In this series, I’ll show you how many there were, from where on the ice they were created, and who was involved in each of the offensive chances created from the passing of the Chicago Blackhawks and their opponents. If unfamiliar with passing statistics, please refer to my primer.
Like last week, I’m trying something different and want to look at which Blackhawks are combining with each other most often. What you see below are two charts (defense and forwards) for how many shot attempts players combine on. These totals are from the Hawks last two games against the San Jose Sharks and Montreal Canadiens (Caps game is on Gamecenter delay for some reason). Recaps for said matchups are here and here. I’ll work in shots and efficiency as I go, but it was a busy week. I attended the War-On-Ice Hockey Analytics Conference at Carnegie Mellon University this past weekend. You can watch my presentation here (I start around the 20:00 mark). Let’s get to it.
Defensemen
In these two games, we see that Duncan Keith was most involved with nine combined passing events (five as the shooter, four as the passer). Johnny Oduya (7) and Trevor Van Riemsdyk (7) were the next most involved defensemen in the passing game. You can see Oduya worked as more of a shooter and TVR as more of a provider. Three of TVR’s SAGs were to Darren Rundblad. Keith received passes from five players that led to shot attempts and two of his four SAGs were to Patrick Kane.
Forwards
Jonathan Toews the provider: the Captain led all players with seven shot attempts generated in these two games. Three went to Kane and two went to TVR. He only attempted one shot from a pass, which came from Rundblad. Kane generated five attempts, two to Brent Seabrook. Kane was the main target for the Hawks passing, as he attempted nine shots from passes.
Patrick Sharp, only playing in one game, was heavily involved, generating three attempts (two to Hossa, one to Richards), and attempting three on his own (two from Andrew Shaw, and one from TVR). Kris Versteeg was involved with four attempts on either side of the passing equation (four generated, four as the result of a pass).
Your Thoughts
It’s a small sample size (two games), but good things take time and have to start somewhere. What do you think about this linkup data? How would you like to see it presented? Let me know!