Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Dan Boyle played his first 14 minutes as a Ranger on October 9th. Because of a broken hand, his 15th minute was delayed another 35 days, leaving those eager to make hasty conclusions on Dan Boyle’s impact on the Rangers’ powerplay in limbo for another month after the long off-season.
But that day has arrived!
Read: October’s Powerplay Rundown
Visually, the first thing about Boyle on the powerplay that captured my attention was his ability to shorten the offensive zone from the point. While a Moore or Girardi will man their points with the back of their skates rarely venturing from the blueline, Boyle routinely ventures in towards the tops of the circles, opening himself up for a better shooting opportunity. Penalty killers, respecting his ability to sneak past them, have to give him some space. Sometimes he reminds me of Reggie Miller in that he can sometimes make himself open with the defender right there by getting them off-balance with a quick pivot or shoulder-fake.
The numbers bear out what I’m seeing too:
As would seem intuitive, the right-handed shooting Boyle generates more shots from the left side of the ice and sets up more from the right-side.
Boyle has generated more scoring chances per touch than any other Ranger defenseman, with only Ryan McDonagh turning the puck over at a lower rate:
(Like last month, bubble size indicates the number of controlled offensive zone touches and color indicates where the player is getting his touches. Yellow indicates a higher proportion of touches in the scoring chance area, red indicates a lot of touches at the point, orange is neutral.)
You’ll notice the two highest turnover rates are two of the four yellow bubbles. You’ll also notice that Moore and Girardi are both on the almost completely ineffective side of the chart. It is my wish that a healthy powerplay setup would feature only Dan Boyle and Ryan McDonagh as the defensemen on the two powerplay units.
A look at Chris Kreider’s breakdown suggests that his touches on the perimeter, especially on his off-wing, should be limited. He has, however, been effective in front of the net.
Rick Nash is another player who has accomplished little from the outside, but is very effective down low.
I’ve been critical of Nash’s work on the powerplay in the past. He does sometimes have a tendency to try to force an individual play instead of resetting when the opportunity isn’t there, but he’s been far better early this season in weighing risk/reward before trying to make a big play. Benoit Pouliot’s departure opening up a spot in front of the net has helped to get him in a role he can be successful in, as well.
One thing that caught my eye in November was how much Mats Zuccarello dumped the puck into the zone. Zuccarello entered the zone through dump ins on seven out of his thirteen zone entries in the month. This might be due to playing on the same unit as Chris Kreider, likely the most talented forward in puck retrievals, for most of the month.
Although St. Louis and Stepan have turned the puck over at a relatively high rate in the offensive zone, they are among the most efficient in gaining the offensive zone successfully.
Early in the season, carrying the puck in has been the most reliable form of entry into the offensive zone, with an 85% success rate. Passing into the zone has been fairly unsuccessful, partially due Brassard getting pretty cute before the offensive blueline wreaking a small havoc on the relatively small sample.
When I did this breakdown at the end of October, the Rangers had only two 5-on-4 goals. They added eight in November. So things are looking up for the Rangers powerplay, which was really the only conceivable direction, given how they started.