The scoring tendencies of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2014/2015

A visual breakdown of where on the ice Leafs are scoring threats and where they are ineffective.

Using the shot data available on SomeKindofNinja, we can start to map out a few key patterns in Maple Leafs’ offensive attack, including:

• What type of shot do they score with the most
• What is their go-to scoring attempt
• Where are they completely ineffective from

Click through the different players/groups to see their shooting and scoring data visualized.

A couple interesting takeaways from this:

• Kadri gets the dirty goals when he chooses to play in-front of the net — he found success scoring every type of goal in close, but still prefers to play outside in the circles.
• Bozak leads the team in deflections and tip-ins, but is only really effective in pulling this off between the hashmarks, (only managed 2 goals within 10 ft. of the net.)
• Our first-line left winger only scored 2 goals from the left side.
• JVR spreads his attempts around the entire offensive zone — while he has a better shooting % in the slot than anywhere else, he is willing to shoot from anywhere (and has a reasonable amount of success doing so.)
• Lupul likes to keeps his hands clean and stays out of the dirty areas.
• Kessel is really ineffective in the slot, despite this being the highest scoring area in the NHL. On the flip side, he is ridiculously effective in front of the net (33.3% shooting percentage) when he chooses to go there (which isn’t all that often.)

I am playing around with this data in an effort to see if design can make advanced hockey analytics more approachable/insightful to the average fan (or even to people within NHL Org’s.) This is my first stab at doing so.

Thoughts and feedback on this would be appreciated, in the comments or @therobhayes. Thanks