What really happened with Yamamoto? (intro, plus thoughts on his part of the story)

The spirit of this blog is to examine the building blocks of the public discourse among Oilers fandom.

For example, when we're talking about Yamamoto's role in this upcoming season - which could very well be substantial - people enter with their conclusions about Kailer's 9 games and go from there. If you believed he wasn't physically ready for the NHL you would remark that if he's put on enough weight or gotten strong enough he'll be able to step in this year. If you believed he was too raw positionally, you'd talk about whether or not he adapts to the system quick enough to not get cut; perhaps you'd wonder aloud if he'll take to new coaches instructions better. Maybe you thought his shot or finish lacked polish or strength (he did not score a single regular season goal) and you'd add if he's got that down he's got his job. You could be one who just thought he wasn't ready in any area, and blasted the coach from the start for keeping him aboard the first few preseason games.

But with any version, you come to the table with your idea of his performance 9 months ago, and then pose your questions and your arguments thereafter.

In this series, we will put your (and my) recollection to the test, and explore the pathways traveled before you arrived at your premise.

First, let's explore what the data can tell us by itself. If you've any interest in non-goal advanced metrics, you'd know that they paint about as positive a picture as it gets of Yamamoto's 9 games in 5v5 play.

This is a map of Yamamoto's individual shots. The (by far) most popular assessment of Yamamoto's season was that he did not yet have the strength to play to the inside against NHL-size defenders, but the clustering of unblocked, on-goal shots in the slot runs counter to that assessment. Of course, by simply having the shot locations one could refute that statement by responding that although most of his shots were in dangerous area, his shot rate is more important and just because he did get his shots off doesn't mean he got them off often enough to be a scoring threat. Is that a valid notion?

	Per 60 minutes	Rank among NHL forwards	Rank among Oilers
Shot attempts	18.42	19th	1st
Unblocked Shot Attempts	13.44	12th	1st
Shots on Goal	10.45	28th	1st
Scoring Chances	12.94	2nd	1st
High Danger Chances	7.47	1st	1st

Small sample sizes, of course, but the only similarly-small sample members of the top end of the NHL in these metrics were Daniel Sprong and Filip Chytil, two excellent young players who I believe will have long, successful NHL careers.

Along now, to the centremen. Todd McLellan - correctly, in my view - went skill line or no line as an approach for Kailer. Here's how it broke down, by the minute:

• 67 minutes with Connor McDavid
• 34 minutes with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
• 7 minutes with Leon Draisaitl
• 9 minutes with Mark Letestu

The big question here is obviously if McDavid was zooming him to his ludicrous shot contribution rates. Well, that question is always more-so how much does McDavid zoom someone. You could say Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was carrying him in the non-McDavid moments, but I'd contend that the Nuge doesn't have that kind of ability, not just not at 97's level, but he generally doesn't pull up scoring rates and isn't a very potent scoring presence on by his lonesome at 5 on 5.

I have these side by side because it's better than vertically aligning them in terms of easy comparisons, for my eyes at least, hope yours too, but you'll have to tap/click and zoom in. They are the shot maps for the Oilers with Yamamoto and without McDavid as a standalone, then relative to the team average, then relative then relative to the league average. The rels betray the raw a bit in regards to the centre-slot, but we can easily see a cooling-effect in net-front action. The other effect is an imbalance of shots from the left face-off circle area as opposed to the right. This is a good point of interest for our video reviews: Was Yamamoto trying to shoot from the right, but getting the puck or his body blocked? Or was he over on the left side getting the opposite side one-timer angles? Or, was he passing up opportunities to shoot because he could pass it to the opposite side for a better shot? Remember these are the Oilers shots, not Yamamoto's alone. Was he shooting from higher up at the right circle because he was getting closed on and shied away from contact?

Which brings us to the piping-hot point area. Were the Oilers resigning themselves to point shots because they were getting muscled out of the cycle game? Or were they coached to take more point shots, and this had an effect on the lack of shots down low?

There's a lot to ponder here, and to reflect upon once we start getting to the video reviews.

What I also wanted to get a visual on, was the effect not of McDavid on Yamamoto, but Yamamoto on McDavid:

We haven't talked defense much yet in the data portion of this post, but I included the defensive end for these maps to pivot that direction.

You'll see additional evidence to this assertation in a bit, but, what I'll say now is that there's nothing in the data to suggest that Kailer was a drag defensively. This - and the offensive end as well - is obviously affected by the size of the sample as well as the timing of it. In the early stages of the 2017-18 NHL season, the Oilers were a dominant possession team, no matter who was on the ice.

Metric	Score and Venue adjusted %	Rank in NHL
Shot attempts for %	55.36%	2nd
Unblocked shots for %	55.39%	1st
Scoring Chances for %	55.32%	1st
High Danger Chances for %	55.68%	4th

(The Edmonton Oilers, Game 1-12 2017-18, via NaturalStatTrick.com)

 So, when examining players' numbers who only participated in these early contests and contrasting them with players who played the full season, you absolutely must take this effect into account. Of course, these players contributed to this early success and full season's players contributed to the regression, but we can easily see from the uniformity of the effect across the roster that these are the more results of the group, than any individual's overriding influence.

• Darnell Nurse first 12 games at 60+% all metrics, ~50% final 72 games
• Connor McDavid first 12 games 58+% all metrics, ~51% final 72 games
• Leon Draisaitl first 12 games 54+% all metrics, ~51% final 72 games
• Ryan Nugent-Hopkins first 12 games 53+% all metrics, ~49% final 72 games
• Adam Larsson first 12 games 54+% all metrics, ~50% final 72 games

You get the idea. Players like Jussi Jokinen, Brad Malone, Eric Gryba and our subject Kailer Yamamoto all have sterling possession numbers, it's important to understand the environment they were in.

When we're just dealing with percentages, though, we don't know which sides is driving Yamamoto's to the positive side of the ledger or how. He could be giving up more shots - we do know from the map that they wouldn't be from the slot; but you could argue that's the defensemen at work and not Kailer, and that those heat-spots up high and far to the side are indeed coming from Yamamoto's mark - and while doing so(giving up more shots) he's simply landing north of a 50% share by having that much more shots-for, offensively. We'll consult the replacement chart:

If he was indeed winning higher event minutes, the blue boxes would be running lower than the red boxes. The effect on the vertical axis - rate of shots against - is negligible.

The point I want to make here, though, is again that you can't argue that Yamamoto is poor defensively or in possession based on the data, but you can't make a terribly strong case of the opposite either. 

So, what are we looking for when it comes to the video?

