Pete Deboer and Playing With a Lead: A Study

[BenedictGomez]

Any "study" into Pete DeBoer's logic is a wasted effort.

 

[jkrdevil]

Could it also be the Devils okay does not change but the teans personnel is less effective when other teams get more aggressive?

I mean the Devils are going from 5th best to 11th best, although the percentage drop is slightly outside 1 std dev they're also starting with one of the highest numbers so have more room to drop.

I think the summation can be the Devils system is effective in both close and non close games but their lack of team speed harms them more when other teams press.

Second response to this. I would say more coaching than personnel (though personnel plays a role). I took a look at 2010-11 and 2011-2012, which had largely the same key personnel with the big difference being Deboer vs. MacLean/Lemaire.

Now to be clear in 2010-11 they shut it down more than most teams with a multi-goal lead. CF% dropped by about 9.42 percentage points (league average was 7,43 percentage point drop with a standard dev of 1.82). However, in Deboer's first year with a multiple goal lead their CF% dropped by 11.94 percentage points, second most in the league (league average that year was also a 7.44 drop, and a standard dev. of 2.48).

So with largely the same players their play with a lead dropped more with Deboer from the prior year. If you remember that season, that was the year they get a lead, blow the lead, and then fight back to win in OT or the shootout with Kovalchuk and Parise.

As an aside looking at the numbers from those years, man no one just stopped pressing with a lead more than a Dale Hunter coached Caps team.

 

[StnTwnDevil]

Second response to this. I would say more coaching than personnel (though personnel plays a role). I took a look at 2010-11 and 2011-2012, which had largely the same key personnel with the big difference being Deboer vs. MacLean/Lemaire.

Now to be clear in 2010-11 they shut it down more than most teams with a multi-goal lead. CF% dropped by about 9.42 percentage points (league average was 7,43 percentage point drop with a standard dev of 1.82). However, in Deboer's first year with a multiple goal lead their CF% dropped by 11.94 percentage points, second most in the league (league average that year was also a 7.44 drop, and a standard dev. of 2.48).

So with largely the same players their play with a lead dropped more with Deboer from the prior year. If you remember that season, that was the year they get a lead, blow the lead, and then fight back to win in OT or the shootout with Kovalchuk and Parise.

As an aside looking at the numbers from those years, man no one just stopped pressing with a lead more than a Dale Hunter coached Caps team.

Very interesting stuff jkrdevil. I think there is enough evidence there to support your position. I agree its more coaching/systems related. Maybe it's energy related? Maybe the team fizzles out a bit playing such a hard for-check game. Or maybe its difficult mentally for a team to switch to a prevent defense after pushing hard to get the multi-goal lead.

I also imagine, on the flip side, after Deboer was hired, the Devils came back from multi-goal deficits more than prior to Deboer.

 

[manilaNJ]

Where are you getting your data from? The significant drop off in Corsi% doesn't match the numbers I've been looking at.

Are you looking at a 3 year summary? Because I'm not entirely sure that works.
The 2 seasons I don't like to put a lot of heavy thought into (without picking apart in batches of games) is 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 because both were a little bit "A Tale of Two Seasons"

I've been looking at War on Ice's data, but since Lukester posted these links, let's take a look at these:

General corsi statistics for 2012, 2013,2014 compared to the rest of the league.

http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/teamstats.php?disp=1&db=201213&sit=5v5&sort=CFPCT&sortdir=DESC

http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/teamstats.php?db=201314&sit=5v5&disp=1&sortdir=DESC&sort=GFPCT

http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/teamstats.php?db=201314&sit=5v5&disp=1&sortdir=DESC&sort=GFPCT

2013-2014
Close: 54.7% (4th in NHL)
Leading: 50.1% (3rd in NHL)
Up 2+: 48.7% (7th in NHL)

That's a 6% drop in Corsi% when up 2+-- which is on par with what all of the teams surrounding the Devils dropped as well (Boston, San Jose, Chicago, etc)

2013
Close: 55.4% (3rd in NHL)
Leading: 51.1% (3rd in NHL)
Up 2+: 50.5% (1st in NHL) -- and only team with a positive +/- in Corsi events

