By the numbers: Game 42 vs. St. Louis

Scoring Chances

San Jose

St. Louis

Period-by-Period Summary

SJ Even Strength Scoring Chance Save Percentage: 73.3%

STL Even Strength Scoring Chance Save Percentage: 85.7%

There's really not much to say here for San Jose, aside from "all hail Matt Nieto and James Sheppard," as they somehow managed to have positive scoring chance differentials in this game, despite San Jose getting outchanced at an almost 2-1 ratio. By these numbers, the third line was the Sharks' best, as every member of that line had an even or better scoring chance differential, and the third D pairing was the Sharks best (again, by these numbers alone), though that has everything to do with the rest of the defensemen on the team finishing the game with disastrous scoring chance differentials, and almost nothing to do with that pairing's actual play (it really seems like a miracle that that pairing was able to escape the night with only a -1 scoring chance differential at evens).

Every once in a while, the story is brought up about how Jamie Baker played in a 7-1 win for the Sharks once, and ended up a -1 on the night. I feel like that's comparable to what happened with Barret Jackman, Dmitrij Jaskin, and Patrik Berglund last night. Somehow those three ended up with negative scoring chance differentials, when the next worst differentials were Stastny's 0, and Lapierre's +2. I guess if there's one positive to be drawn from this game, it's that SJ's third line somehow managed to outchance St. Louis', though I imagine score effects played some role in that.

Zone Entries

San Jose

St. Louis

Well, Melker Karlsson had a good night through the neutral zone. That's basically it, on the Shark side of things. Not only did the team as a whole not attempt many entries, but the amount of shots they generated on many of the players' entries was abysmal, as a third of the team's players ended the night with zero shot attempts off of their entries. The team did a good job of generating shot attempts off of Desi and Shep's entries, but both those players only had 33% carry-in rates, numbers that we'd obviously like to see higher. What didn't help matters at all was Marleau's zero entries last night. I'm not one to ever blame Marleau for any of the team's faults, but in a game where the team really struggled to do anything productive in the neutral zone, the Sharks really could've used Patty's neutral zone prowess.

The only real bad thing you could say about St. Louis here is that they didn't manage as many shot attempts per carry-in as you'd expect. Aside from that, they're awesome. They attempted a ton of entries, they carried the puck in on almost half of those entries, and they had players like Tarasenko, Shattenkirk, Steen, and Schwartz absolutely killing it with their neutral zone performances. Sure, some players like Backes and Oshie didn't have games that matched what we expect from them, but in a game where the rest of their team more than picked up the slack, you can't complain too much.

Entry Targeting

San Jose

St. Louis

Should've figured it was coming, after two straight games of sub-50 numbers, but "we have gone [0] games with Burns having a sub-50 carry-in against percentage." He and Vlasic finally had a below-average game defending against zone entries, as that pairing saw a carry-in against percentage above 50 for the first time in their young existence this season. The only player who did really well by these numbers was Braun, which is good I guess, as hopefully that makes up for a little bit of the flack he got for his performance last night.

I tend to be a Carl Gunnarsson supporter, as I feel he's been unnecessarily ridiculed for his time in Toronto, under a bad head coach, and with a non-functioning hip, but I fail to understand how it is his carry-in against percentage was almost double that of his team's overall numbers in this game. Same goes for Pietrangelo, though the fact that SJ only attempted five entries against him makes me think he should probably get a pass due to a smaller-than-usual sample size.

Zone Exits

San Jose

St. Louis

Another game of all of the Sharks' defensemen managing at least one successful breakout. Too bad that didn't lead to much success for the team as a whole, as a few of the Sharks' high turnover rates really brought down the team's overall performance. I really want to like what Tennyson is doing with the big club, because I'm a huge fan of his story and his skillset, but he just isn't getting it done in some very sheltered minutes. He turned it over so many times last night that I almost ran out of room on my paper to keep track of them, and he finished the night with over a 50% turnover rate. Goodrow, Karlsson, and Hertl also turned the puck over a lot, helping contribute to the team's almost 40% turnover rate.

Whereas San Jose averaged a successful breakout only one out of three non in-zone pass touches, St. Louis averaged one out of two. Whereas San Jose averaged a turnover on two out of five touches, St. Louis averaged only one out of four. This was a game obviously dominated by St. Louis on all fronts, and it really carried over to the zone exit numbers. Although San Jose and St. Louis had similar overall success% numbers, I don't think that's enough to outweigh St. Louis' dominance in every other category. Worth noting that San Jose had 39 successful breakouts on over 170 D-zone puck touches, while St. Louis had 35 successful breakouts on more than fifty less touches.

Notes:

-Sharks' third line outplayed St. Louis' third line, but rest of the team was decimated on scoring chances

-Karlsson had a good night on entries, but the rest of the team did not

-St. Louis had quite a few players (including Tarasenko and Steen) do very well on entries, as they managed over twenty more entries than the Sharks did

-Burns broke his streak of sub-50 carry-in against percentage games, with a 62.50 carry-in against % this game

-Gunnarson and Pietrangelo only Blues' D-men with carry-in against percentages over 50

-Every Sharks' D-man had at least one successful zone exit, but Tennyson turned the puck over on over half of his attempts, as did Karlsson, Goodrow, and Hertl

-St. Louis exited the zone more effectively than San Jose, and turned the puck over far less frequently