First things first, I'm going to only be consulting the regular season games, because criticism of choosing to review preseason play is both easily made and easily understood as valid. There's tons of minutes against non-NHL competition and actual-NHL competition that doesn't give a hoot. I will, however, be putting together a small highlight video just to illustrate why the coaching staff could not really send down Yamamoto on merit. This reduces the narrative that Yamamoto shouldn't have broken camp to the argument that he should have been sent down regardless of playing well, as opposed to the argument that he didn't play well. I have time solely for the former, sorry. I hope you'll agree after I've made my case, visually.

Then, within our regular season NHL parameters, what will I be looking for? In order of importance:

1. Positioning and strength in puck battles
2. Forechecking effectiveness; stick and body
3. Shooting quality in power, selection, release time and positioning
4. Man-marking in all three zones
5. Puck retention, protection and possession-driving decision and execution

This will be a different format than in the Draisaitl series, where we went game-to-game and contextualised the play within the ebb and flow of the season,  instead just pure compilations of specific plays and situations. If you have anything to add or ask, please let me know, as I have yet to capture the video and so I can grab anything you want along the way.

What follows in this post is my personal view of what this prospect is and what to do with him in the larger scope of the organisation moving forward, added in the interest of letting you know my biases in evaluation and the conclusion I'll likely be subconsciously pulled towards during this project, and will hopefully help frame my mindset going into this, and what my thoughts and biases are on Yamamoto as a player. I also just wanted to get it all out, and that's half the point of this blog. It's rather non-sequitur, hence this disclaimer.

...

I'll first note that although I'm entering this project as a fan of Yamamoto's immediate prospects of becoming an NHL player, I won't be arguing that he should absolutely be on the team in the fall, in fact it's not even what I would personally do. It's my belief that the best most beneficial move for the organisation would be to start him in the AHL - to the benefit of both clubs. I haven't just recently come to this conclusion, in fact I've tried to get all the moving parts form such a decision nailed down, for example on July 11th on Lowetide.ca's comments I wrote up this plan for 2018-19 fall:

"I think the way to put a positive 5v5 team on the ice, with the forwards we currently have, is to squeeze together two high event lines and run them hard. Complement that with two low event lines below.

When I say high event, this is what I mean:

Two lines coud have outscored the competition at a three to two rate.

One of them scores three goals an hour and allows two, the other scores 6 goals an hour and allows four.

The former puts their team ahead by one goal an hour, the latter puts their team up by two goals an hour.

This is important because the problem with Edmonton last year is they gave up the goals that McDavid put them ahead by.

When he was on the ice last year 5 on 5, they scored 81 goals and allowed 61, when he was on the bench, they scored 82, and allowed 111. 

That’s plus-20 for Connor, minus-29 without him for a net -9.

Where was this given back? In a couple of areas.

When Letestu was on the ice without Connor, the team scored 13 goals and allowed 27, for a net -14.
That cannot stand, it is over 75% of the edge McDavid gained the team. Part of it is goaltending, but the poor footspeed and subsequently poor coverage had a real impact there. I would not expect this to repeat to such a grave extent, given replacement of the player and an assumption of regression(the good kind) from Cam Talbot.

Leon Draisaitl, playing away from both McDavid and Nuge, was on the ice for 24 goals for and 34 against, for a net -10.

This, this is repeatable. You stick Leon with poor linemates again, and you’re rolling the dice.
The primary goal here, and the most difficult task is to find Leon wingers with two-way ability and actual offense.

If you project Connor on-ice to return to the +30 levels from 2016-17, which is a real possibility given he’ll likely play with Nuge the whole year, then you could construct something like this:

Nuge – McDavid – Strome

– The key here is to stabilise the strongest offensive line 97 has been on thus far in his career. The Rattie version’s concern is the unsustainable conversion rate: both teams got equal high danger chances when they were on the ice, but Edmonton cashed 8 of theirs and the opposing team only 3.

McDavid outpaces the entire NHL at creating and converting these chances, but Nuge has had real trouble with it over his NHL career at 5 on 5 and Rattie’s got little history. 

You can run Rattie to start, but in my opinion Strome should be the first replacement. Over his career, Strome’s had more than a few successful stints on skill lines, and a few unsuccessful ones that appeared to be enough to sour his coach’s idea of him.

( points per hour – teammate – total toi with teammate )

In 2014-15:

• 2.57 with Anders Lee in 466 minutes
• 2.50 with Brock Nelson in 384 minutes
• 2.49 with Frans Nielson in 313 minutes

In 2015-16:

• 1.07 with John Tavares in 506 minutes <– Spot the career killer?
• 2.02 with Mikhail Grabovski in 356 minutes
• 1.41 with Brock Nelson in 255 minutes

In 2016-17:

• 1.40 with Brock Nelson in 343 minutes
• 1.71 with Anthony Beauvillier in 245 minutes
• 1.39 with Shane Prince in 216 minutes

In 2017-18:

• 2.48 with Leon Draisaitl in 193 minutes
• 2.02 with Jesse Puljujarvi in 237 minutes
• 1.82 with Juhjar Khaira in 263 minutes

I think there's an optimistic yet realistic way to interpret these numbers. He blew the doors off 14-15 with a stable line, was oil-and-water in an audition with Tavares that lasted longer that it should have, and had an awful year in 2016-17… where the whole team couldn't score 5v5.

The Islanders, in 2016-17, had all their regular forwards between 6.0 and 9.6 on-ice shooting percentage, and ONE forward above 2.00 5v5 points per 60.

Anders Lee scored 1.22/60 that year. He had 40 goals in 17-18.

There's also an economic advantage to putting Strome here over other players: he's locked in for next year. You're boosting the numbers of a guy already locked into a contract, as opposed to other options(Puljujarvi, Rattie, Rieder, Aberg) who are on expiring contracts.

Rieder – Draisaitl – Puljujarvi

Rieder over Lucic is a good point of discussion for high-event vs low-event. 

Draisaitl with Lucic, away from McDavid: 2.00 goals per hour, in a sample of three hours.

Draisaitl without Lucic or McDavid: 2.95 goals per hour.

This is where you want the higher event minutes. Say the shooting percentage corrects from the 6% Looch and Leon were shooting to raise their GF/60 to 2.5, and both lines give up 2.0 per hour(I don't believe Milan is better than Rieder defensively at this point), you want that extra goal per hour.

Puljujarvi rounds out this line with what I believe to be the best remaining two way ability of the RW's, in both ways. Jesse Puljujarvi with 2.37/60 with Leon with 2.37/60 with Puljujarvi.

