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Analyzing the Game: Part 4 - Turnovers
A series on the use of Sports Performance Analyzer.
Analyzing Turnovers
In today's game puck possession is the key to controlling the game. It is the best line of defense teams now have in the era of "offensive hockey" if we have the puck, the other team can't score. This makes it more imperative that our players become more aware of, and more accountable for turnovers. It's inevitable that here will be turnovers, but by helping players limit turnovers then the team is in a better position to keep possession of the puck.
With the SPA's new turnover tracking, you can track turnovers across the entire ice surface with the associated player number who turned the puck over. The ice chart will allow you to see instantly where and who had the turnover during a period or the entire game. We also allow you to generate a report that prints out which players had turnovers and how many they had for that particular period of time.
With this new upgrade to the program we feel it allows the coaches an easy overview of this stat and thus being able to transfer that message to the team quicker and more effectively.
Why do we need to track turnovers?
Well beside the aforementioned puck possession, we want to track from a defensive stand point who or where we are turning the puck over in our zone. If we have a player consistently turning the puck over we need to address that with the player. We may also see where the opposition is applying the most pressure on the fore check, if we are turning the puck over behind the goal, that could indicate that we are not moving the puck fast enough once we get it or we are not getting to the puck fast enough. While tracking this on SPA-Pro or with our two new products, SPA-Video or SPA-Dual, you can have this at your fingertips to make corrections or adjustments. With the SPA-Video you will be able to recall the turnover and see how it happened, was it off a pass or how exactly it occurred and can show your player not only the stat but also the video clip of the play.
 Pick the player and ice location of the turnover. |
 Easily review which players are turning the puck over, and where on the ice. |
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Defensive turnovers can hurt you more than any other, to many and the chances of you winning the game greatly reduce. As with puck possession we have to give the players the ability to become better, using a defense partner or passing the puck quicker or even changing the flow of our breakouts can all be read by the defensive turnover statistic.
In the neutral zone we have to keep possession of the puck or chip and dump with a purpose. We can chip the puck into a zone and have another one of our forwards gather up the puck and we still keep possession, soft dumps into corners are also effective in puck possession if we get to the puck first then we have not lost anything. In the neutral zone I tell my defensemen this. If we just throw the puck away our forwards have a 50% chance of getting the puck back, if we control the puck then we have a 100% chance of having the puck! It makes sense if you can show your players the key areas not to have turnovers you can drive your message home on puck possession. Any turnover in the neutral zone can lead to an attack. A study from the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation a few years back reported that the puck changes possession over 150 times a game, the highest percentage of which occurs in the neutral zone. If we as coaches can limit the turnovers in this area we can cut down the number of odd man rushes that occur off turnovers in the neutral zone and thus cut down scoring opportunities and hopefully goals. Teams teach so much transition now that one mistake in this zone can cost your team big time.
Offensive zone turnovers can hurt you by taking away potential scoring chances. Most forwards turn the puck over back toward their own zone. What I mean by that is many players are passing back towards their own end trying to make a play, weather it's a good play or not they make it, if your team is heading west and the puck is going east you are in trouble. Showing forwards the danger areas of turning the puck over and how much they are turning the puck over, we can help them become more aware of the plays they are trying to make. I don't want to limit the creativity players need to have but common sense also has to come into play when trying to make plays. If we are consistently turning the puck over toward our zone then we have to address this problem. You can show them the difference by having 5-10 more shots vs. 5-10 turns could give that +1 goal vs. -1 goal, in today's tight checking games that is a big swing. By tracking our turnovers we can show the players exactly where our problem areas are and give them the visual presence they seem to need to recognize where the trouble is. By adding this new ice graphic to chart these turn overs, our hope is that it will be more effective in your teaching to the players and easier for you as a coach to monitor and track your players tendencies.
If you have any questions about SPA or my articles please don't hesitate to contact me at mike@spa-hockey.com.
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