavid unit. Every game I listen to an away broadcast, the opposing team's media needs very little goal-against-less time to pass before declaring that their checking centre or defense pair is shutting down 97. In Carolina's case there's some validity to it, as their pair is easily one of the more effective at the impossible task. Also note the majority 5v5 time-on-ice with defenceman Kris Russell, more on that shortly.

• I axed quite a bit of this game, that consisted of the kind of wasted neutral zone hot-potato that plagues the modern NHL. Kris Russell has his strengths as a player, but when he elects to give up clean possession in order to have the puck exit the zone, it plays into the opponents main strategy when McDavid is on the ice against him. In every season since 2012 besides the red-hot run by the Calgary Flames in 2014-15, having Kris Russell on the ice has lowered the shot, chance, and goals for rate of the star forward of his team and my eyes argue that it has to do with a lack of facilitating DZ exits and OZ entries with possession. This resulted in a number of plays out of the zone that Yamamoto couldn't contribute to, through no fault of his own and were thus excluded from the review. (He also wasn't the only one, and you'll see some of what I'm talking about in the clips that weren't cut)
• Kailer's habit of staying aware of the layers away from the puck and being puck-side of the point man at all times shows up again. Watch for his continual mindfulness of his positioning, always checking over his shoulder.
• The routine plays along the wall and the handoffs to 97 are much more important than they seem, and were much less than routine for much of the roster on the wings for the rest of the year.
• This was another game spent trailing and attempting to puncture a conservative neutral zone setup, which means it features even more reset and regroup heavy attacks coming out of the zone.
• A couple nice carries by the player in this collection.
• Most of the futility of his unit and their efforts came in the offensive zone, as they didn't score despite ample time there. The 20-8 shot attempts edge and the video back up that they didn't have too much trouble getting through the trap, which is a credit to both 97 and our subject.

The Verdict

I came in doubtful and that may have coloured my conclusions before I came to them, but the data already cast doubt on the notion that Kailer Yamamoto wasn't NHL-ready in terms of positioning and transition, and the video reviewed confirms it. This is a player who won the coach's trust on merit, and although he can improve further in these areas, his arrival as a top-six option in the NHL at 5-on-5 play will not be delayed by an inability to keep up at these aspects of the game. If Kailer Yamamoto is to establish himself as an NHL player this season for the Edmonton Oilers, it will be because he has improved in other areas to complement his existing ability to contribute to those reviewed.