The System

[Randall Flagg]

What's going on here: Number 40 whatever on the left boards brings the puck up, and has what looks like Aho open ahead of him. Two players are behind ready to catch a pass in stride.. RW has also found a soft spot at the top of the screen, and the player chooses to go to him. That player doesn't chip the puck in, or even carry it in, yet - he sees Faulk begin to accelerate, lets him pass and pick/take that forward with him (Faulk), and then he steps behind with another loop/cross whatever you call it. The action has pulled players away from the left side and opened up three options, and one of those guys catches the pass and they generate a great chance off the rush.

 

 

Slavin brings the puck out again, Aho crossing in front to provide an option and if not pull Martinook away, and the RD ready for the pass as well. Another winger is at Slavin's level. Slavin elects to keep the puck, the D goes for a change, Slavin reads that Ryan is getting pressed and decides to find the winger that again waited in soft ice instead of pressing the line. Meanwhile, the center guy is coming down the blue line to pull players away from the pass receiver, and to get open himself. The space is there for either Cane forward to make an entry if the puck hits their stick. 

 

 

This is Faulk carrying the puck out. any pair or trio of Hurricanes players outnumbers the Flames in the zone. They aim for this. It's their goal. You can find this type of stuff any time they aim to carry the puck from their own end with control. Three forward options that have worked together to get the space they have, and have been within 15 feet of their defender the entire way up the ice. Faulk is the QB.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Randall Flagg

[Randall Flagg]

 

Here RD has the puck. LD was up in the NZ and came back, I can't remember what was up there. LW swings behind the LD, and RW does the same horizontal swing with C trailing. Faulk hits the open guy, Lw. Lindholm turns up ice, knowing that LW has the puck and that he has the Sens forward beat, and they create one of those 2 on 1s.

 

 

Another breakout with support for Faulk. The forwards come back, always one with a loop, often crossing (not in this case) and he has three different options that the Penguins can't close on, with every player waiting to help create either space or support for whichever player Faulk gets the puck to. He chooses the guy on the left boards, Nordstrom cuts back, Staal swoops in and heads back up ice when he sees that the open Nordstrom was receiving the pass. I believe Nordstrom ended up catching Staal for a chance down the wing but I don't remember exactly. 

Faulk again decides to rush, the forwards who had hung back come with him, and he has two options both with space and speed. always outnumbering the opponents, always drawing them in before making moves. Forwards always ready for a pass and in space to receive it. 

Edited March 17, 2017 by Randall Flagg

[Randall Flagg]

 

Here, RD (top corner of the 4 players trapezoid) carried the puck past the blue line and gave it to who I think is Stempniak on the boards. Our player carries, or more likely dumps and chases. Stempniak holds up, draws 7 in, and sees either Teravainen ready for the pass or Skinner on the other wing, smelling blood. Skinner brings it in and scores. The patience by Lee was remarkable for someone used to watching Sabre brand neutral zone play.

 

 

 

This is just another breakout. More forwards hanging out. They always try to be spatially aware. The hockey is incredibly smooth, the flow is great. 

 

 

Another transition example. When they send a guy for a possible break, they only hit him if it looks like he has a break, and they only send one guy, it's the inverse of what we often do. There were three players available. Dallas doesn't know what this iteration of a full team rush is going to be, they opt to try and clog again. The puck goes to Staal, who has two wingers he can hit, or a defenseman creeping up the wall way in the corner there. Options, options, options.

 

 

Go Sabres!! Defenseman waits until he draws Samson and whoever that other guy is, and hits the LW, who, like the C and RW, have space that wasn't there until the defenseman had the puck past the red line. All four came up the ice together and waited it out. 

 

Brief break from the Canes: Senators doing a cross at the top of their zone, not just for fun, but for more space. Also against Sabres:

 

 

Edited March 17, 2017 by Randall Flagg

[Randall Flagg]

Justin Faulk leading the way again, three forwards open as feasible passing options. He keeps it, lays it to the left, drives the net pulling several Leafs with him and opening space up for the player he dished it to, who has two different passing options. He chooses to go back to Aho, and Toronto is all over the place because they don't know which option the Canes are going to choose. How often do we make teams completely break down as they try to hold the line?

 

Anyway, this is a small sampling of what the Canes try to do for their structured rushes. These are all of the typical stretch pass plays that we make - same beginning situation, and they go this route with it. Here's what we do with our 14-20 instances per game.

 

There's sorta some support there, but that's not where Cody is looking:

This play worked, because Bailey turned up ice and gave that winger support, and the winger managed to corral the pass. So, we have the ABILITY to employ some semblence of support. But in general, we're successful 0-15% of the time when we try this, like I said. And just look at that second picture. Cody is in the freaking slot, and look at where his forwards are. WHY.

 

 

Risto looking for the breakout, and the forwards aren't even on the screen. I can't prove it to you here, but when the video proceeds, they are indeed being pressed by defensemen at the blue line. This was not a successful transition.

