Tales From The Clipped: Understanding the seven-second rule, and Dallas' struggling power play
It's all bad. But it's all early.
Normally, today is the day we go over Corey Sznajder’s tracking data, getting granular with the how of hockey outcomes. But today I’m making an exception to talk about Dallas’ power play, which, as everyone knows, is struggling. With a 9.5 conversion rate, and above only only two other teams, that’s being incredibly diplomatic.
Admittedly, I don’t like doing this. Seven games is a sample size. That’s 425 minutes of action. Restricted to power play action, and that’s only 35 minutes. Is 35 minutes really the amount of time we’re gonna give Steve Spott to help get Dallas’ man advantage humming?
That’s part of why I wanted to do this. Even the happy-go-lucky reddit crowd is sharpening their pitchforks when it comes to Spott, who is and will always be a package deal with Pete DeBoer. I’m not here to make excuses for Spott. For those that are new here, coaches are fair game as far as I’m concerned, and it says a lot about hockey analysis that coaches don’t get called for their Marty Mornhinweg “we wanted the wind” moments even though they happen all the time. Hell, Nikolaj Ehlers’ entire career in Winnipeg has been destroyed built by it. But if I thought there was a story there, I’d write it.
But there isn’t, and if there is, we’re not there yet. In fact, here’s a cheat sheet of Spott’s tenure with Dallas on the man advantage, from 2022 until now (all stats have been adjusted for minutes):
6th in goals
8th in shot attempts
6th in shots on net
3rd in high danger shot attempts
5th in expected goals
In terms of observed success, they’re top 10. In terms of deserved success, they’re even better. If you want to check out Dallas’ playoff stats under Spott, they’re shockingly similar. Blaming something or someone for a shortcoming can connect us with tangible details — ala The Big Mistake — but it doesn’t necessarily connect us with the understanding of things.
In other words, today’s film room is not about blaming Spott: it’s about getting a sense of why things are going wrong, for now, if there are projectable issues or not, and what can be ultimately learned. So what follows is not gonna be a bunch of criticisms and potshots. Instead we’ll talk a little bit about my tracking project for this season’s power play, and also clarify Steve Spott’s seven-second rule, since some fans seem a little confused. (Admittedly, this is on me, but we’ll get to that, because I think it’s an interesting discussion in and of itself.)