Leon, as a centre away from Hall and McDavid, hasn't outscored the opposition thus far. I think this mix of wingers has talent with and without the puck, and speed for days.

As for the rest of the lineup, keeping them low-event is key. It will basically be two fourth lines, Khaira and Brodziak down the middle.

Another option is signing Nick Shore. He is 92nd percentile in shot suppression, that's the key metric for this half of the lineup.

There's also a way to force low event minutes using your D pairing. Using Bouchard or Bear on the third pairing and playing them with one of these lines out would be a no-no. I would nominate a Sekera-Russell or Nurse-Russell pairing here, to solve two problems. You keep the poor-transition game of Russell away from the speedy, rush-happy top lines, and use the chance-suppression of Russell to drive down the danger of having these lines out against more talented opposing third lines.

So, onto the rough projection. Teams spent between 3825 – 4089 minutes 5v5 last year, let's assume the NHL lies again about cracking down on obstruction and calls the same amount of penalties. Let's use 4000 minutes, and a static GA/60 of 2.0/60 for the bottom two lines(this is about what a bubble team scores without their top two lines on), and assume that the top two lines get scored on a more than that due to competition.

Nuge – McDavid – Strome

(1200 minutes)

3.6 GF/60 – 2.5 GA/60

72 GF – 50 GA <– The reason this is lower than last year's 81 is because McDavid will spend some double shifts with other lines

( +22 )

Rieder – Draisaitl – Puljujarvi

(1100 minutes)

2.8 GF/60 – 2.6 GA/60

51 GF – 47 GA

( +4 )

Everyone else

(1700 minutes)

1.5 GF/60 – 2.0 GA/60

43 GF – 56 GA

( -13 )

That all grades out to a +13 5v5 team, 166 GF(The Oilers scored 163 last year) and 153 GA(down from… a lot, pray for goaltending). 

The 52.02 GF% that represents would give them a real fighting chance at the playoffs, the rest would be up to special teams.

Note, this is a rough, rough, rough estimate and is not supposed to actually model anything, just to demonstrate the arithmetic of the concept. Nobody keeps lines together for that many minutes, no shooting and save% are that uniform, nothing, nothing about this is realistic. It's just some concrete numbers to help you visualise what I'm trying to put forth here.

Nor do I believe this is what the Oilers might do. I'd pencil Rattie in for that top line job, it'd surprise me if neither Yamamoto or Bouchard make the team, and Todd McLellan and I have been pretty far apart on deployment steady."

Back to present day, I still believe this is a strong approach. Any line with Yamamoto on it in Bakersfield would easily be one of the strongest youth-driven lines that a minor-league team feeding Edmonton has ever had. The fans in Bakersfield deserve a 40-win team, and the list of beneficiaries from success this fall in that city is long. Jay Woodcroft, Tyler Benson, Yamamoto himself, the veterans carving out a place guiding the youngsters, the veterans being pushed down the lineup into softer minutes, the young defensemen passing pucks to forwards with boots and skill. 

Kailer would not be entering the season still looking for his first professional goal, rather adding his first NHL tally to over a dozen gathered in California.

Make no mistake: Yamamoto would shred the AHL. There should be no questions about the offense of this prospect. To make a point in short, I'll now ball-park his production based on his WHL offense:

Via Gabriel Desjardins' League Equivalencies, WHL players are said to take 43% their points to the AHL. Yamamoto finished last year with 1.6 points-per-game on his campaign, put that through the equivalency and you get 0.69(…) points per game. Past that points to progression, in my opinion, so if by the first 20 games he's got 15 points or more, you call him up and send down Ty Rattie, barring the Nuge-McDavid-Rattie configuration being both real and spectacular.

I expect Yamamoto to be capable of this, and am quietly confident in hoping he blows next year out of the water. I'm vulnerable to overvaluing peculiar players - I love Yohann Auvitu, Milan Lucic, Samuel Girard, Jesse Puljujarvi, Micheal Grabner, Andreas Athanasiou, anyone you can tell who's got the puck without looking at the number. One-trick ponies, uncommon combinations. I was surprised and delighted when Chiarelli called Kailer's name, as this personal pull towards the unique was also married to a data driven viewpoint that Kailer Yamamoto undeniably had top-10 skill. On draft day, my thought was that perhaps there was a chance of offsetting the future-altering trades that lowered the ceiling of the team. Not fully un-ringing the bell, but fate dropping Puljujarvi via centre-bias, Yamamoto via size-bias, and even now Evan Bouchard onto the team already blessed with Connor McDavid.

Which is why I think it's so important to have Yamamoto work out. Using his success at creating dangerous chances against men in the NHL last year to point us in the direction that he'll smash the AHL, we can comfortably project the butterfly effect out from that decision: Puljujarvi getting guaranteed ice-time via lack of alternatives to the coaching staff, Benson getting a truly offensive opposite winger to find out if he really could bring offense to the pro level. We can even use the lesson of last year about Kailer's confidence - we know confidence works both ways - if he had a substantial cooling period after returning to the AHL post-perceived-personal failure in the NHL, could we not project the opposite effect from promoting him to the NHL, post-goalscoring-streak in the AHL? 

Bringing it back to Jay, he should be getting all the help he can get when it comes to forwards. In the coming years, he'll be trusted to numerous shots from distance developmentally. Let's give him a layup. some success preceding the critical cluster of complementary players the Oilers will need. Now Yamamoto and Benson and Marody, next it'll be Safin; Maksimov; McLeod. The winners-bias of AHL free agents is just as real as the NHL version, the race to 40 wins is on. You'd better find out if Woodcroft can win and can develop early, before you're in dire straits if he doesn't. He's a powerplay man and Yamamoto is an effective player there - I've watched Spokane and I'll be watching Bakersfield - between the forwards and Bear and Jones the weapons are there. If he can't get a line and a unit with Kailer and Cooper to score, are you going to lay McLeod, who will be a difficult prospect to bring to his potential, at his feet? I'm not asking that question in a mean-spirited way, just illustrating the urgency there should be (and in some ways, has been) applied to the Bakersfield problem.

Yamamoto is one of the pieces remaining. How many are there? This club has 3 good young top-six forwards, 3 good young top-four defencemen. Bear and Bouchard and Puljujarvi and Yamamoto are on the way, then the Oilers will be right in the race. Problem is, there's no fail-safe. I've said now in a lot of ways how important this prospect is.

