By the numbers: Game 33 vs. Edmonton

Going into their game against the Oilers, the Sharks had set a few notable trends in their last few weeks of games. Thornton's line was dominating the opposition, as was the Burns-Dillon paring, but that pairing was also struggling to create successful zone exits. The Sharks were routinely outchancing their opposition, and the goaltending had been solid when it absolutely had to be. Luckily for the Sharks, most of these stayed the same, while one took a turn for the better.

Scoring Chances

San Jose

Edmonton

Period-by-Period Summary

In this game, we saw a pretty even split of lines that did well, and lines that did not. The fourth line struggled against a terrible Oilers' fourth line, and Couture's line struggled with their matchup against David Perron and Jordan Eberle. The Sharks' third line put together another pretty solid outing though, not only outchancing Edmonton while they were on the ice, but also scoring two of the Sharks three even strength goals. Jumbo's line was fantastic yet again, with the five man unit of Thornton, Burns, Pavelski, Hertl, and Dillon absolutely feasting on the Oilers' top line. I'm a fan of Purcell's, and it's really hard to argue that moving Eberle down a line hasn't helped the Oilers with their offensive depth, but the Oilers' top line just hasn't seemed to be as deadly as usual in the three games the Sharks have played against them this year, and I have to think taking Eberle off that line has something to do with it.

Zone Entries

San Jose

Edmonton

We mentioned it on twitter last night, but it's worth repeating: Brenden Dillon is good. I never would've thought I'd be saying it, but I'm actually quite impressed with how much Dillon is contributing in the offensive zone. I had always thought of him as strictly a defensive-defenseman, but he's actually had a few very solid games on entries, and his work on entries definitely helped set up quite a few of the Sharks' scoring chances last night.

On the Oilers' side of things, Edmonton also had quite a few players with awesome nights on zone entries (Justin Schultz' numbers really pop out), but Taylor Hall was not one of them. By no means have I tracked a huge amount of Oilers' games, but I wanna say this is the first game I've tracked where Hall had a sub-50 carry-in percentage. Not only that, but Edmonton didn't manage a single fenwick event as a result of his entries. He's still obviously a fantastic player, and if anybody ends up trading for him, they'll be making an awesome trade, but Hall's games against the Sharks this year have seemed quite un-Hall like, and I can't place my finger on what's caused it.

Entry Targeting

San Jose

Edmonton

Pretty good night all around for the Sharks on defending zone entries, with only one defenseman having a carry-in against percentage above 50. The Sharks' right handed defensemen specifically did a pretty good job, considering they were often having Taylor Hall or Jordan Eberle coming down their wings (not sure why, but Eberle seemed to perform a lot of his zone entries on his left half of the ice last night).

The Oilers' D did pretty well last night on defending zone entries as well, with the only notably bad nights coming from who you'd expect, with Justin Schultz and Andrew Ference allowing the Sharks to carry the puck in on eight out of eleven entry attempts against them, combined.

Zone Exits

San Jose

Edmonton

It hasn't been often (if it's ever even happened) that we've been able to say it, but Dillon and Burns were pretty effective last night on zone exits, as was Tennyson. Obviously these are both very nice to see, as the Sharks' second pairing had struggled creating exits off their own tape for quite a few games (despite putting up good numbers on scoring chances and Corsi%), and because it's really nice to see Tennyson finally start cementing a spot in the lineup with his excellent skating, booming shot, and puck moving skills. I've been waiting a while to see when he'd finally get himself an extended stay with the Sharks in the big leagues, and it seems like that time may be now.

Although they weren't fantastic on zone entries, the Oilers' big three were excellent on zone exits. Hall especially impresses, as he not only managed respectable percentages, but he did so with thirteen D-zone puck touches, meaning he was taking on quite a bit of the zone exits burden upon himself while he was on the ice. It does continue to stand out to me how bad the Oilers' D are at moving the puck out of their zone, though. Out of their six defensemen, three didn't manage a single successful zone exit, while the other three only managed to produce four successful zone exits. By no means have the Sharks' defensemen excelled amazingly at exiting the zone themselves, but when you're a team like the Oilers that doesn't have much else going for you, you'd like to at least think your D-men could exit the zone with some modicum of success. Unfortunately for the Oilers, that's just not happening.

Notes:

• Jumbo, Pavs, Hertl, Dillon and Burns had fantastic nights on scoring chances, while Eberle and Perron did well there for the Oilers
• Brenden Dillon and Justin Schultz had fantastic nights on zone entries, especially for defensemen
• Braun was the only Sharks defensemen to have over a 50% carry-in against percentage, while Justin Schultz and Andrew Ference had bad outings
• Sharks' second pair finally had a decent game on zone exits, while the Oilers' D barely managed any successful zone exits/