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Habs: Success-rates with Puck-possession in Offensive-zone

By Kicks @Chrisboucher73
An attacking player with the puck on his stick in the offensive-zone has 3 basic options. He can shoot the puck toward the net, he can pass the puck to a teammate, or he can beat an opposition player 1on1 with a deke. The below graph is a visual representation of every Montreal Canadiens skater's success-rate when faced with these 3 options in the offensive-zone. The calculation is a solid tool in quantifying each player's ability to create offense by either getting the puck to the net, or maintaining puck-possession for his team. The events used in this calculation include:
  • Offensive-zone Passes
  • Failed offensive-zone passes (loss of puck-possession)
  • Offensive-zone dekes
  • Failed offensive-zone dekes (loss of puck-possession)
  • Shots on net
  • Attempted shots that are blocked
  • Attempted shots that miss the net

A player who completes 1 of 2 passes, gets 1 of 2 shots through to the net and succeeds with 1 of 2 dekes would have a success-rate within this framework of 50%.
Habs: Success-rates with Puck-possession in Offensive-zone
As a team, the Habs are successful with 56% of their attempted plays when holding possession in the offensive-zone.
The Habs most successful players with the puck on their stick in the offensive-zone include PK Subban, Max Pacioretty, David Desharnais, and Tomas Plekanec. Each of these players are successful with 62% of their attempts to either pass the puck to a teammate, get a shot on net, or beat an opposing player 1on1 with a deke. Subban, Plekanec and Desharnais are most successful when they attempt to pass the puck to a teammate, while Pacioretty's most successful option is a shot on net.
Alexei Emelin and Yannick Weber are the only two players with success-rates at or under 50%.  Weber only gets 34% of his attempted shots through to the net, while Emelin only gets 40% of his shots on net. Among forwards with a substantial amount of events, Brian Gionta, Rene Bourque and Andrei Kostitsyn have the lowest success-rates. Gionta and Bourque are successful with only 53% of their attempted o-zone passes, while Kostitsyn is successful with 56% of his passes, but only hits the net with 51% of his shots.
On a team producing less offense than ultimately required to make the playoffs, any play that leads to a loss of possession in the offensive-zone is poison. Breaking events down into these specific plays occurring in this specific zone may go a long way toward recognizing, focusing and improving players' reads and reactions within the offensive-zone. This is also useful as a coaching tool, as it quantifies which players are successful in which situations.
*note: I apologize for some misspelled names within the graph. I lost control of the "find and replace" tool within excel.

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