Paires défensives inférieures par buts attendus par 60 minutes (min 125 TOI) – Lauzon-McD au 8e rang

2 Comments

1. dnewman8 2 ans ago

   I could be imagining it, but I feel like Lauzon throws a lot of blind passes to the middle of the ice that end up picked off and headed back our way. He’s gotten better as the season’s gone on – I think – but yeah, I can see how he’s on this list.

2. evanwilliams212 2 ans ago

   This is in some ways misleading, IMO.

   McDonagh has had a bunch of partners this year. This one pairing qualifies but it is a little over 10 percent of his ice time.

   One guy leads the team at +18, the other guy is -8. It’s not like both of these guys are sucking all the time.

   There were times early on where McDonagh played third pairing and I suspect a sizeable portion of these shifts came early in the season when that was the case. This pair started with a face-off in the o-zone 3 times, nz 21 times, defensive zone 18 times. Not a recipe for offensive success.

   What this table measures is expected goals against. In other words, what should have happened. What actually happened was their goal split was 6 goals for and 9 against, so they outperformed what was expected by a little. That’s 40%/60%.

   Also, 2 of those goals were low danger chances. Those are usually bad goalie play or an unlucky bounce. They still count, of course, but it makes the boys look a little better.

   Here is one that makes you think. High danger chances, which are calculated from were the shot was taken, give them a massive 40 to 16 disadvantage. However, in actual play the opponents only scored 4 goals and the Preds scored 4 goals. The League shoots between 8 and 9 percent on all shots, so to only give up a 10% shooting percentage on the very best shot opportunities is a positive from a statistical viewpoint.

   Here is what I take from this: there are two players who haven’t played a lot together, neither one a speedy puck mover, stuck in their own zone a lot and playing a conservative, give-ground zone defense. They were giving up a lot of shots, too many, but it also looks like they were contesting those shots fairly well. It ain’t pretty and never was going to be but it wasn’t as bad as this chart makes it look.