It is also important, then, to understand what Yamamoto is today in the NHL based on what he was last fall. Because whenever a team fails to develop a prospect, this ground we're standing on right now gets forgotten, as if it was always a foregone conclusion and the player was never truly likely to do anything but run a course into an early European career. All this about not taking their talents with them to the NHL game, even if the early returns betray that narrative.

So, so far, what did really happen with Yamamoto?

SSS Part Eight - March 10th vs MIN

- March 11 vs MIN - 

Remember when we talked about Minnesota being a team that like to get their chances in close?

Edmonton lead for most of this game, but it wasn't pretty and things really went off the rails in the third period(10-2 high danger chances via NaturalStatTrick). Leon certainly didn't get the worst of it via the numbers, but we'll have to get through that net-front cluster. The linemates were Cammaleri and Lucic, this was right around when McLellan started to really come under fire for the utilisation of veterans up the line-up in a post-deadline seller atmosphere. I will say that these wingers were effective everywhere but offense for Draisaitl, and perhaps the audition itself for McLellan was simply 29 out on his own and he didn't want to do two things at once.

Just a small nitpick here, Drai recognises this play early and hustles back, but doesn't actually have position at any point on his man. This is likely because he sees the play already being thwarted, but in a way that doesn't change where he should be because it's gonna go behind the net if it's not going in front and he gets beat there too. Again, though, he picked up his feet and was involved supporting the puck when it was turned over and pushed up the wall.

This is another short clip but of a different kind. Bear gets beat fairly clean here, and this play puts one of those dots on our shot map but Leon's not liable. Him and Lucic body the Wild and get the play on its way.

Granlund worms around Ethan Bear here, Drai gets there right on time and some deft handling and puck relay later they're up and get a chance that I viciously cut off before you'd get the viewing satisfaction. Sorry.

Another example of the non-mandatory net-front man effect, luckily Leon notices when this puck gets past Larsson along the boards and, our angle is bad for saying this definitively, but it sure does look like Draisailt neuters this chance at the dying moment(Larsson  has a hand on the attacker too; doesn't quite work chronologically though) . He(Leon) then gets inside position to relay the puck to Nurse, who - I don't know to what degree this is coaching - betrays his typical confidence and dumps the puck in early after he's already got the backpressure to quit moving their feet. Mike Cammaleri should have taught him that shoot-in fake. Speaking of him, when Mike turns this puck over it's actually a four-on-two but you wouldn't know it by the reactions of some. The puck gets past the backhand of one of the Wild mid-transition though, and Nurse sees this and steps in. (Yes!)

We're into the dreaded third frame now, and only briefly does the puck exit after a DZ FOW and after various kerfuffling while our subject is playing up high, there's a moment where he sees the puck get around Larsson but doesn't quite start stepping quick enough to actually make a clean intercept that surely was possible, and Nurse takes a penalty dealing with the striking Parise.

Leon ends up first guy back after Bear steps in during the neutral zone skirmish, and walls off the forechecking Koivu, quite literally providing cover for Ethan to move the puck up, then Lucic gets two nice touches in a row and Draisaitl arrives in the offensive zone with the puck on his stick ready to make another excellent pass and does. Beautiful stuff start to finish.

This is just a tragic shift that starts with a goalie playing the puck on a hard rim that the defending team has the first man and a half and a year on, which is one of those things that slowly chip away at my hockey-brain and will eventually lead to my demise.

Leon thinks he has something before Nino swats the attempt, and the Wild try a (double?) tip play that ends up behind the net. We don' have eyes on it,but just by my counting I think Leon may have been able to contest the point shot itself if he stopped quick but he likely looped back. We can't see so we don't know.

Nurse gets a little hasty on a hard rim so it just gets to the Wild's point man, and a small sequence later gets away with one on a stuff-in play (the Wild are very coached but very clean and prolific with their set plays in the OZ, there's never *just* a point shot) Darnell makes another play too hard for his forward but eventually, eventually the hockey forces always deliver mercy and the puck leaves the zone.

That's the last of them, in a game of prolonged turtling against a team that punches above its weight offensively. The Wild really aren't a team with that many weapons, so their average 5v5 scoring is actually kind of impressive, especially if you've got an eye for the peculiar like I do and notice all the tricky little plays they pull.

Check back here for some non-Leon project stuff I've got in the works, there'll likely still be daily posts but not necessarily always this series.

SSS Part VII - March 1 vs NSH

- March 1 vs NSH -

Leon’s line in the material reviewed so far has split in all three ways by now, and now each former player centres their own line. A lot of the net negative goalshare away from McDavid on the year was dug around this time – Draisaitl was 7-12 in goals away from McDavid from this point on, that minus five is half of our total problem – so we should have a lot to go through, and this game in particular is packed.

There's a curious circumstance that extends beyond our regular parameters here: When Draisaitl was on the ice this game, in  5v5 play, he went 0-3 in goals. Two of these goals against came in just a minute and thirty-seven seconds that he shared with McDavid. Now, the rules are the rules on this commission, but if I’m already here…

...

Did I mention this was Ethan Bear’s first NHL game? This was Ethan Bear’s first NHL game.

There was 17 seconds left in the period, and Todd lined up Draisaitl with McDavid to go for the throat.

On July 27^th, in Lowetide.ca’s comment section during a discussion about defencemen's influence I wrote the following:

(I’ll open as well as end with the fact that I like Ethan Bear)

"I think defensemen seem very, very thresholdy.

The most potent, poisonous action you can take to a group of 4 NHL players is complete the quintet with a non-NHL defenseman.

The frequency and danger of the chances given up is unreal and has no remedy. If the ‘NHL’ hoop isn’t jumped through in the adage “NHL defencemen don’t affect on-ice save percentage” then the floor becomes false and everything sets on fire.

Take Ethan Bear last year. When Bear was on the ice every forward trio placed against him had the results of an uber-first line. Connor McDavid had the highest rate of NaturalStatTrick’s claimed high danger chances for, his rate rounds up to 16 per hour from not far away.

When Bear was on the ice, his unit gave up 20 and a half. Three and a half actual goals. Pushing a goal against every 15 minutes.

(I like Ethan Bear as a prospect, just using him as an example)"

This one's at least got a dash of nuance, Leon misses the puck twice here with the second being worse than the first. It's a very, very good pass.

The pairings I circled is just one way to play it. This is a situation where you'd need a bit of communication. Either way, if that guy wants to shoot it, Bear jumping in front of Talbot isn't going to stop him. The back door was something he could have effectively watched, though.

The other goal is the most noxious minus-one a player can get. The clock strikes yikes o'clock before he gets off the bench. It follows with no comment:

With the goals out of the way, there's still a lot here.

