This weekend beautiful Lake Tahoe is the site for two outdoor NHL games. Vegas and Colorado play on Saturday at 3 PM (EST), while Philadelphia and Boston play at 2 PM (EST) on Sunday. In preparation for the games, I wanted to provide three visualizations to showcase the teams participating in the games.
The first visualization is an overview of the 2021 season so far at the team level. Results at 5-on-5 in relation to possession (Corsi For %), Team Success (Point Percentage – points earned out of possible points), Shooting Percentage, and Save Percentage. The four teams playing outdoors at Lake Tahoe this weekend are shown with squares, while the other teams are circles. Corsi For % is on the horizontal axis, Point % is on the vertical axis, size of the mark represents Shooting Percentage, and Save Percentage is represented by color (red is poor – gold is good). The visualization shows the excellent team performance of the four teams involved in the games, each with a very high Points % on the season. Colorado leads the way in possession numbers (CF%) of all teams in the league at 5-on-5, while Boston is among the top 4 teams in possession. Vegas is slightly behind them possession-wise, but they have the highest Points % of the 4 teams playing in Tahoe. Philadelphia, despite a high Points %, is seriously behind all other teams in possession numbers, but has been able to succeed due to a high Shooting %. Excellent goaltending should also be on display this weekend, as each team playing has a Save % above 92% in 5-on-5 play.
The second and third visualizations show individual skater statistics (minimum 100 minutes played on the season) for teams in the games on Saturday and Sunday. In these visualizations, Offensive Zone Start % is shown on the horizontal axis, Corsi For % is shown on the vertical axis, and size of the mark shows Expected Goals For% (uses shot quality to determine expected goals for and against when the player is on the ice). Teams are signified by color and position is noted by shape.
In visualization two, the skaters for Vegas and Colorado are shown. The excellence of the top players of Colorado are immediately evident in the upper right-hand corner of the chart, where MacKinnon, Rantanen, and Landeskog have dominant possession numbers that accompanying their high Offensive Zone Start Percentage. Young defenseman Cale Makar’s terrific play is evident with his great possession number (at the top and to the left of the aforementioned group of 3 Colorado skaters). Another Colorado player to highlight is rookie Bowen Byram. His eye-opening performance at the World Juniors has been followed by a terrific start to his pro career. Vegas’s trio of Karlsson, Smith, and Marchessault have great possession figures with their deployment as about an even mix of offensive and defensive zone starts.
In the third visualization, the skaters for Philadelphia and Boston are shown. The big difference in possession numbers for both teams (as shown in the first visualization) is evident here with the majority of Boston’s players in the upper part of the chart and Philly’s players at the bottom (as it relates to Corsi For %). For Boston, the top line of Marchand, Bergeron, and Pastrnak is dominating possession-wise with Corsi For % nearing 60% for each player. To illustrate how great Boston is at possession, Kuraly, Wagner, and Frederic, despite being used infrequently for Offensive Zone Starts (Kuraly with only around 12% Offensive Zone Start %), still have possession figures exceeding 50%. For Philadelphia, defenseman Philippe Myers has been a top performer with the best possession numbers for the Flyers. Veterans Claude Giroux and James van Riemsdyk are also off to good starts offensively.
Should be a couple of great days in Lake Tahoe – hope you enjoy this terrific event put on by the NHL.
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