One of the reasons I like “Ice Tilt” from NHL EDGE IQ powered by AWS is that it’s not a simple track of where the puck is, as that doesn’t accurately tell us who’s pushing the play.
A great example of that is a set break out, where the puck is technically in one team’s end racking up “puck in offensive zone time” — a metric tracked by various outlets — but the team that’s breaking out has backed off the defenders and should have a good chance of cleanly coming out. Unfortunately, “O-zone possession time” is often a small sample size and so close between teams (most periods have about four-to-six minutes per team), that it doesn’t tell much of a story. It also doesn’t go into the quality or real pressure of that possession time like Ice Tilt does.
This metric utilizes the player tracking chips in sweaters, so on a set breakout for Team X, we’d see that most of Team Y is sagged all the way back off into the neutral zone, so it wouldn’t show up as a huge offensive plus for the team that’s actually on the defensive.
But when a team does have O-zone possession, and three or even four of their sweaters are down low around the net and pressing down for a goal, we get a real show of “Ice Tilt,” and also “Time with Significant Tilt,” which shows rolling two minute periods of time where the play was forced inside the blue line of one team or the other.
To finally apply it here, let’s talk about the Winnipeg Jets–St. Louis Blues series, and check in on what Ice Tilt can tell us about it.
The below graphic shows which team has controlled Ice Tilt by game. In a nutshell, the Jets controlled Game 1, with St. Louis controlling the next two games. The Jets won Game 2 despite this, thanks to the best game of the series from Connor Hellebuyck.
What’s interesting is that the Jets controlled the Tilt in Game 4 as well — a 5-1 St. Louis win — but here’s where we can acknowledge some score effects. Often, the third period of a lopsided game can skew overall statistics (on essentially all stats and Tilt isn’t exempt), as the Blues would’ve been backing off and trading possession time to the Jets in exchange for not allowing Grade A chances on Jordan Binnington.
In sum, Time with Tilt for the series is 125:30 for St. Louis, and 114:12 for Winnipeg. (In the brackets above is time with “Significant Tilt.”)
My main takeaway from evaluating this series, though, is a stylistic thing that can allow the Jets to have success against the Blues — and when they don’t do it, they end up stuck in the D-zone.
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The Jets need to get back to their great breakout game, which was third best in the regular season (according to Sportlogiq). St. Louis’ forecheck has been way too effective. The second piece for the Jets is that in the offensive zone, they need to win back loose pucks and avoid having to skate 200 feet to break out again. That would negate the problem entirely.
Below is a “heartbeat” graph, which shows the Ice Tilt throughout Game 4. What really stands out to me is how the Jets played leading up to their only goal (represented in coloured vertical lines; grey lines mark the end of a period), which at one point included 51 seconds of play in the offensive zone punctuated by repeated defensive plays (while on offence) and puck battles won to keep the Jets in the O-zone. You’ll see that push in the middle of the first period in the next graphic (which eventually swings back against them hard).
This is the thing about Ice Tilt: If you control it long enough, you put yourself in a situation where you can “get lucky” and score. But you can’t write those “lucky” moments off, as the team that’s earning zone time is earning the free spin, and a chance at getting lucky. You can see the graph below, then we’ll watch The Shift.
As you can see, in the middle of the first period — for almost 10 minutes — things were going well for the Jets. Watch Winnipeg’s players here, namely Kyle Connor, getting their sticks on potential breakout plays by the Blues, which keeps them on offence.
After they break through and score, it felt like the Jets had the formula, they had the good vibes going, and it wasn’t going to be like Game 3. But the Blues have now won 14 straight home games, and that’s no fluke. They’re a resilient bunch that works their butts off, and their forecheck led to extended O-zone time, which resulted in shots at the net with traffic.
Here are some examples of where the Jets struggled to handle that forecheck.
So you can see the difference for the Jets: win pucks in the O-zone, stay at that end of the ice, and give yourself the chance to “get lucky” on offence. Or, you skate back to your own end, where the Blues have been way too effective on the forecheck, which has led to Ice Tilt swinging back in St. Louis’ favour. We see this in the steep peak in the “heartbeat” graphic above at the end of the first period.
It’s a possession battle in this series, and the Jets are generally very good at playing the type of team hockey that keeps them on the right half of the rink. Yes, they could have used a few more saves in Game 5, but they could also have made it easier on Hellebuyck by winning the majority share of the Ice Tilt.