At another aside, I could talk about the discussion point that pops up from time to time about Zack Kassian finding moments on a skill line. There are proponents of both directions, here's how I look at it: We know Kassian can succeed on a successful fourth line, full time. We don't know if he can succeed on a successful top nine line, but we have more evidence that he can't than we do of most of his competitors for those same minutes.

The puck hits the ref here, Drai reacts well off the scramble and a bit later but get backtracked; Matt Benning makes a great play pushing the puck out along the wall and the Oilers end up with a dump-in scenario where they've got both sides closed on.

Drai runs it down to the end boards and covers the reversal, and Kassian just kind of fly-by turns opposite away from Subban and then gives him the first pass. Then his controller disconnects right as he closes on the carrier who weaves back to centre to get the dump in on the same side as his forecheckers.

Klefbom gets in front during the chase and they run the puck back out far side.

There's a good example of the mandate to be more aggressive on the man, here, where you've got nobody initially and intrinsically assigned to stand in front of the net. Oscar gets sneaked around here, and Johansen the trailer is extremely hard to pick up, the chance is pretty much guaranteed by the circumstance. After Kassian loses the puck on the wall again, Cammaleri isn't wise to the pick play and cedes the body position necessary to make it happen. It's a cheeky play.

Drai attacks with his skates and his stick here, recovers the puck and puts a pass straight through whereas Cammaleri was expected the boards play. He later gets just enough of a centring pass to bobble it towards the post, to close out a particularly cursed shift.

This one's got something to it. Zack Kassian flashes some quick hands to get a tricky shot off that the goaltender can't easily handle, but the bounce ends up all right and the Preds end up with an entry 3 on 3 where Kris Russell ends up backing all the way up despite having the manpower and communication to step in, as Nurse has the centre lane and Cammaleri signals for KR to contest.

Russell has Johansen so Kassian needs to take Ellis but he doesn't. There's acres of ice here, and it could have gone miles worse but Ellis kind of misses the puck on his first go round then gets his royal road pass read by a diving Cammaleri.

Aberg forces a turnover here and Drai's there for it, then Pontus makes the retrieval difficult on the two Preds and there's a bit of a bounce-fest before good fortune sends the puck on its way. Nurse gets to the shoot in, and Leon counts heads before having a go at creating a free two on one. It doesn't work, but you make this pass every single time. The turn around is still four-on-four, though no one quite gets a stick on what should be a very contestable shot. Cammaleri makes a great move in a dangerous situation and they're off.

Nurse fires the puck down the ice here and Aberg hustles to the inside and gets it. Ellis takes him down entire illegally in breath range of the referee but those calls come and go.

(He also shoots right back to cover on the play along the wall, too, and I'm just generally impressed every time I'm viewing these games with Pontus performing various roles admirably)

Talbot plays the puck here, the Preds wrangle it and we again see another example of the Oilers being aggressive towards the man over patrolling the netfront zone. Nurse darts at the carrier and Drai recognises, following suit on the dangerous pass option and ends up tapping the puck away and picking up his feet to a 50/50 puck and getting it all away.

Aberg gets a hack at a puck here and Cammaleri shoots it back in, don't ignore those plays they're important too.

Klefbom and Pontus make a good play after on an intercept and subsequent competition, disarming the "sortie" by getting it safely to Draisaitl who of course makes the no-look backhand pass off the wall to the tape of the F2.

Leon and fleet wingers looks damn good, I'm thinking precisely one giant and one extra German for next year's version.

Just one more transitional play and then we're done:

Draisaitl's a little aimless in this play, but the key I wanted to show here is the difference from how the transitional game looked from his starting winger-set to the ones he's got here. Leon can look bad if no one can get him the puck, but he makes it real easy on you if you do get him the puck, anytime and anywhere.

That's a wrap for this game, we got the gross stuff out of the way early. These March games really do have a lot in them for our purposes. We haven't found, in my opinion, a ton of liability in Leon's game so far, but as we know that pairing with Strome offered its own kind of shelter. Those 10 missing goals are in here, and unless I'm especially gifted at excuse-making for hockey players I'm a fan of then we should have our answer by the end of this. Thank you again for following along.

sometimes sayings are just said, part six (Dec 14 vs NSH, Dec 18 vs SJS)

- December 14 vs NSH  -

This game was a story of shot inequality and injustice.

The Nashville Predators were a good Corsi club last year, their share of the shot attempts being 52.62%, after Score and Venue Adjustments, for 5th in the league. 

This distinction is growing evermore important as the numbers of teams in league whose tactics produce large discrepancies between raw shots and higher danger chances grows.

The Minnesota Wild, for example, held the following honours in 5v5 play:

• 25th in the NHL in CF% (shot attempts)
• 1st in the NHL in HDCF% (high danger chances)
• 9th in the NHL in GF%

(via NaturalStatTrick.com)

The Nashville Predators were not one these teams, with a shot share two percent higher than their high danger chance share.

Why is this important?

It's not, really, but it is really amusing in the context of this game:

(also via NaturalStatTrick.com)

68 shot attempts without a goal. Laugh, it's funny!

Though, when adjusted for the trailing-team bonus the score adjusted version is ~60. Which also brings Nashville to have majority high danger, though not by much and the 4-0 score is still miles from indicative of the guts of the game's flow.

This is what we're looking for, remember. The goal share betraying the shot share, and our own Leon Draisaitl had 0 high danger shots for and 3 against on his watch.

I set out to investigate, and I found all three:

The front row has the best view but it still isn't part of the show, there's not much to be done here. By outcome this play was awful, but by process it's just what had to be done. Both the passer and pass-ee could have helped this play out of happening, neither of them was our subject. A lot of the HDCA are like this in our December segment, just via the way the defensive zone was setup when this line was deployed. Remember that Todd McLellan hasn't actually ran Leon at centre for long up until this year, his breakout campaign took place at that spot in spirit but flanked by Taylor Hall, the next on board with McDavid. Stepping then to this snapshot's now, he's the star on the line but doesn't yet bear the full set of responsibilities. Part of this series' projectability is we'll get to see where he was at, at what will be a full time job next year.

Here's a would be goal against, off of a turnover in the offensive zone. These are the types of plays that unfairly get pinned on one player, when as always in hockey two spots have to give, or more.

You'll notice what makes the turnover very untimely is that all three forwards are low, very low. But, at the freeze-frame you'll notice that everyone has eyes on the play. the Oilers in Blue and the Preds in Red and the net-front man Juhjar Khaira isn't actually too far away from the lowest Predator player, but as the play button presses he doesn't recognise the graveness of this situation. Just as most 3 on 2's are played out, Forsberg pulls up to make time to break down the defense but that time's also made for a backcheck all the same.

