The graphs included here are visual representations of each Montreal Canadiens player's success-rate when attempting to pass the puck to a teammate. The top graph shows this season's rates, while the second graph shows last season's numbers. Each color on the graph represents that player's success-rate in a specific zone, with green showing offensive-zone, yellow showing neutral-zone and red showing defensive-zone.
A successful pass is defined as a pass from one teammate to another that is not touched by an opposition player, and is fully controlled by the receiving teammate. Stretch-passes resulting in chip-ins are also counted as successful passes.
Greg Pateryn and Gabriel Dumon't numbers are the products of substantially fewer events than other players. The same can be said for Yannick Weber's numbers. As such, they are not representative.
DEFENSIVE-ZONE
The most improved returning defenseman is Alexei Emelin. Emelin has improved his d-zone passing success-rate from 68.8 to 75.2.
Kaberle's d-zone passing-percentage has also improved, and continues to lead all defensemen. While, Raphael Diaz, PK Subban, and Josh Gorges have similar numbers in each season. Andrei Markov has the lowest defensive-zone passing success-rate. The reason for this can be found in the length of Markov's passes. Markov is more likely than any other d-man to attempt a stretch pass from the defensive-zone; an understandably lower-percentage play.
The top d-zone passing-percentage among forwards belongs to Ryan White. Followed closely by Colby Armstong, Tomas Plekanec and Michael Ryder. The lowest d-zone passing-percentage belongs to Travis Moen; who has struggled with passes along the half-wall in the defensive-zone. Moen's d-zone passing-percentage this season is 4 percentage-points below last year.
NEUTRAL-ZONE
The most improved returning defenseman when it comes to neutral-zone passing success-rate is PK Subban. Subban's n-zone passing-percentage is up from 72.5% last season to an impressive 88.6% this year.
Among forwards, the biggest improvement comes from Max Pacioretty and Rene Bourque. Both wingers have improved their n-zone passing success-rate by nearly 10% compared to last season.
The top neutral-zone passing success-rate among d-men belongs to Subban, while the lowest has been produced by Kaberle. Among forwards, the top n-zone passing success-rate belongs to Colby Armstrong, while the lowest belonged to Erik Cole. With Cole now in Dallas, the "honour" now belongs to Brendan Gallagher.
OFFENSIVE-ZONE
The biggest improvement in offensive-zone passing success-rate among returning defensemen belongs to Emelin, who has improved his success-rate by 6% from last season. Gorges however, has seen his o-zone passing-percentage drop by 15 percentage-points; the lowest success-rate among d-men.
The biggest improvement among returning forwards belong to Bourque, who has improved his offensive-zone passing-percentage by nearly 8 percentage-points.
The top offensive-zone passing success-rate among defensemen belongs to Andrei Markov; followed closely by Francis Bouillon. As mentioned earlier, the lowest o-zone success-rate has been produced by Gorges.
Among forwards the top o-zone passing success-rate belongs to Michael Ryder. Followed closely by Gallagher and Desharnais. Ryder has played less games than most other forwards, while Gallagher's success is the product of an impressive cycling-game. Desharnais was the top forward with significant events last season, and has improved on those numbers this season. The lowest mark among forwards belongs to both Gionta and Moen, who have each been successful with only 50% of their offensive-zone pass-attempts.
2012-13
2011-12
