Player Development: Breaking the Puck Out of the DZ (Part 1)
Analyzing the key technical components to successful zone exits
Earlier this year, we published a player development project (SARAH) which helped us quantify the habits of WHKY players. The premise of our SARAH project was to link technical habits to the different events that occur on the ice.
To achieve that, we built 2 sets of random forest models to:
Find relevant habit-event pairs thanks to the built-in feature selection tool within RFs
Leverage these relevant habit-event pairs to quantify the success probability of habits
Our research, so far, has been focused on SARAH model 2 regarding the success probability of habits.
But turning our focus to SARAH model 1, an interesting research application could be to gain a better understanding of which habits and events are related to each other. That’s exactly what we will be doing in the coming weeks by cracking open the “black box” of SARAH model 1 to identify relevant habit-event relationships, starting with controlled exits this week.
Types of Controlled Exits
In their essence, controlled exits are breakouts out of the DZ when a team has 100% possession of the puck. They generally occur in one of 2 ways: via pass or via stickhandling (carry).
In the event data used as part of SARAH model 1, the InStat tracking differentiated both types of controlled exits.
Common & Specific Relevant Habits
When looking at the relevant habit-event relationships for the 2 types of controlled exits, we note an overlap in the case of 5 habits: outside edgework, loading the puck to the hip pocket, deception with puck, puck protection with body and shoulder checks.
Then, we also observe a dozen additional relevant habits, 6 of which are specific to pass exits, while the 6 others are specific to carry exits:
DZ breakouts can be broken down into 2 stages:
the puck retrieval phase
In this phase, habits like shoulder checks and puck protection with the body respectively allow defenders to gather information on the opposing forecheck and ensure that they retrieve the puck with full control. Combining these with outside edgework could allow defenders to leverage escape moves and cutbacks to create separation with the opposition.
the breakout phase
Once possession and space are secured, loading the puck to the hip pocket allows defenders to continue protecting the puck (by exposing it less). Finally, thanks to deception in the breakout process, defenders can open valuable opportunities and improve the condition of the puck.
The following video summarizes these concepts:
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