Yesterday Rick Nash was in the zone, the “Kill Zone”
Rick Nash NYR (Hockey News)
Nash’s performance was even far more promising than that and one that we need to see much more of moving forward. The Kill Zone (KZ) is an area of the ice that I like to focus on, especially in the playoffs because at this time of year, you’ll see more dirty hard working goals then coast to coasters like Alex Ovechkin‘s tally yesterday.
The Kill Zone started as a rectangle just below the dots on the circle and extended out and down. Speaking with Stephen Valiquette, he advised to bring the lines closer to the goal because a score down low and that far out means the goalie was off his angle and not a very good goal. So now, the KZ resembles a pyramid missing it’s top. Bigger than the Yellow Shot area of Valiquette’s Royal Road, less than Sportsnet’s “Home Plate and much smaller than the area designated on War-On-Ice.
Why is this important? According to War-On-Ice, that box area (middle image below dark green) in front of the goal accounts for approximately 49.64% of goals scored this year. The entire lighter green dotted area outside of it is an additional 31%. That’s over 80% of goals scored in this dotted line region. The KZ is obviously tighter and a lot less area, so taking this information and accounting for about 25% of the area outside of the box in the KZ, we can safely assume that the KZ would be about 55-58% of all goals scored in the league for the 2014-15 regular season. See the importance growing? It means more in the post-season.
The Rangers score more goals in that box area, 50.83% and 29.6% for that red shaded area (image above far left). That means it would be almost 60% of Rangers goals in the Kill Zone.
Nash playoffs heat map thru 5/3/15 (SportingCharts)
Yesterday, Nash added 4 shots to his playoff totals and all 4 were in the KZ. He was an absolute beast in front and was the key reason why the Capitals gave up their 1st power play goal. After yesterday, Nash has boosted his KZ shots to 36% of his total shots and the Rangers scored more than 2 goals for only the second time this post season. The Rangers need more of this from #61.
Nash must continue to play gritty (Getty Images)
When Nash was most effective this season, he was using his size and speed to get in tight and score. When you think of the prototypical Nash goal, it begins with him coming down the right side with speed, cutting left to the goal and firing it past a prone goalie’s right side.
Nash goals 2015 (SportingCharts)
If you need more evidence, here it is. Nash scored 42 goals this season and 28 were in the Kill Zone. That’s 66% of his goals this year and proof positive that if Nash wants to slay this playoff demon, this is where he will find the ammunition to do so.
Mike Milbury called Nash “marshmallow soft” during NBCSN’s game one telecast. Yesterday, that couldn’t be further from the truth and the Rangers evened the series. Going forward, the Blueshirts need more “Grit” and less “Flash” from their most important player not named Henrik Lundqvist.
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