[Randall Flagg]

 

Here's Cody again, with absolutely nothing to work with. Sure, his defense partner is open. They often are. You all know what happens when they get used, though - the wingers stop awkwardly, because the 'flow' of the quick play is killed, and everyone stands awkwardly, and they regroup looking frustrated if we're lucky. More often than not that turns into the chip in or icing though. Here's what happens next after this pass:

 

 

 

It's Jack, on the wrong end of the odd-man situation in the neutral zone that Carolina works so hard to create. We consistently create the opposite scenario for our forwards. Jack gets pressed, and:

 

 

Those guys that press him are in on an odd man rush, the forwards sheepishly behind the play. I think Pittsburgh scored here?

 

On occasion, the center swings through the tippy top of the defensive zone, but again, the play isn't to him. The priority is fast hockey going the other way, getting the puck in deep to the other end. See:

Where's this puck going? Camera man catches up aaaaaaand

Bailey is there, and no other Sabres are in the picture with any form of support whatsoever. Turnovah.

[Randall Flagg]

Dmitri tries his thing here, that would work very well with the Carolina forwards. The problem is, ours have been on the wrong side of center ice the entire time, and only one of them are now moving at all. There's no emphasis on stopping where the space is, to create picks and crosses like the Canes - they stop because if they don't, they're offside. 

 

Kuli tries a drop and rush, but they get pressed at the line and Arizona gets a 2 on 1 which they bury. The flatfooted Sabres stand no chance.

 

Another random snipshot above, a desolate wasteland of ice. 

 

 

McCabe starts a rush, not unlike some of the Slavin rushes we looked at above.There's nobody in that wide circle of ice in the middle though, just guys ready and waiting at the line for a much lower possession play. Instead of backing off from an O'Reilly Okposo combo in the middle hitting with speed, the defensemen press them at the line and force the chip/dump into the corner. Converting a possession into a tossup with a less than 50% chance of succeeding, again.

 

 

I mean, these plays are so much harder to see in this form because they're so goddamn spread out. McCabe is back starting the play, and has to force another 70 foot pass that is turned over again. If the Sabre catches it, there are 3 Bruins on him with the nearest forward not even in the picture. It's just not a high percentage play. 

[Randall Flagg]

As my delicious handwriting points out, Gionta is waiting after the line for this mother f*cking pass. No forwards in sight. 

Aren't we supposed to be creating the mini odd man situations? 

 

After this pass, 

 

Vancouver scores, the puck is in our net less than 6 mississippi's after we make the play to leave the zone.

 

This is just more Risto having nowhere to pass to.

[Randall Flagg]

how many more of these would you like to see? 

Edited March 17, 2017 by Randall Flagg

[Randall Flagg]

Wow, that was a pain in the ass. Qwk really helped me out, because Sabrespace merges posts and only allows 5 pictures per post, and then one of my image uploaders didn’t like what it was being asked to do so I had to fix half the pictures. All done now though.

Now, these transition plays make up roughly 20% of our total attempts to enter the zone, so it might not seem like much. But we’re giving ourselves almost no chance with them, shown by their fail rates in the games I’ve calculated. A team like Carolina turns almost all of those into the team pass plays, which my numbers show are pretty successful, even though we’re “not talented”. They also provide that support during the carries and the dumps, much more than we do. I don’t have the numbers for the Canes, but as they say, watch the games.

 

Hockey is a lot of improvisation. You need talent, you need luck. Studies also show that you need to simply have the puck. Many rushes, including our own, start with forwards from the d-zone, or a NZ turnover, and don’t get touched by these stretch pass plays and their stats. A lot of random things happen in hockey. But possession wins, and the difference between the best possession team and the worst every year is often less than 10%. You don’t need a huge swing in success rate to become an elite team. You need the structure implemented to maximize, in every zone, the chance that you will have the puck on your stick generating scoring chances in the end. This structure can be implemented via transition systems. Ours is bad. Our possession is bad. We added 6 60 point players in the past two seasons and still sit bottom 3 in possession and way out of the playoffs. Toronto adds half that many and goes from tanking to wild card, because they had that structure in place.

We will continue to spin our wheels if we continue to play low event, low possession hockey. This is why I want Dan Bylsma fired. We give up a lot of shots, even if we keep them to the outside. Look at the heat maps in this very thread. We don’t shoot or even use the puck at all in the danger areas, relative to league average. There is no structure in his hockey in either zone that redeems our neutral zone efforts. There is nothing redeeming about his usage, his motivation, his line combinations, his interviews. His view of how the game needs to be played is antiquated. Don’t tell me Sam Reinhart, Ryan O’Reilly, Kyle Okposo, Jack Eichel can’t do this stuff. Sam Reinhart was BORN for those plays that Carolina uses. He’s going to keep grinding on the boards and losing puck battles, though.

My case is complete.

Your move, GMTM.

[Taro T]

In before the mic drop thread relock. :thumbsup:

 

Excellent work Randy

 

:beer:

[Sabres Fan in NS]

YOU CAN"T LOCK THIS THREAD.  IT WILL END UP IN THE BOWELS OF SABRESPACE.

