Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
I'd love to be able to isolate the advanced stats by zone start type.
Could be some strategy in putting some of your stronger transition players in the defensive zone starts, and your more cycling grinding types (Tkachuk comes to mind) as guys that start in the offensive zone.
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There's also the fact that if you start in the offensive zone, and the play goes the other way, you have to backcheck hard, and even if you do get the puck back, you're probably tired and going to dump-and-change.
If you start in the defensive zone, you're probably playing on fresh legs, and when you do make a mistake, you can probably recover on those fresh legs. And if you get a transition opportunity, you can probably afford to make a play.
It's a bit counterintuitive, but I feel people shouldn't assume defensive zone starts mean harder minutes, or that offensive zone starts mean sheltered minutes. Who you're out there against (The other team's equivalent to a 3M line might be a tougher deployment versus their equivalent to a Monahan line that prefers to score on the rush anyways) and which D pair you're out there with probably matters way more in terms of so-called sheltering.