Analytics Breakdown: All Eyes on You

Song of The Game

The song of the game for last night’s contest has nothing to do with the state of Texas and instead has everything to do with the hockey world starting to focus on the Ducks. All eyes appear to be on them, with many various podcasts and articles writing about the torrid 9-3-1 start for the Ducks. As loyal readers of this might already know, I have been skeptical of this start, but this team has started to turn out really good performances from a process perspective. It is going to be fascinating to see if they can keep this up with the eyes of the hockey world on them.

Also, this song from St Lucia rules, and they are a vastly underrated band (Good ole Mike DeFlorio will back me up).

5v5 Play

There will be a lot of discussion about the various non-5v5 items, with this game having only roughly 44 minutes played at 5v5, and that is with the Stars scoring fairly quickly on a few PPs, but for now, let’s settle in on the 5v5 play.

5v5 Shot Chart for the 1st Period

The Ducks started this game out fairly flat at 5v5. They looked very tentative with the puck in the neutral zone, which led to way too many turnovers entering the zone, which resulted in the Stars appearing to control the play for the majority of the period. The good news, though, is that their in-zone defense was much improved, even though they gave Dallas the puck way too much. They did a good job of limiting the damage and danger of opportunities.

5v5 Shot Chart for the 2nd Period

It felt like this could be a game where the young Ducks could be outdone by just a more seasoned and professional Stars team after the 1st, but the Ducks deserve a ton of credit for their bounce back in the 2nd period at 5v5. They looked extremely dangerous offensively. Instead of sitting back and receiving the Stars game, they created turnovers and quickly jumped on the rush chance opportunities.

The period was not only a rush chance for the Ducks, though they did a good job of utilizing zone time to create offense for themselves, even if it was not as noticeable as the chances off the rush. This is what I personally was looking for from the team after the last road trip, where the offensive chances appeared to dry up.

Defensively, they limited the Stars to only 0.35 xG, and the only really memorable chance for the Stars in that period was the goal they scored off the Sennecke turnover that resulted in a quick counter breakaway. That was not the norm for them in the period, though, but they have given up their fair share of breakaways in recent games. That is something that should be looked at by the team for something to clean up.

5v5 Shot Chart for the 3rd period

The third period for the Ducks is not one that you would want to write home about at 5v5. The good defensive structure that they had in the 1st and 2nd went away, but also, the Stars are a cup contender, and score effects are going to come into play. When top teams start to really pressure when down in a game, you really need to tighten up and stop shots from the middle of the ice. In the third, and specifically in the middle of the period, the Ducks allowed too many chances from that location, and were fortunate that Dostal was on top of his game at that point.

Overall, this is one of the better Ducks performances at 5v5, buoyed by a solid defensive structure for two periods and a stellar offensive output in the 2nd.

I want to shout out the Mintyukov Moore pairing from last night. They continue to impress.

Non 5v5 Play

The special teams play in last night’s game is a completely different story from the 5v5 play. The Ducks, from a discipline perspective, were extremely poor the previous night when it came to the third period with a lead. They had a 2-goal lead early in the period and proceeded to take 3 penalties in the first half of the period, with one of them being a needless elbow from Mason McTavish right after the Stars got within 1. Those are the plays that cannot happen if you want to be a consistent team in this league.

Now focusing on the PP, I thought this was one of the weaker games for the team when it came to in-zone play. They did score 2 goals on the PP, but one was from a partial break from Kreider and another on a zone entry rush with a nice cross ice feed by Sennecke to find Zellweger. Notice how both came on rush play, though. Their in-zone chances never amounted to much.

On the PK, the Ducks got burned for 3 goals against and a ton of chances on the PP that the Stars did not score on. The Ducks were extremely susceptible down low to tips from the net front presence and puck movement down low. These are areas that teams will likely start to key in on, so it is something that should be cleaned up.

Onto Dostal, I thought he was just ok this game, but I wanted to bring up something I have mentioned previously. He was beaten twice with tip plays and now has allowed 8 goals on tips/deflections on 4.7 xG. The sample is small, but I do wonder if teams might start testing him a bit more on this and seeing if this is a way to beat him. He has been so good with all other shot types, but this is the one he has struggled with. It could be a sample size thing, or it could be something. It is something I want to keep monitoring.

Brian Hayward Fit Check

Hazy classed it up with this one. He brought out a very simple gray jacket (maybe tweed if a fashionista wants to comment) along with the usual black sweater and white shirt. It is a classy but simple look, but not going to lie, a bit disappointing. We know the type of heat Hazy can bring, and this one felt a bit lacking.

I give this look a 6.2/10

Once again, though, Ahlers brought the heat. This segment was supposed to only be about Hayward, but that sweater and jacket combo have me feeling things. If I were to rate Ahlers, I would give this look an 8.3/10!
All stats per Evolving-Hockey and Hockey Viz