Hull & Romford Preview

Last week against MK was a fairly complete performance, at times the Steeldogs were dominant in keeping the puck in the zone and sustaining pressure on their D. That shows up in the Corsi statistics, where not only did the Dogs outshoot MK by a fairly decent margin, they also had a lot more shot attempts too. And it was the case at both special teams and five on five, so not just the product of ill-discipline from MK. I would even argue that a number of the penalties that the Dogs drew were as a direct result of the pressure that you were able to apply to them. Although for all that dominance, most of the actual damage was done on special teams. Most players graded out as a 0 on the +/- with the Brown/Salem/Graham line + Bell being the only plus players. So it showed that, to some extent that both teams were mostly scoring on special teams. The Steeldogs also won the majority of faceoffs – at 58.6% – with every player being at least 50%. Personally I don’t subscribe to the idea that you need to win the face-off battle to win the game (we saw a lot last year that some of the weaker teams like Billingham and Blackburn would win the majority, but get shelled by the Dogs) but one of the differences I noticed in this game was the Dogs winning more key offensive faceoffs, particularly on special teams, which meant fewer easy clears for MK and more chances on goal as a result. If I had to be picky the one surprising statistics was that for all the Dogs shot and shot attempt dominance by numbers, the HQ chances were a lot more evenly split. MK were able to block some of the Dogs HQ chances at 5 on 5, which led to a net 0 HD Corsi figure. On special teams the Dogs did have the advantage in attempts, but this was largely by virtue of missed shots. So despite such a wide discrepancy in attempts, the data suggests that at times the Dogs were taking shots from the outside more than MK were. You can kind of see it in the shot charts too, the number of shots in the house is fairly similar for both teams – it’s the shots from further out where the Dogs totally dominate. Hull I’m not going to go too much into Hull’s stats. You know how they will most likely set up as it’s pretty much the same roster from last season and I can’t imagine they will make very many changes to the way they play either. A couple of things that did stand out so far: – Their PP was a massive strength last year at over 30%. So far it’s only 3 for 24, or 12.5%. I doubt it will stay that way forever, but it was notable. – Their PK is around league average and is 29 for 36 or 80.6% (Dogs are 20 for 24, 83.3%) – Their shooting percentage tended to lead the league last year, so far it’s a little under league average at 11.5%. Again, I would expect some improvement. – The usual suspects lead them in points and assists, and their two imports are close behind. The other one has 2+6, whereas Fabus is 3 + 5. Romford They are an interesting team, they’ve won two out of 4 – both being at home. They are actually averaging the most goals for per game (6.25) but are also allowing 4.5 per game. Although at ES they are averaging 4.75 per game (or they are averaging 1.5 special teams goals per game). This is all even more interesting, because they are actually getting outshot on average 41.25-37.75 (or by 3.5 per game) which is just below average for the league. And their games are averaging the second higher number of shots, in total, behind only Hull – so it’s probably fair to say that they play a bit of a more open game than the Steeldogs. It’s also the case that they’ve been outshot in 3 of their 4 games so far too. Their shooting percentage is 16.6% – 2nd in the league and well above the average. And their save percentage is a little over average at 89%. So the chances that they are getting, they are burying – some of that will be small sample size but could also reflect some good opportunities falling their way. They are only winning 4.5 PPs per game, which is 3rd lowest and are conceding 7 per game – which is the league highest. So discipline would appear to be an issue. And while their PP % is slightly higher than average, their PK is 4th lowest and actually they concede powerplay goals at a league worst once every 2.4 minutes (second worst is twice as long, so they are a distant worst in that category) Both home and away they have been scoring a lot of goals, just at home they have been successful at preventing them. Home they average 2 GAA, but away it’s more like 5. The biggest reason is a somewhat unsustainable 95% save percentage at home, versus 83% away. Although their shooting percentage tops 15% in both cases. They have been getting outshot away too, but not at home – so to me it seems like they can definitely play offense, but their D is gettable particularly on the road with more favourable home match-ups. Their points tend to be fairly concentrated in a top-heavy unit. Connolly, Novak and Aycliffe/Sladovsky are their leading point getters so far.