The importance of zone entries in hockey statistical analysis will come as no secret to anyone familiar with the public community at large. Back in 2011, then-Broad Street Hockey writer (and current Carolina Hurricanes manager of analytics) Eric Tulsky initiated a video tracking project that became the first organized foray into the zone entry question, and later resulted in a Sloan Analytics Conference presentation. Tulsky determined that “controlled” entries (those that came with possession of the puck) resulted in more than twice the number of average shots than “uncontrolled” entries, a key finding that provided concrete direction for additional research on the topic.
Tulsky’s initial Sloan project was limited, however, due to lack of data – only two teams had their full regular seasons tracked, and just two others reached the half-season threshold. As a result, further research would wait until a larger dataset became available. Luckily for the community, Corey Sznajder undertook a massive tracking project encompassing the entire 2013-14 season, and released the data to the public. Using this, there were more advances, including Garik16’s work on team zone performance and the repeatability of player performance in each individual zone.
