By the numbers: Game 75 vs. Philadelphia

Scoring Chances

San Jose

Even Strength Scoring Chance Shooting Percentage: 0.0%

Percent of Even Strength Fenwick Events that were Scoring Chances: 25.0%

Philadelphia

Even Strength Scoring Chance Shooting Percentage: 20.0%

Percent of Even Strength Fenwick Events that were Scoring Chances: 25.0%

Period-by-Period Summary

-The funny thing about this game is that only one five-man unit really had any success in this game for San Jose. Seriously, take the Couture line, Braun, and Dillon out of these numbers, and this game will look like it was really close.

-There's obviously a lot of talk about how awesome Voracek and Giroux are before any team matches up with the Flyers, but in this game, those two, along with the Flyers' top pairing of Schultz-Del Zotto (yes, that's actually their top pairing right now) got eaten alive by the Couture line.

-Couture and Hertl especially had good nights, as Couture had five scoring chances at evens, and Hertl had five scoring chance points at evens.

-This game was pretty exciting, cause John Scott wasn't the player with the lowest TOI for the Sharks. Mind you, the one player below him was injured for most of the game, but who even cares about context?

-Though Voracek's line didn't do great last night, he did produce results in the offensive zone, finishing his night with five scoring chance points.

-Brandon Manning didn't have a good game on exits, as we'll see later, but he was the only Flyer in this game to manage a positive scoring chance differential.

Passing Stats

San Jose

Philadelphia

-Pretty active game for San Jose's D in this game, as players like Burns, Braun, and Dillon capitalized on extra playing time and all managed at least 10 plays in the offensive zone.

-San Jose attempted quite a few shots in this game, especially compared to Philly (5v5 shot attempts were 59-34!), and that resulted in one of San Jose's higher shot percentages in a while, as the managed almost a 39% shot percentage, compared to Philly only managing a 24%.

-On the Flyers' side of things, Lecavalier was their most active player, making 16 plays in the offensive zone, but I'd also argue he was one of their least effective, as he turned the puck over seven times on his 13 pass attempts. We've seen games where Thornton's turned the puck over a lot amidst his many pass attempts, but I don't think we've seen him turn the puck over on over half of his pass attempts. Much has been written and said about Lecavalier's steep decline the last few seasons, so it's probably not necessary to stress it as much as I am, but man was it depressing watching him play yesterday.

-Sean Couturier also had a rough night, turning the puck over 5 times on 11 pass attempts. Jake Voracek, the next player up in terms of passes attempted, only turned it over once, cause he's really cool n' good n' stuff.

Zone Entries

San Jose

Philadelphia

-Once again the wingers on the third line put up really good zone entry numbers, while Tierney's numbers left something to be desired.

-Overall, San Jose attempted 11 entries less than Philadelphia (Philadelphia's number of successful entries is hilarious), but their offensive game was much more effective than Philly's, as they attempted over twice as many shots per entry as the Flyers did.

-Because of how inept Philadelphia's offense was, no Flyer other than Nick Grossmann (surprisingly enough) put up good all-around numbers, but guys like Voracek, Couturier, and Giroux did put up a good amount of carry-ins, contributing to Philly's 54% carry-in rate.

Zone Entry Matchups

So this is something new I figured I'd try to put together for you all. The purpose of the two tables in this section will be to contextualize players' entries a bit, as I'll break down how many entries and what types of entries each player attempted against every player on the other team. For reference, the top row consists of players who are being targeted for the entry (put in order of "players on first line, second line, third line, fourth line, first D pairing, second D pairing, third D pairing"), and the first column consists of the players performing the entry (also ordered by line combos). For example, if you want to see how many times Thornton (#19) attempted an entry against Del Zotto (#15), you can just skim down the first column until you find 19, then skim over until you find the "15" column. In that box (if X player even attempted any entries against Y player) will be a trio of numbers formatted "A-B-C." Here, A=number of carry-ins, B=number of dump-ins, and C=number of failed entries. For example, Couturier (#14) had 4 carry-ins and 2 dump-ins against Burns (#88) in this game. In the box that corresponds to "Couturier entries against Burns," you'll find a "4-2-0," showing that Couturier had 4 carry-ins, 2 dump-ins, and 0 failed entries against Burns. The last row and last column of these tables are "total" summaries, with the totals for "entering player" summarizing how many carry-ins--dump-ins--failed entries they had overall, while the totals for "player targeted for entry" summarizes how many carry-ins--dump-ins--failed entries occurred against that player.

That's a lot of info to throw at you all, but I think it becomes pretty self-explanatory once you take a gander at the tables themselves. As always, if anyone has any questions on these stats, feel free to ask away in the comments section, as I'm always happy to answer questions. Also, sorry the tables don't look fantastic. What with this being a new thing for me, I haven't quite figured out just yet how to make these tables look good.

San Jose

Philadelphia

NOTE: San Jose's D pairings are obviously not 100% accurate in the above table, but given how many injuries they had, the D-pairings weren't very consistent throughout the game.

-Schultz had a pretty good game yesterday, only allowing 4 carry-ins, but his best performance came against the Couture line, as he forced that line to dump it on all 3 of their entry attempts against him.

-MDZ had his worst times against San Jose's third line, allowing 3 carry-ins on that line's 4 entry attempts against him.

-Brandon Manning was targeted for a lot of entries in this game, and he held his own pretty well against San Jose's first and third lines, going an even 2-2-0 against both of those lines.

-Burns had another bad night defending the blue line, and a lot of that is due to his work against Philly's second line, as Sean Couturier managed a 4-2-0 against Burns, and that line as a whole managed 7-2-0 against him.

-The Couturier line didn't manage nearly as much success against Hannan or Dillon, as that line went 3-4-0 against those two.

Entry Targeting

San Jose

Philadelphia

-As has been the usual this season, Burns and Hannan put up almost exact opposites in terms of their numbers here, as Burns allowed a lot of carry-ins, while Hannan forced a lot of dump-ins.

-Philly's D overall did a pretty good job of forcing San Jose to dump the puck in, but MDZ and Grossman had pretty rough outings, as those two accounted for 52% of the carry-ins Philadelphia allowed, while San Jose only attempted 35% of their entries against those two.

Zone Exits

San Jose

Philadelphia

-The third line put up pretty good numbers here too, as Tierney and Wingels were exiting the zone quite effectively yesterday.

-Jumbo had the most chances to attempt zone exits yesterday, touching the puck 17 times in the D-zone, but he wasn't very effective, only managing 3 successful breakouts, and turning it over 5 times.

-MDZ didn't do very well in a few facets of this game, but his zone exit work was fantastic, as he managed 6 successful pass-outs on 18 touches. Just for reference, the rest of Philadelphia's defense combined managed 6 successful breakouts.

-Read, Rinaldo, and Bellemare all put up good exit numbers, as did Lecavalier, who at least has zone exit numbers going for him? I guess?