The turnover's the turnover and this should have been a goal, but there's more than one error by more than one Oiler here.

This a strange play featuring a circa-ninety-six pad-stack on a volume shooting volume shot that should just be caught or otherwise rendered inoffensive.

If you've been counting, that's all three, and I don't think we've found much here more than a disproof that Draisaitl had much to do with the defensive lapses besides a poor offensive-zone turnover, and the trouble with that is they're a side-effect of being a good player. As we've been over before, if the frequency of mistakes like this were often enough they'd show up more in the shot shares and they don't so they aren't.

Finding nothing when you set out to find something is kind of finding something though. False alarm.

(I feel homerish today, is that just me?)

- December 18 vs SJS  -

More often than sometimes, during this half of the season something along the lines of 'a winning streak could strike at any moment' was said.

If you saved that saying for just before this game you would have been right, the good guys took home both points from here to the 27th and times were temporarily swell.

This configuration for San Jose (Tierney-Hertl-Labanc) worked together once and this was that once. The parts are good - San Jose's got the most complete forward group in the division for my money and these players are a part of that - but the sum lost out to the Draisaitl-trio this game and it wasn't by a little.

The most important deployment decision Pete DeBoer makes most nights is who gets Burns-Dillon(formerly Burns-Martin) and who gets Vlasic-Braun. The latter is a wet blanket and the former is a firecracker. If you want to break down the veteran San Jose squad your best place to start is the powderkeg middle pairing, they'll run a track meet with you and everyone who partakes in that brand of hockey has a chance to lose, by nature. Surface level scratch of this effect: San Jose runs ~68 shots per hour with Burns, ~55 with Vlasic.

As you'll see most of the shot volume got pushed to the point, but there's that little red spot buggering everything up, the goal against:

Nurse doesn't dream enough on his entries for my taste, you don't have to toss that puck in that far away from biting distance.

A pass goes out of Leon's reach and a would-be 3 on 2 develops, but that third Shark doesn't actually pick up his feet enough so Russell can step up and be covered but he elects not to, then gets his stick tied up and can't block the shot. 

Not a big deal, that's the goal out of the way.

Pulling back to the opening shift:

This is just a nice play, from identification to execution. When Burns goes that wide, either a rebound or a pass is going to end up where Leon's going here so he's there for it and it could've been much worse if he wasn't.

…

After various transitional shenanigans, Leon loses a puck on the wall here, it happens, but he can't cede body positioning so easily behind the net here. This is a supremely punishable play.

In Red it's not clear he knows there's a Shark behind him, but that's puck watching if he doesn't and if he does he's gotta know he's gotta be the first guy to that puck because his starting point makes it a lot easier than the alternative.

Here's a neat little neutral zone play, this is actually a more important play than it seems because there's actually only one Oiler in position to make it back quick on a turnover. Conventional wisdom normally has a dump-in play as default here, but I always prefer skilled players to make higher net-benefit plays based on the higher level of execution they're capable of.

…

A word on where we're going...

Ahead after the time travel is a string of games from the end of the season misnomer'd as garbage time - we'll be enthusiastically dumpster diving and although at times it'll feel exactly like that(the end of the season was positively overreported positively), the March portion of the schedule offers us a ton of opportunities to learn more about Draisaitl's progression away from the puck as the lone star on his line.

From the 10th of the month to the season closing games in the next, only two games featured the duo of Draisaitl-McDavid and Leon had all kinds of linemates while playing against the same pure 2nd comp that he'll likely be playing next year. 

Because Nuge centred his own line in the games that we've been over in December, the middle of the competition was cut up between him and Leon, whereas in these March games Nuge is with McDavid so there was just two true skill lines to match up against for opposing coaches. Again, all signs point to 93-97 starting next season together so this'll be a good look at what that implies for Draisaitl's matchups.

We'll talk linemates too, as a lot of the same guys are gonna get the first shot after Lucic and Rieder do, or as the plus one with either half of those two. As always, thank you for reading, and feel free to share this series any place there's interested Oilers fans as I'm only really active on Lowetide's blog right now.

Sometimes sayings are just said, part five (Dec 12 vs. CBJ)

Good morning my friends.

This day in December we're harkening back to, the Oilers put the Blue Jackets in the dumpster, 7-2. If I remember correctly, this was the game where John Tortorella all but played hooky on his post-game media responsibilities, which is the most delicious thing for Oilers fans since he was Vancouver's coach.

Draisaitl didn't get in on the action much at 5v5 in terms of the scoresheet, but he was utterly exceptional in transition and to be honest, there was probably a maximum three short clips I could have used pertaining to prolonged defensive zone shifts, and in none of them was coverage or anticipation an issue. 

In the interest of still telling the story, I've compiled all of his stellar zone exit and entry play from the game.

You'll notice a successful version of the breakout system a few times here, where two forwards will fly the zone fast and pull back the neutral zone scheme of the defending team, allowing for the third forward to only have to outplay one forechecker and really wind up for some clean, effective transportation. I believe the first four clips are literally all shifts in a row from the first period only. Unstoppable carrying.

Due to length, I've uploaded the compilation to YouTube. Enjoy.

Sometimes sayings are just said, part four(Dec 9 vs MTL + Dec 10 vs TOR)

                                 - December 9 vs MTL - 

Hockey Night in Canada victories, they're good for morale.

Especially in Montreal, especially when they get off to a good start.

Games like these are very weird for this analysis, though. Score effects come in, lots of whistles for penalties both advantage inducing and not, lots of neutral zone face-offs. As you'll see here, Draisaitl started in the defensive zone only two times, and didn't end up there through any other avenue very often, either.

I'd circled the relevant dangerous shots against, before noticing in my viewings that pretty well all of them came at 4v4 and not 5v5, including the goal(the Oilers went 4-0 on 5v5 goals this game). The impressive Khaira-Strome surroundings for 29 begins here. The competition TOI was split near evenly between two D pairings and two forward trios, as the three centre model tends to mush up match up plans of opposing coaching staffs.

The result of the strong shot suppression is there's not much film for this game. The stuff I could pull has value, though.

I'll be trying a new format in this game, it goes like this: I'll freeze frame in significant moments and draw over significant moments with different colours, and then detail the analysis in chronological order with the colours indicating each moment.

Red: Draisaitl sees the play being forced up the wall, and succeeds in disrupting it.

