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.
Hockey Graphs 