DEPLOYMENT

Photo credit:Perry Nelson-USA TODAY Sports

7 years ago

We are eight games into the playoffs now and some interesting deployment trends are showing up for the Edmonton Oilers. Todd McLellan is running two forwards and four defensemen hard, and getting at least some minutes out of all four lines. Let’s have a look.

COMPLETE RANGE

Let’s have a look at both series first. Here are the men who are being deployed significantly in all three disciplines.

Connor McDavid: 21:31 overall; 16:34 evens; 3:11 power play; 1:45 penalty kill.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins: 18:23 overall; 13:13 evens; 2:05 power play; 3:04 penalty kill.
Mark Letestu: 17:52 overall; 12:05 evens; 3:01 power play; 2:45 penalty kill.
Drake Caggiula: 15:03 overall; 12:44 evens; 1:23 power play: 0:55 penalty kill.

Todd McLellan uses his centers (and Caggiula) a lot on special teams and all of them play regular shifts (and more) at evens. Running Caggiula here allows the Oilers to get Leon Draisaitl into offensive situations more often. If the young forward is hurt, things may change. Here are the complete defensemen:

Andrej Sekera: 23:04 overall; 16:56 evens; 2:31 power play; 3:36 penalty kill.
Oscar Klefbom: 21:46 overall; 16:51 evens; 2:37 power play; 2:17 penalty kill.

McLellan uses four defensemen heavily, but Adam Larsson and Kris Russell run hot on the penalty kill (Russell has been used on the power play in previous seasons).

HEAVY ON THE POWER PLAY

Here are the forwards who play a lot at evens and on the power play:

Leon Draisaitl: 18:20 overall; 15:05 evens; 2:58 power play.
Milan Lucic: 16:02 overall; 13:09 evens; 2:53 power play.
Patrick Maroon: 16:37 overall; 14:29 evens; 2:07 power play.
Jordan Eberle: 15:11 overall; 13:10 evens; 1:59 power play.

No real surprise here, this is the list of wingers on the top two lines. Suspect Leon eventually adds PK work to his resume, but for now he is doing grand work at evens and power play. The Oilers have no defender on the current roster we can regard as a one dimensional offensive type. The top two defenders on the PP are Klefbom and Sekera, listed above.

HEAVY ON THE PENALTY KILL

One of the major changes from the regular season to playoffs is the absence of Matt Hendricks. With Caggiula being injured, Hendricks may draw in (1:30 a night during the regular season) if the young forward can’t go.

Benoit Pouliot: 12:17 overall, 9:01 evens; 2:42 penalty kill.
Iiro Pakarinen: 8:26 overall; 6:14 evens; 2:12 penalty kill (1 game).
Zack Kassian: 14:35 overall; 12:28 evens; 2:03 penalty kill.

If the answer isn’t Matt Hendricks (next forward up), it could be Anton Lander. The young Swede can win faceoffs and is a solid penalty killer. Here are the defensemen:

Kris Russell: 20:57 overall; 17:13 evens; 3:33 penalty kill.
Adam Larsson: 22:30 overall; 19:25 evens; 2:52 penalty kill.
Eric Gryba: 15:59 overall; 14:57 evens; 1:52 penalty kill.
Darnell Nurse: 16:59 overall; 15:57 evens; 0:55 penalty kill.

Heavy usage of the top four D on special teams during the playoffs, no surprise there. McLellan is nursing his young third pairing during their first playoff run, makes sense. All information here available at NHL.com.

THE ANAHEIM SERIES

If you want to look at TOI for the Ducks series, hockey-reference does a nice job. It reveals that Todd McLellan is running the daylights out of Connor McDavid, Oscar Klefbom, Leon Draisaitl, Adam Larsson, Andrej Sekera and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. All men are over 20 minutes and it is likely we’ll see an increase in those minutes in an effort to close the series quickly.

The key number? Cam Talbot’s .947 save percentage. He is the No. 1 reason for Edmonton’s current standing in this series, although it has been a team effort for sure.

TODD MCLELLAN’S DEPLOYMENT

McLellan has done a good job (in my opinion) in deployment during this series. Randy Carlyle is perhaps a little more predictable than what McLellan saw when matching up against Pete DeBoer in the San Jose series, but the matchup battle looks sane from here. Now, about that officiating…..

RESOURCES

Drilling down on playoff results can be a lot of fun and there are a couple of useful sites that can inform us about specifics:

Corsica.Hockey. A great site that allows you to view the success of lines and pairings during the postseason (among other things). For instance, the Lucic-Nuge-Eberle line has 55.26 of the shots while on ice this playoff spring.
Puckalytics. Their Superwowy page can drill down on specifics, like Connor McDavid running 9-9 in 5×5 possession against Ryan Kesler in the Oilers-Ducks series. You have to insert names and dates, making sure to note ‘playoffs’ but it is a dandy tool.

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