Yellow: Recognising Russell stepping up in the neutral zone, Leon swings back to cover, the bounce comes to him and he puts his back to the forechecker and soft rims the puck to Darnell Nurse.

Green: Nurse's lost the puck, so Draisaitl comes over to cover the boards reversal option, slightly slower than what would have been necessary has that been the Habs' execution, because he'd only be in proximity to one hand reach the puck, rather than have the puck settled on a clean turnover where he can make an easy, quick play on his forehand, pass or carry. You'd like to see him pick his feet up there.

Turquoise:  Leon goes to cover the point pass, it goes the other way (understandable, 50/50 play) and then he pivots and goes wide of the second arrow area he should be covering(the cross-point guy is already covered) and the puck gets around him. Strome's quick chip gets blocked at the blueline and the Hab outplays Khaira's check.

Blue: Drai reads the pass to the middle, but just doesn't get a piece of it. This will be a common theme with him, his anticipation is good but the execution just isn't high percentage enough yet. these are good signs for a young player, not bad ones.

He then comically bulldozes a Hab a tad late and the far official calls him. Ha.

Red: Leon contests the shot and the follow-up, but the second Hab takes away the loose puck he created. 

Orange: Staying on his man here, he pivots reactively to the play down the boards and ties up his check along the boards, then gives him an outside option(which is fine) and the Hab takes it into a trap. Supports the play after the takeaway and the Oilers break out.

Red: Leon stays on his man as he becomes more dangerous, and I can't really tell if he accidentally slewfoots him, on purpose slewfoots him, or the Hab takes a dive. I highly doubt it was the first two(this was not a game with any tension) and the third there's nothing to be done about. 

Orange: He gets frustrated here(I think there was indeed some embellishment), not contesting the extra attacker's entry into the slot or communicating to Strome that he's coming in. Cammaleri doesn't feel like picking up his guy either, and the puck ends up in the net.

That's about as ugly as it gets, but this is propaganda-cut against Leon. These were the only 5v5 chances that happened on his watch, he had a good game on thewhole. He gets frustrated, we know this.

- December 10 vs TOR - 

This game is much less lean for our purposes.

Again the three centre model was ran by Edmonton, and Toronto's Auston Matthews was injured for the contest. Babcock responded by matching Kadri vs McDavid, and Nylander at centre with Hyman and Brown at his flanks vs Draisaitl.

This was... a wretched game to watch. The Leafs scored on the first shift, then got trashed for the entire remainder of the game but the Oilers couldn't score. Tragic stuff, really. Let's re-experience it!

Red: Leon shadows this play well up the wall, but stops just short of attempted pick-pocketing, he's got the reach and the hands, you'd like him to be more aggressive here. He's there with separation if a teammate pokes it back though, it's a tradeoff.

Orange: Willie Nye takes his shot when he sees it, and steals the puck away. This represents the successful version of what I'd want to see Draisaitl do in Red.

Green: Nylander surveys the options here, but everyone's either pretty well covered, or out of the reach anyways. Leon should be covering the point pass here, as it's the highest percentage option for Nylander and the one he's best spatially suited to contest. Bill's looking cross ice, he's lying.

The puck gets tipped and ends up going in after a strange delay. This isn't on Leon really, he did give up the point shot uncontested but that shot turning into a goal is something that happens just sometimes, and just that.

...

There's not much here in this clip, it's placed here just to show how hard it is to turn plays around as F3. Leon just barely gets a split second where he could have turned the puck over. This is in essence an illustration of how some events are out of one players' hands almost entirely. It's also a common shift for the Oilers on a breakout, playing pinball hockey just trying to hit the blueline instead of a concerted, calm pass or two out.

…

Red: Leon plays the other 29 heavy here, and in the right way, keeping him to the outside and correctly switching opposite side at Orange, making sure he's not pushing him directly into the goaltenders' vision. 

This is just good coverage. It's what you want to see.

…

Red: Draisaitl gets the steal on Nylander here, then while realising that both board plays are covered(Nylander actually doesn't have his stick on the reversal, but he should, and Draisaitl can't see that he doesn't and should play it out as if Nylander's playing it properly), he goes up the middle hitting Khaira on the tape. This is a great defensive play all around, regardless of how it ends up back in the DZ briefly as a result of Khaira's mishandling.

Red: Draisaitl knows where this puck is going based on who's covered (although Khaira's stick is in the wrong spot here) and he does get his stick there, but this play is so telegraphed that he really should have gotten a piece of it, he even could have gone down to one knee and completely neutered it. Still good anticipation(told you this would be the theme) with imperfect execution.

...

Short last clip here where his usual wingers have already changed, as first man back Drai does some good work here supporting the puck and getting it to Lucic who makes a great physical play along the wall to buy the change to get 97 on the ice for Leon. 

This comes back to how Draisaitl's actually a pretty good F1 in the DZ, especially compared to some forwards on the team and I'd like it if he had most of those responsibilities wherever possible going forward, as I feel he's just on the cusp of being a fine defensive player there. This was two full games at centre, and he made few glaring mistakes and on the smaller mistakes he usually had the right idea. Understand that the shot maps in these games tell quite a story of what I haven't shown here.

…

That's all for today, we'll continue through the days of Christmas in the coming posts. Thank you for reading.

Sometimes sayings are just said, part three (Dec3 vs CGY)

So, to the heart of the project.


I imagine reading my flowery prose-laden prologue was somewhat similar to rage-scrolling through the author's backstory of a recipe trying to get to the actual ingredients and preparation.

I'll say only a little bit more about the precise scope of the project: we are slightly more specifically looking for where shots turn into goals, not where nothing turns into shots. This narrowing is done because Leon Draisaitl already split the shot share in excess of evenly away from McDavid at 50.4% versus 49.3% when both were at rest - meaning his influence on transitional and possession play wasn't a weakness. The issue is the goals, and goals are noisy, but it's not nothing because it is the results.

We can also eliminate any idea that there's other (positive) influences muddying the waters when we look at a visualisation of the shot shares of minutes Draisaitl shared and didn't share with the other players on the team:

The easiest way to identify a play-driver is if those red boxes of players' minutes without Leon get pulled up towards the 'GOOD' corner to their black counterparts, representing the minutes they spent with him, and the blue boxes of his time without them. Draisaitl has this effect, and when we take McDavid into account we can remember that many of those good-ended black boxes were not left wingers for the 29-97 line, and that McDavid was actually only slightly better in shot share without Leon than Leon was without McDavid, it's just McDavid happens to outperform that in the goal department, as he will for his entire career.


