Does hitting mean you don’t have the puck?

St. Louis Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock had some hockey people fired up with his comments one day after the Blues defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 1-0 in overtime. St.Louis had 41 hits in game one, but Hitchcock got some people up in arms when he said that wasn’t good enough.

“We’re going to have to go up way bigger. We’re going to have to get it into the 70s if we expect to win.”

It had the media covering the series and many stats people looking for a response. Hitch was exaggerating with his mention of 70, but his premise was the same. He believes the Blues need to be physical.

“I’m not sure about that comment,” said Chicago head coach Joel Quenneville.
“I hope there’s some validity to it. I hope he tries to go to 70, it
means we got the puck the whole (game).”

The theory many project is if you are hitting that means you don’t have the puck, but is it really true?

The Blackhawks have won three Stanley Cups in the past six years. They are the benchmark for success.

Let’s look at their playoff series last year and see how they won.

They played Nashville in the first round. Here are shots, hits and total shot attempts (SA) for each game.

A few things stood out. The Predators had way more hits on the road, 172, than at home, 94. While the Hawks also had more hits on the road, 114, than at home, 78. However, the theory is the team who hits more has the puck less.

The Predators’ shot total at home was 118 and 114 on the road. Basically the same.

Their total SA were 203 at home and 182 on the road. A bit more at home.

The Hawks had 122 shots on the road and 86 at home. Their SA were 253 on the road and 181 at home.

So the Hawks had more hits, more shots and more SA on the road by significant margins. So they were able to be more physical and possess the puck more in Nashville…hmm.

The Hawks won games one, three, four and six. In the six games, the the winning team had more shots only once, game six, and they had more SA in games three and six.

Throughout the series, the Predators had more hits (266-192) and more shots (232-208), while the Hawks had more SA at 424-385. The Predators lost game one and four when they outhit, out shot and had better SA than the Hawks. The Hawks lost game two and five when they out hit, out shot and had better SA than the Predators. So in four of six games the team who in theory had more possession and better SA, also had more hits.

The Hawks swept the Wild in four games.

The games in Chicago looked fairly even on the stat sheets. Hits were 78-73 Minnesota. Shots were 66-64 Chicago and SA were 118-103 Chicago.

In Minnesota the Wild outhit (44-17), out shot (67-47) and had better SA (129-94) than the Blackhawks, but lost both games. Chicago won game three 1-0, on a Patrick Kane PP goal, and won game four 4-3. It was an odd game four. The Hawks led 2-1 after 40 minutes, then they made it 3-1 with 6:40 remaining. The Wild pulled their goalie while on a PP with four minutes remaining and the Hawks scored an EN with 3:07 left. Then the Wild scored twice in :51 seconds and they had 1:33 to tie the game but couldn’t.

I found it very interesting how the Hawks had 17 hits in two road games in this series, but had 114 in three road games versus the Predators. I do believe some rinks rank hits differently, but the Hawks did play more physical against Nashville than they did the Wild. The Wild series was very tame emotionally compared to the Predator series.

Hawks and Ducks went seven games. The series was tied after four games, with the Hawks needing OT wins in games two and four to get the split. The Hawks won games six and seven to take the series.

The Ducks had more hits in every game, and they had more SA in three of the seven games, and ironically they lost all three games where they had more SA. In games two, six and seven the Ducks out hit (151-98), out shot (132-105) and had better SA than the Hawks (254-220). It seems to go against the theory that the team with more hits has the puck less. 

The Hawks and Lightning had a very low-scoring series. The Hawks won three times by a 2-1 score, and won 2-0 in the clinching game. There was a total of 23 goals in the series, and ten were scored in the third period.

Tampa Bay had more hits every game, and they had more SA in four of the six games, but the two games where the had fewer SA were the two they won.

The Hawks finished with more shots on goal in the series (168-161), while the Lightning had more SA (336-325) and more hits (247-157).

It is only one playoff year, but based on these numbers the theory that more hits equates to less possession might be misleading. I will take a look the LA Kings Cup runs of 2014 and 2012 and see how they fared. The Kings have been built on size and strength, while the Hawks are considered more a skilled team.

Both have had a lot of success the past six years, and I’m curious to see what the Kings numbers will show.

I recognize that hits, shots and even missed or blocked shots will vary from building to building, but I never believed that being physical was a negative. The theory that the perfect games means you have no hits is simply foolish in my eyes, because any coach who preaches that should also tell his players to never dump the puck in. And I don’t know any coach who does that.

In hockey you have to give up possession sometimes, but the good teams find ways to get it back. Puck retrievals are hugely important in today’s game, and one of the best way to retrieve the puck is by separating your opponent from the puck with body contact, or forcing him to move it quicker than he would like by the threat of a thunderous hit.

I’m not sold on the theory the team with more hits automatically equates to having less puck possession.

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