Image from Resolute via Wikimedia Commons
The Rangers’ powerplay, a black mark earlier in the season, has climbed into the top half of the league in efficiency, converting on 19.3% of opportunities.
As always, my analysis of the powerplay focuses on the number of controlled offensive zone touches a player has, how many of those lead to scoring chances and how many result in turnovers.
All terms used are defined in my first installment. Below, I chart scoring chances (plus goals scored outside the scoring chance area) and scoring chances set-up against turnovers, both as a proportion of total offensive zone touches.
The shading of the circles represents where the player gets most of his touches. The darker the circle the higher proportion of touches are at the point. The lighter, the more are in the “home plate” scoring chance area.
A player to whom this measure of scoring chances likely isn’t fair is Marty St. Louis, who’s dangerous from most any angle on the right wing. St. Louis has scored four 5-on-4 goals from the lower, outside portion of the right side. For comparison, the Rangers have scored five goals from the opposite side and the points combined at 5-on-4.
Because of his aptitude on the right side, St. Louis doesn’t venture too far from that position. No other player has near the dramatic difference that St. Louis has in touches on the right side versus the left side (nearly 9:1).
A player that’s ineffective with the man advantage, by any measure of evaluation, Dan Girardi, continues to get steady second unit minutes.
16% of Girardi’s offensive zone touches result in a turnover. Only three Rangers turn it over with the man advantage more often. Each of those players turn their touches into chances at least 3 times more frequently than Girardi (3.5%), however. Please make it stop.
Derek Stepan is a player who isn’t generating many chances directly from his touches, at this moment.
Stepan does get a lot of point touches, but both McDonagh and Boyle are ahead of Stepan, who has turned only 5.1% of his touches into scoring chances. Yet Stepan is still middle of the pack in terms of turning the puck over. I hope to see more out of Stepan on the powerplay in the future.
One thing I wanted to see was how the Rangers’ goal composition compares to the league. Lacking the patience to gather the data for all 30 teams, I decided to compare them to the team with the highest PP% — the St. Louis Blues.
While the Blues do generate more offense from their points, the difference isn’t as staggering as I would have guessed. One thing that jumped out watching the Blues’ powerplay goals is how many of them were a big point shot that was tipped in front.
There are plenty of reasons to be encouraged by the Rangers’ powerplay, but there’s reason to believe that they can build on it with the improvement of some (i.e. Stepan) and the deletion of others (i.e. Girardi).