That's a 5% change in Corsi% up 2+ which is significantly less than the other top possession teams in the NHL (who all dropped about 8 or 9%

2011-2012 is likely what's dragging the percentages down in your initial post because somehow they dropped to a whopping ~40% when leading.
This can also be picked apart with a little more context considering they had a 4th line (and sometimes 3rd) that was absolutely getting eaten alive. The defense was also a mess until Greene came back healthy and Foster was banished to Minnseota for Zidlicky.
You can see the dropoff in %s with 4th liners and immobile dmen here: http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/rat...aters&minutes=50&disp=1&sort=PCT&sortdir=DESC

 

[jkrdevil]

As I said in the original post. I used the numbers from war-on-ice.com. I looked at the team stats, all situations (pp and pk's included) strength wise. They are cumulative over the 3 season plus what has been played so far this hear period. I did not separate out individual season.

I specifically avoided using just even strength because I wanted power plays and penalty kills to be accounted for. If you are trying to protect a lead having to go on the penalty kill hurts your chances of holding onto it. Likewise going on the power play helps. I want those situations reflected.

 

[manilaNJ]

As I said in the original post. I used the numbers from war-on-ice.com. I looked at the team stats, all situations (pp and pk's included) strength wise. They are cumulative over the 3 season plus what has been played so far this hear period. I did not separate out individual season.

I specifically avoided using just even strength because I wanted power plays and penalty kills to be accounted for. If you are trying to protect a lead having to go on the penalty kill hurts your chances of holding onto it. Likewise going on the power play helps. I want those situations reflected.

Most analysis of possession numbers is limited to 5v5 ES for a reason. You're not going to get an honest gauge of how well a team is playing by lumping in all that TOI together.

All you have to do is look into the loose interpretation of how every penalty is called from game to game to know that it won't give you an assessment of how the game is going.
And it doesn't even take into account the type of PP/PK you're on... is it a 5v3 situation? Is it 4v4? Is the goalie pulled?
Some PPs are just flat out better at getting shots on net (like San Jose - so if you're a divisional rival of SJ, your corsi% on the PK is going to tank as opposed to teams in another division) and some PKs are intentionally passive and successful at it.

And by lumping in all 3 seasons, you're not painting an accurate picture here. Over the past 2 seasons, the Devils have been on par with, if not one of the better teams at pushing play while leading.
The 2011-2012 Devils weren't a very good possession team until they got closer to 2012 and were godawful with a lead -- and that's pretty explanatory when you look at how the roster developed over that season and when you parse the numbers of individual players/lines. That's also dragging down the whole set of numbers over a 3 year sample, which is a little misleading.

Even if you just look at 2013. That's a season that deserves to be looked at alone, league wide (not just NJ). You have half the league not playing against each other and player conditioning all over the place.
If you look at the drop off in Corsi% leaguewide when leading, it's much more significant than the previous or following season -- likely for the above mentioned reason.

You did a lot of work here, and I don't like being the one to rain all over someone when they do this. I'm just going to agree to disagree with how the data was lumped together. The only time I'm really comfortable interpreting multi year stats is when looking at an individual players WOWYs/CorsiRel% to see if there's a trend.

 

[manilaNJ]

I disagree, I think they actually keep with their regular system more than a lot of teams do.

The Devils struggle with getting the puck into the offensive zone when they have the lead, not that they move away from being aggressive or forechecking. A lot of this struggle comes from having very flew players that can skate a puck out of trouble and there's more trouble when teams let their horses loose.

This I agree with entirely.
I noticed this, and I think it maybe it was even one of my last comments on one of the GDTs - maybe the OT loss against the Rangers?

They're trying to get the puck through the NZ - which they've typically struggled with, but now there seems to be a greater emphasis on getting the puck out of the DZ and into the OZ with possession this season. There's a greater chance for error when you're pushing instead of playing it safe.
So when you have opponents, who are trailing, starting to ramp up their play, double shifting their top lines, stacking their defense against the top Devils lines -- there's a greater chance of them pouncing on errant passing plays or bungled zone entries.
This is also where the Devils suffer in lacking top end talent -- it's a lot easier for opponents to do this when they can spread their top 4 d/shutdown/scoring lines evenly throughout the lineup.