Scoring Chances - Games 1-10

For those of you reading this blog that are not yet aware, Oilogosphere stalwart, Dennis, has been tracking scoring chances for the Oilers this season and posting them here. It's all very good stuff and well worth checking out. Tracking scoring chances is helpful because it gives observers one more indicator for how a player is performing. Obviously, things like time on ice, the quality of one's linemates and the quality of one's competition will have a big impact on how well any individual player does by this measure, and a useful guide for those measures can be found here. In the coming days I will be posting a tallying of these results in various forms. First up, is the scoring chances in ten game segments.

(For those unfamiliar with the metric a player is awarded a chance any time someone on the ice has a chance to score. He is awarded with a “chance for” if someone on his team has a chance and awarded with a “chance against” if someone on the opposing team has a chance to score. The results are broken down into three game states, EV (even strength), PP (Power Play) and SH (Short-Handed). The players are all organized according to their jersey numbers.)

Games One Through Ten, October 12 to November 1

These first ten games have quite a few Oilers off to a fast start, especially the Kid Line. Although they weren't scoring as often as one would like, all of Cogliano, Nilsson and Gagner have outstanding numbers at even strength. Meanwhile, Horcoff/Hemsky look like they're handling the tougher minutes quite well over this stretch. Pisani is struggling with his new assignment at center, while Penner seems to have adjusted well to playing RW instead of LW. Cole really struggles through this segment and Moreau is off to a poor start.

The D are all off to a pretty good start. Strudwick and Staios run into problems later in the year, but through these first ten games they had been effective at EV (and abominable on the PK, but they aren't the only ones). It helps to make sense of why MacT waited so long to split them up.