Photo from Ivan Makarov via Wikimedia Commons
After the Rangers signed Dan Boyle on July 1st, I thought it was as good a time as ever to do my first tracking project. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks working my way through every Sharks power play from the 13/14 season, focusing in on Boyle and tracking events like zone entries, zone exits, offensive zone touches, set up passes, shot attempts, among others.
It’s no secret that most of Dan Boyle’s appeal is his power play prowess, having quarterbacked a number of elite units in San Jose and Tampa Bay. That said, he has entered the decline phase of his career, likely due to his advanced age and the concussion he sustained last October.
Jared has already postulated that the perception of Dan Boyle’s decline is overblown and perhaps the fault of a dip in the Sharks’ shooting percentage on the power play, while noting that his shot-based metrics were as strong as ever in 13/14. This contradiction is a reason why I thought going to the video and generating the data that comes as a result of this project would be helpful in determining if Boyle still has enough juice to improve a Rangers’ power play that suffered through an 0-36 drought during the playoffs and is losing Brad Richards.
Zone Entries/Zone Exits
Before I get to Dan Boyle’s abilities while in the offensive zone, I first want to look at how he exits and enters the zone, a skill that often separates skilled and unskilled players and could be the key to generating scoring chances.
Obviously, exiting the zone on the power play is much easier than at even strength; teams that are shorthanded don’t offer much in the way of a forecheck. Boyle was the guy on the Sharks power play who always led the breakout and rushed the puck up the ice, and he was successful in exiting the zone almost 100% of the time. By my count, he touched the puck in the defensive zone 339 times while on the power play and either carried or passed the puck out of the zone 307 times. Outside of a couple of turnovers, the difference is made up by instances when he advanced the puck partially out of the zone or dropped it back to a teammate to exit the zone.
It was an almost even split between the number of times he carried (45.7%) or passed the puck (44.8%) out of the defensive zone. Without knowing how that compares to other quarterbacks around the league, I was surprised by how often he passed the puck early in the rush, opting to have his teammates bear the brunt of entering the zone.
Exiting the zone is the easy part. Zone entries are something that I’m much more interested in Boyle’s involvement in. Like I said before, it seemed that Boyle often let the rest of the power play unit (Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Joe Pavelski, and Logan Couture) finish off the job and enter the zone. These first two .gifs were par for the course as far as Boyle deferring to his teammates. (Click to embiggen and animate in a new tab.)
Boyle clearly plays a big role in both of these zone entries, especially in the second one against Calgary where he draws in the penalty killers before relieving the pressure with a drop pass. But I was left wanting more when it comes to this part of Boyle’s game. He only carried the puck into the offensive zone with control 23 times during the season (generating just 11 shot attempts), a number that seems low, and something that I can put into context if I decide to track Brad Richards’ season on the power play for my next project.
When Boyle does carry the puck into the offensive zone, it can look pretty nifty, like in the .gifs below. I wanted to see this happen more than I did.
Of course the downside to pursuing a controlled zone entry more aggressively is the risk of failing to do so and turning the puck over. Below is an example of when Boyle tried to do too much, which is something that happened infrequently enough that I think being more aggressive on zone entries is something that is worth the added risk.
Where Boyle was most dangerous in terms of zone entries was when he passed the puck to an open teammate waiting at the blue line, something he did 29 times (generating 20 shot attempts). A couple of examples below.
Here’s the complete breakdown of zone entries.
In the Offensive Zone
The two main things I tracked while the Sharks were set up in the offensive zone were: 1) Boyle’s touches and 2) Boyle’s set up passes (passes that led directly to a shot attempt).
Regarding his offensive zone touches, he possessed the puck 588 times in 273 minutes on the power play, which works out to 2.15 per minute of ice time. It’s nearly impossible to know if that’s a robust number or not without knowing how frequently his teammates and other power play quarterbacks touch the puck, but what I do know is that Boyle’s offensive zone touches steadily declined as the season went on.
Set up passes tell a similar story, a significant drop-off from season’s start to season’s end. 
The Sharks power play got off to a fast start in 13/14 and then suffered through an extended stretch of futility, finishing 17th in the league in goals per minute on the power play. Having tracked only Boyle, it’s hard differentiate between Boyle doing worse because the power play was bad, or the power play doing poorly because Boyle was bad. Anyway, here’s how Boyle’s touches and set up passes compare to other Sharks power play indicators.
What I can tell from this chart is that Boyle’s offensive zone touches, set up passes, and the number of shots the Sharks as a whole generate on the power play are intertwined. They all saw a decline as the season wore on, but I still don’t know if there’s anything there to determine if the entire power play takes the blame or if we can isolate something about Boyle.
I included the zone exits/minute, because presumably the more you have to exit your own zone, the more often the penalty killers clear the zone, which leads to less offensive zone time and fewer shots. Sure enough, you can see an increase in the number of Boyle’s zone exits, especially around the middle of the season when the Sharks power play went into a long funk.
Other Observations
Boyle is very sure-handed with the puck. He rarely misplays the puck and his passes are almost always right on the tape. I didn’t think he was turnover prone, something that happened to him 24 times on the man advantage.
For years we have seen a lot of standing around on the Rangers’ power play, and that’s an area where I think Boyle will help. He makes quicker decisions with the puck than we’re accustomed to seeing from guys like Brad Richards or Derek Stepan.
The combination of sure-handedness and quick puck movement make Boyle a solid power play piece, but at the same time, I rarely saw the flash or razzle-dazzle I was expecting from a guy with six 50-point seasons on the resume. Rarely did I turn to my brother sitting next me and say, “You gotta check out this pass.”
Despite his reputation as a power play quarterback, I didn’t necessarily get the sense that the Sharks power play ran through Boyle. There was a ton of talent on the Sharks first unit (and Boyle is no doubt a part of that), but it seemed more often than not he simply kept the line moving for the Thorntons and Pavelskis of the world rather than being the “go-to-guy.” An example of this would be the long stretches where Boyle wasn’t one of the last couple of players to touch the puck before a scoring chance.
A couple more positives: I thought Boyle was pretty mobile in the offensive zone, or at least wasn’t relegated to the point. When he was on the top of his game with the man advantage and generating scoring chances, he would slip into soft spots in the defensive coverage by sneaking into the slot or operating from behind the net. Additionally, just by virtue of being right-handed Boyle gives the Rangers power play a different and sorely needed dimension.
Another negative: Boyle owns a decent shot and mixes it up nicely with an equal dosage of one-timers, slap shots, and wrist shots, but he wasn’t too impressive at consistently getting his shot through to the net.
A miscellaneous note: There are a couple of events that I kept track of but don’t really hold much value on their own. One is how many times he kept the puck in the zone on a clearing attempt (that I felt he had a reasonable chance of keeping in). I deemed there to be 65 such clearing attempts, and Boyle kept the puck in 36 of those times (55%).
.GIF Dump
Here are some .gifs/screenshots that I recorded but didn’t work into the piece.
Boyle blasting home a loose puck.
These are examples of Boyle vacating the blue line and jumping up into the slot, whether it’s getting in position for a tip, finding a seam, or creeping up the backdoor (latter two are not .gifs).
At least on the power play, Boyle’s foot speed wasn’t an issue. This is really the only time he got burned, which 1) wasn’t his fault and 2) didn’t lead to a scoring chance the other way.
There was only really only one egregious misplay, and it was a pretty fluky occurrence.
I’ll end with Boyle getting a rude introduction to his new defense partner, Marc Staal.
Congrats if you’ve made it this far!