[Randall Flagg]

That Kulikov rush that was a turnover at the blue line - I love that one. It emphasizes a lot of how Kuli is being misused. Posters after that were undoubtedly furious, because he 'gave the puck away' and got caught up ice, and we got scored on. But the EXACT same play was executed earlier in my pictures, by Carolina, for a scoring chance. Faulk. Kuli did that stuff in Florida and the team worked with it. He's good at that stuff. We never see it. It's not a coincidence his GF plummeted and GA skyrocketed, it's not a coincidence that he looks like crap. I'm sure similar things are true about Bogosian.

It's not getting locked! I only did it to fix things.

[WildCard]

So Kulikov can be good, as he has shown when he was the TOI leader for the Panthers in a playoff system

 

Holy ###### if we don't can Byslma this summer I'm going to ###### lose it

 

Btw, excellent usage of a team in the Canes to compare. Less talent and still a better team. Couldn't have picked a better example

Edited March 17, 2017 by WildCard

[dudacek]

No hyperbole: best analysis of hockey tactics I have ever seen on a message board.

 

Successful hockey is not speed, or grit, or power, or discipline.

Successful hockey is limiting their two-on-ones and creating yours - everywhere on the ice.

 

Look at those passes our poor d-men are being asked to make.

Watch what Sam Reinhart did in the world junior tournament.

 

Question: who the is Bill Peters?

Answer: some schmuck who nobody ever heard of who understands hockey.

 

Somebody needs to show this to Tim Murray.

Edited March 17, 2017 by dudacek

[WildCard]

The real question is, where's the pro-Bylsma camp now?

[Weave]

The real question is, where's the pro-Bylsma camp now?

 

There was a camp?  Was it alongside a lake?

[TrueBlueGED]

The real question is, where's the pro-Bylsma camp now?

 

Currently huddling to see how they can spin this into "See! We do the same thing every team does."

 

No hyperbole: best analysis of hockey tactics I have ever seen on a message board.

 

Successful hockey is not speed, or grit, or power, or discipline.

Successful hockey is limiting their two-on-ones and creating yours - everywhere on the ice.

 

Look at those passes our poor d-men are being asked to make.

Watch what Sam Reinhart did in the world junior tournament.

 

Question: who the ###### is Bill Peters?

Answer: some schmuck who nobody ever heard of who understands hockey.

 

Somebody needs to show this to Tim Murray.

 

Right, in the grand scheme of things, they're very difficult passes to complete. Add on top of that our defense corps not being especially deft passers, and you're asking for miserable failure. 

[MattPie]

Comment One: best analysis I've seen on a message board? It might be the best I've seen anywhere. Holy cow.

 

Comment Two: It's going to be sad when you don't have time to do these from school, work, or spending time with a person getting squelchy.

[WildCard]

'Getting squelchy'

[qwksndmonster]

The mere fact that you call it getting squelchy tells me that you're not ready.

[Randall Flagg]

You guys are too kind

[Trettioåtta]

Great post. Interesting read. I honestly don't have the time to watch enough hockey, but I'm assuming the photos of the other teams are 'typical' of their breakouts in your eyes?

 

I've just had surgery and have a few weeks off work, so was looking forward to watching more hockey... then the Sabres decided to go on a west-coast trip :(

 

Obviously we are favouring the stretch pass. How much do we think that is a coaching decision or adaption? What was Bylsma like with the Pens? i.e. are we hail marying it every time because we don't have, or DD doesn't think we have, the talent to properly carry it? Or is this just his system?

[Neo]

You guys are too kind

Your upcoming PhD will be your second.

 

It's as if you've given me eyeglasses. Mr. Flagg achieves elusive clarity in the gauzy world of web blogs.

 

You've ascended to the SabreSpace Pantheon.

 

Now, tell me about Mr. Einstein, Bern, clocktowers, wristwatches and streetcars.

[MattPie]

Great post. Interesting read. I honestly don't have the time to watch enough hockey, but I'm assuming the photos of the other teams are 'typical' of their breakouts in your eyes?

 

I've just had surgery and have a few weeks off work, so was looking forward to watching more hockey... then the Sabres decided to go on a west-coast trip :(

 

Obviously we are favouring the stretch pass. How much do we think that is a coaching decision or adaption? What was Bylsma like with the Pens? i.e. are we hail marying it every time because we don't have, or DD doesn't think we have, the talent to properly carry it? Or is this just his system?

 

That's the big question, right? I think it has to be his system, as we have more talent than Carolina (the team in the "good" pictures), but they're in the same place in the standings. If anything, the long pass requires more talent than we have, making short passes with 2-3 options is an easier play than hitting a guy with and he knocking down an 80-foot rocket.

[TrueBlueGED]

That's the big question, right? I think it has to be his system, as we have more talent than Carolina (the team in the "good" pictures), but they're in the same place in the standings. If anything, the long pass requires more talent than we have, making short passes with 2-3 options is an easier play than hitting a guy with and he knocking down an 80-foot rocket.

I don't think it's a talent issue so much as the stretch pass is super easy to defend against when you know it's coming. Our Dmen may not be able to complete an open stretch with regularity, but teams know it's coming, so it's rarely open anyway.