It was a mostly quiet Friday night in the NHL, with three matchups on the schedule. Hedman was strong, Edmundson continued his quietly effective ways, and Orpik was a game leader.

Before we dig into the game charts, here’s a few words on reading the graphs:

A couple of notes on reading the charts:

the Corsi differential is based on 5v5 play and is score-adjusted, as per war-on-ice.

players at the top (with bars extending to the right) posted positive differentials (good)

players at the bottom (and to the left) posted negative differentials (bad)

the colour of each bar represents the player’s time on ice (see legend at the bottom)

each players individual Corsi For attempts are included in parentheses a player with a strong C +/- but a (0) for iCF didn’t directly contribute to his strong showing. a player with a weak C +/- but a strong iCF score (i.e. greater than 5) may have been hindered by linemates. Maybe.

like any reasonable person, I don’t believe that Corsi is everything. But it’s a very important part of the everything.

Brooks Orpik led the Corsi differential graph in this one. He’s been near break-even this year, which is fairly remarkable. Kuznetsov, Orlov, and Johansson followed close behind as the Capitals dominated the puck throughout the game.

Alex Ovechkin posted a game-high 7 iCF. This is not Ovechkin’s first time leading the way in individual shot attempts. He’s second in the league in score-adjusted iCF this season, trailing only Brent Burns (data per war-on-ice).

The Devils chased the puck all night. Boucher was the game’s worst, registering a Corsi differential in excess of -10. John Moore, DSP, and Henrique were nearby. DSP’s been near the bottom of the graph several games in a row.

So it goes.

The story of the game was Stralman, who suffered a broken left leg and is out indefinitely. That’s a huge blow for Tampa Bay. Wishing Stralman well in his recovery.

Hedman and Garrison carried on, posting the game’s best Corsi +/-. Stamkos registered the game’s highest iCF total (7) which is a fairly typical high-water mark for a game.

On the other side, the Isles struggled to maintain the puck throughout the night. Hickey was the game’s worst (~-14) but Nielsen, Kulemin, Martin, Okposo, etc… were all quite negative as well.

Bad night for Tampa (Stralman). Bad night for NYI too.

The Canucks don’t really care about scoring.

In this one, only Jannik Hansen finished above 0 in Corsi differential for Vancouver as the team continued its historic run of low-scoring.

Bortuzzo and Edmundson led the way as the Blues defense group continues to look very strong overall. Upshall led the way with 7 iCF. He’ll do this sort of thing, by times.

For Vancouver, things got rather ugly. Etem was worse than -20 in score-adjusted Corsi differential. Ballyhooed defender Nikita Tramkin finished near -20 in Corsi +/- and mustered only 1 iCF.

It’s going to be an interesting summer of change in Vancouver.

Read more…

NHL Game Charts – Thursday, March 24

NHL Game Charts – Wednesday, March 23

NHL Advanced Stats: Expected vs Observed Goal Differentials