…

So the video attended to, or rather most of the video attended to with a very critical eye, will mostly be of shifts actually spent in the defensive zone without the puck, with additional transitional play I found interesting and that points in an optimistic direction for Leon as a shot share driver.

These also won't be solely compilations of mistakes - I made this decision in particular after reading an article surrounding an interview with one the San Jose Shark's video coaches, Dave Barr, the link is here: https://www.thescore.com/nhl/news/1574566

Here's the quote:

"Dave Barr has a rule about video meetings: players must leave the room feeling good about themselves.

"I don’t want them feeling like they’re a piece of s---. I don’t want them going, ‘Jesus, f--- me, Dave doesn’t believe in me,’" 

So I want the reader to come away from this feeling good about Leon Draisaitl, and that's not to keep up the Oilers fanbase's morale as it is for Dave Barr and his players - it's because that's what I believe to be the correct outlook after we consider the evidence.

…

I'll be exploring different formats throughout this series, starting with a game-by-game section beginning at the December 2nd game versus Calgary.

The Oilers, at the time, were about to enter a would-be midseason renaissance, trading wins for losses evenly to open the month, and then ran the table on the last four before Christmas. The forwards format was the unicorns model of three centres, Lucic and Puljujarvi with McDavid, Khaira(sometimes not) and Strome with Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins with the leftovers with cyclical features from a pool of Cammaleri, Caggiula, Kassian, and Maroon, with Slepyshev weeping softly on the fourth unit.

Draisaitl played a lot of F3 in this setup, alternating faceoffs with Ryan Strome. This was the best showcase of Ryan as a pivot-pivot in the lineup and was really impressive tactically, one of Todd McLellan's more impressive moments of the season in deployment.

Here's the setup for the first game:

And the shots against map, once again sourced from Micah Blake McCurdy (@IneffectiveMath, hockeyviz.com)

And now to the Saddledome, fifty-six minutes remaining:


(you'll recognise the later part of this clip from the 2nd post of this series)

The scene opens with Kassian(the last man on before the full forward unit change) firing a shot high and wide that gets to Leon on the richochet. The play continues developing until Draisaitl's shot rebounds into a race between him and another forward where he plays the body but loses the puck and then continues backpressuring against the dump-in attempt. Good stuff all around.

Klefbom collects and soft rims to Caggiula who loses his battle, and Drai competes and then loses his too, until his check gets the puck back (dangerously) and Leon gets back over and topples him. Matt Benning gets a penalty for alleged chicken-winging.

Leon could have taken a penalty here, but in all did some good work and stayed on target and attentive.

...

Now later in the game, after the Oilers had earned a lead:

Leon's latest coming in here, he's F3 with Caggiula F2 and Strome F1. He closes on the carrier immediately after coming into frame, first covering the backhand pass to the opposite point with his stick, then removing the option up the boards, forcing the play down the boards. (Between Caggiula and Strome you'd like this to be a turnover as the Flame took the only high-ish percentage option remaining)

(You can see both the non-permanence of a net-front man and some puck-watching result in a potential 2 on 0 in front of the net as the shot comes)

Strome flips a rebound high after a precarious set of plays, and Leon find the puck between the gap and mercifully advances the puck forward, drawing two Flames toward him briefly as he slinks to right wing. At this moment, as the Flames are far benched and the boards reversal is open, he can use that puck pathway to find the Oilers RD - but instead takes it behind the net shrugging off a potential check, as he does. Both were strong options. He tries to find Strome in front, but the defender's in the way.

The Flames run it back, and Leon correctly reads the first pass but just barely doesn't get enough of it to properly intercept. Impressive processing and stick. He stays close with the middle man except but loses him ever so slightly but only in the moment where the left wing carrier is covered quite well, then covers one side of the boards option.

Puck comes out in front, Caggiula grabs it and tosses it to Leon who's on his horse and tries backhand five. Another nice effort all around by Drai, in my view.

…

A little bit later:

29 battles on a very non-2017/18 faceoff and eventually pulls it back, where a clever Flame is waiting (who should not be uncontested given time elapsed since puck-drop) then stays hard on the man, boxes him out of a potential screen, and stickchecks cleanly and well to make the (ill-advised and wasteful) point shot an easy save. I don't think I have to tell you if I like what I see here.

…

On the very next face-off:

I trimmed this clip comically unintentionally and it ends up opening with Patty Maroon's face before fading to the puck drop, as if he's having a traumatic flashback to the nightmarish last season we all witnessed and experienced together.

Try to forget, big guy. It's not your fault.

It's not your fault.

...Anyways, the Flames draw this one back to the point and our subject covers his man well again both before and after the point shot results in a near-optimal rebound aided by Brossoit's stick to Ferland behind the net, Caggiula picks up the rogue pass and Leon picks up the half-chip upon their arrival at the Flames' end boards, plays catch with Strome and then sets up Caggiula for a great chance that Strome collects for a shot of his own.

Full conversion of a DZ face-off loss into a OZ face-off, with a tally of two shots to one on the shift with the Oilers' version being more dangerous both times.

…

At a four-goal lead now, the neutral zone is now a full blown trap house:

The Flames fire a dump-in past the turtling structure, Benning runs interference on the first forechecker and Klefbom collects cleanly and gets it to Drai, who's presenting a safe option. Leon goes up the middle and turns it over. Both passer and receiver could have played this better, and it results in a point shot converting to a DZ faceoff. I don't mind going up the middle at all, you just have to play it better.

…

The subsequent DZFO:

This is a poor trim based on some frame lag, I apologise. All that happened was the Flames won the face-off back to the D as one does.

Leon's netfront here, and at times cedes position and no times really makes the goaltender's job easier. You don't have to crosscheck the guy or be Adam Larsson, but this could be taken as thinking the game's kind of over(hint: it wasn't; this was a sphincter tightener on steroids of a game) and in general a better effort would be ideal. That moment where he separates unprompted looks really bad, but the whistle is blown by that point, so disregard if you noticed that.

…

And now, after the game has tightened to one goal:

Draisaitl's playing the 1 of a 1-2-2 here, and the Flames tip the puck into the zone. Drai arrived and sits high before getting a shot at an interception up the boards, then another as the D fumbles but both are unsuccessful. He gets another 1-2 and gets the puck out on the 2.

…

This was the last shift at 5v5 for our subject. Sharp-eyed readers may remember seeing a red circle indicating a goal against on his watch, however.

I didn't include it in the body of this game review for reasons I think you'll find obvious. I'll present it without further comment at the end of this post.

As I write this the videos for the next game are uploading, analysis on the way and should be up tonight as well as tomorrow morning, thank you for reading.