Why zone defense is taking over the NHL

Nick Ashbourne and Anthony Petrielli dive into the latest trend of teams using zone defenses to combat evolving offensive tactics. Full episode is on our Yahoo Sports NHL YouTube channel.

Video Transcript

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NICK ASHBOURNE: Welcome to Shot Volume. I'm Nick Ashbourne, joined by Anthony Petrielli. And, today, I want to talk a little bit about the Vegas Golden Knights because kind of indisputably the most impressive team in the NHL so far, in terms of results, in terms of how they've played. And, Anthony, I know that in your recent column last week you had a really good point about how a lot of other teams are going to be copying how this team plays defense.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: Yeah, and it's important to note the quality of teams, right? The Leafs are making a bit of a shift to more of a zone defense. The Tampa Bay Lightning, the Edmonton Oilers, who obviously have struggled to start.

Those aren't minnows in the league that are doing it. They are teams that are looking at the-- I think it's two things. One, they're looking at what the previous champion did in an effort to help get them there and get over the hump. But I also think the league is trying to adjust to changes teams are making in the offensive zone.

So by that, I mean one thing we've started to see teams really integrate into their offense at a much more frequent level than really honestly I can remember for decades now is pulling a forward high in the offensive zone as a threat, right? So instead of the traditional two defensemen on the blue line or even one going up the wall and a little bit more of one at the top, even in 5-on-5 situations, we're actually seeing teams pull forward high to the middle of the ice. And at times, often now, we'll see three players on the same team along the blue line of sorts or in between the blue line and the top of the circle. And they're trying to pull defenders away, right?

So when that happens, now there's a bunch of space in the middle of the ice. There's a bunch of space in the corners. And I think teams are trying to figure out the best way to counteract that and which is why I think we're seeing a lot of teams go more towards zone. They're saying, all right, you're going to pull a guy up high.

But we're not going to bite on that and give you the middle of the ice. We think back to Tampa-Toronto. The Leafs scored a pile of goals from point shots, right, that just got through. Derek [INAUDIBLE] had the quote about Vasilevskiy and seeing pucks from a distance. It was a whole story for them in round 1.

And so I'm not sure it's a total just this is what Vegas is doing. But also how do we counteract these teams pulling up forwards high and creating all this space down low? And, instead, they're kind of back to zone and packing the house. And I almost have visions of John Tortorella and New York Rangers' Dan Giardi blocking 40 shots a game.

NICK ASHBOURNE: Yeah, it's really interesting. Like you said, it's the quality of the teams that are doing that it's notable. I'm always a little bit skeptical when you get that copycat league thing going, where it's like, oh, this is the team that won the Cup.

Therefore, this is the way we need to play the game. You're talking about a Cup run is like 20 games, right? It's an easy way to fall into a trap. And what's interesting about this is you do need certain type of players to do this effectively, right?

There are different demands of a zone defense and a man defense. When we're playing zone defense, honestly in any sport, whether it's football, whether it's basketball, you're passing off assignments. You need people with a lot of awareness. You need people with smarts. So what I'm interested in seeing--

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: And length.

NICK ASHBOURNE: This is-- yeah. And if this is the trend, I'm interested to seeing if teams blow it. I think that there's a chance you'll see teams are, like, oh, this is the way the league is going. This is how we counter this offensive evolution, and they don't necessarily have the pieces to do it because there's a downside to it. With a zone defense, sometimes you're giving guys a lot of time and space.

There could be guys who are dangerous from distance. And if you're packing the house down low and you're kind of conceding because that's what Vegas does a decent amount of time. They sort of concede what they consider to be non-dangerous shots. And there are certain guys who can make you pay on that a little bit more than others.

If you've got Vasilevskiy who just doesn't see the puck from long distance, which is obviously not a real thing, but I don't know. It's not, like, oh, there's no downside to this. You do need the right type of players.

And I'm curious to see if there's an overcorrection here because it's so easy to see Vegas, and they had an incredible run. And they're off to an incredible start. There aren't a lot of teams so far early in the season who you're saying, oh, this team looks totally unstoppable. Vegas is that team. And that's something I think it's going to be worth tracking all year is if people start playing follow the leader here, is that actually going to work out for them.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: The other interesting note, too, is conceptually what happens when you play zone, right? Vegas was 22nd in 5-on-5 shot attempts. They were nowhere near a possession fiend.

And it's kind of interesting for that to happen coming off the Corsi era, we'll call it, where it was all about who's ranking high in possession. And, even traditionally, we might see teams like Vegas that had good regular seasons and then conversely teams who kind of struggled at times throughout the regular season, like the LA Kings. Come playoff time, it was the Kings winning the Cup.

And I know that there was a few others. I'm not saying it was just they were the possession team. They obviously made big deadline adds. Marián Gáborik was massive. Dustin Penner was a big addition.

Not just boiling it and trying to simplify it to that point but that was definitely very much an era of who has the puck and who's taking the most attempts on net. And those teams were often successful. I mean, even if we look at who they played in the Stanley Cup Final, it was the Florida Panthers who were third in that category, and they struggled throughout the regular season.

But then they got to playoff time, and all of a sudden, they're taking down giant after giant. And a lot of it was just this attack. They constantly had the puck.

They were constantly getting pucks to the net. They were constantly bodies and funneling it there and so on and so forth and the zone defense. And Vegas handled Florida, I thought, fairly easily in the Stanley Cup Final, all things considered. Very early on--

NICK ASHBOURNE: That's fair.

ANTHONY PETRIELLI: I don't know if this is much of a series. I think Vegas has them pretty handily, and they did. But it's an interesting thought experiment in terms of, to your point, teams see what other teams are doing. And is it true with what they've built and now they're changing a little bit?

Or is this just the direction to go in? Because you are forfeiting some. A zone defense, there's a reason teams haven't played zone defense by and large for decades now. It's because you let the other team have the puck a lot.

Teams get a lot of shot opportunities out of it. Vegas was certainly one of the-- they came out really well in terms of expected goals and actual goals because they had a good counter-punch. But you are giving up something to do this.