by Blake Bennett, Staff Writer, All Habs Hockey Magazine
TORONTO, ON.— Yeah, yeah, yeah. Habs were one of the weakest possession teams in the league last year, Carey Price was the only reason they got anywhere, blah blah blah.
We’ve heard it.
We’ve also heard, from within the ranks of Habs fans as well as without, that Michel Therrien’s tenure of leading this team should be coming to an end. Why? Well, for one, his insistence upon using the dead-puck era strategy known as dump-and-chase that has been analytically debunked to death, primarily by the Carolina Hurricanes analyst Eric Tulksy.
To abbreviate his work as much as every other hockey writer out there, Tulksy showed that carrying the puck over the blue line instead of shooting it in resulted in more than twice as many shot attempts offensively. Kyle Dubas guided the Soo Greyhounds of the OHL to a stellar 67-29-6 record under his tenure as General Manager by sticking to this credo of “carry and keep.” Dubas is now Assistant General Manager for the Leafs to help turn that franchise into the contender Brendan Shanahan and Lou Lamoriello are envisioning.
But here are the Habs, sticking with an outmoded, disproven method. And they’re 5-0. Best start ever for the oldest franchise in the league.
Unbelievable.
The question is whether they’d be doing even better with a new 21st-century, sabermetrics-driven system that emphasized carrying before dumping and possession über alles.
Even more unbelievable is that they are talking puck-possession in the room, and they’re rocking a 54.34 per cent rate of the shot attempts at 5-on-5. They finished last year at 48.5 per cent.
Let’s have a quick look at the pros and cons of this Montreal team using dump-and-chase as much as they do.
Pros:
- The Habs are a fast team. Pacioretty has an extra gear that the vast majority of the players in the NHL dream of having. Dump-and-chase requires the dumping team to be, if not first on the dumped puck, at least right on the defender’s heels to pressure him into giving it up.
- They play a good transition game: The blue-line’s (Subban, Markov, Petry, and Beaulieu, specifically) ability to nail stretch passes give a dumping player fewer defenders to beat to the dumped puck, since most of the defending team has been left in the other two zones trying to forecheck.
- Depth: this year’s Habs are rolling four solid lines. Dump-and-chase leaves time and room for frequent line changes that don’t strand a single forward alone in the offensive zone. In other words, one forward who carries the puck over the blue line during a line change had better bust out some serious stickhandling if he doesn’t want to turn the puck over. But a forward pinning a defender along the boards in a scrum for the puck can buy time for the next line to hop off the bench and come to his aid.
And here’s where things get head-scratchingly baffling. The cons are all flip sides of the pros.
Cons:
- The Habs are a fast team. Why use that speed trying to retrieve a puck they’ve just given away instead of using it to blow past flat-footed defenders?
- They play a good transition game: if it’s easier to retrieve the puck after a quick transition in a dump-and-chase scenario, shouldn’t it also be easier to maintain possession on zone entry and be better set to put shot attempts on goal?
- Depth: this year’s Habs are rolling four solid lines. Even their ‘grinder line’ has the skill and speed to play fast, calculated possession hockey. Why play a style of hockey that is traditionally better-suited to stronger, less-skilled players?
But all of this is completely moot. Why? Two reasons. Five wins, zero losses. But let me nitpick at least on the usage of the dump-and-chase where it’s most painful and ineffective: on the power play.
While watching the Habs beat the Rangers 3-0 on Thursday night in a largely defensive affair, the issue was strikingly obvious during the numerous power plays given to the CH. Any time the Habs won the offensive-zone faceoff, the puck was snapping from stick to stick with purpose. Lundqvist was at his usual world-class best, so the power-play didn’t connect even when this was the case.
But when they lost the faceoff and had to try and re-enter the zone, that’s when the system looked shaky at best.
Say all you want about the pros of dump-and-chase during 5-on-5, but when the defenders are allowed to ice the puck without restriction, all it takes is a split-second of possession on their part to have the Habs trudging back down to Carey’s end to try to bring it back up again. And dumping it seems to give them that split-second nine times out of ten. Putting the puck in along the boards has an added risk as well: even if the attacking team does pick it up, the quickest way to move the puck under pressure is along the boards. We saw this last night several times, when the Habs couldn’t get away from the boards under the penalty-killing pressure after barely retrieving the dump.
A puck sliding around the boards is consistent, predictable, and easily intercepted to be lifted over the attacker’s heads and cleared out of the zone. But during those scrums along the boards, that’s where the attacking players are going to position themselves to wait for the puck to emerge: along the boards. You know where it’s pretty difficult to score from? The boards. So if the puck does get to an open Hab who can move it off the boards, where are his teammates? Scrambling to get back to their posts– away from the boards.
To break it down mathematically: Dump+ interception= icing, dump+ retrieval= boards, boards+ passing=interception or broken setup.
See, this analysis math stuff isn’t so hard.
The Habs are winning. Their systems aren’t likely to change unless something changes drastically in that respect. And at 5-on-5, yeah, their puck possession is better than a dump-and-chase team’s has any right to be.
But please, Michel Therrien, let them carry the puck over the blue line on the power play. If it gets intercepted then, at least they don’t have to skate quite so far to get it back.
End of nitpicking. Let’s cheer the boys on to 6-0 on Saturday night!