The Defensive Evolution of the Ottawa Senators

Back in January I posted on Bluesky that I thought that Travis Green deserved consideration for coach of the year.

I was hoping to write a more in depth blog post about this I think Travis Green deserves consideration for coach of the year but won’t get to it this week. Ottawa has a very similar roster to last year but the last 6-8 weeks they have been playing much better hockey, especially defensive hockey.— David Johnson (@hockeyanalysis.com) January 30, 2025 at 11:01 AM

They are much better defending the high danger scoring chance area (slot/home plate). Before Dec 2 51.4% of all 5v5 shots against were from the high danger home plate zone, after Dec 2 this dropped to 44.0%. Overall, their 5v5 home plate shots against per 60 dropped 17.7% after Dec 2.— David Johnson (@hockeyanalysis.com) January 30, 2025 at 11:01 AM

For this post I am going to compare three sets of data:

• 2023-24
• Early 2024-25 (before Dec. 2nd)
• Rest of 2024-25 (after Dec 2nd)

I will also be using the Shot Zone Analytics tool found on TheStanleyCap.com.  The shot zone analytics tool allows you to look at shots attempts (unblocked) by or against any team under a number of different scenarios such as situation, the goalie, who is on the ice, date range, etc.

To get a baseline, this shows the percentage of all unblocked shot attempts made in the NHL during the 2023-24 and 2024-25 regular seasons during 5v5 play through March 16, 2025.

The numbers in each ‘Shot Zone’ are the percentage of all unblocked shot attempts that are taken from that zone. So, for example, 9.5% of all unblocked shot attempts are taken from the right point and 9.6% are taken from the left point.

The zone chart below shows where the highest percentage of goals are scored.

As you can see, the majority of goals are scored from the seven zones that in aggregate I will call the Home Plate zone (shaded by darker greys above). The Home Plate zone accounts for 82% of all goals scored. The most critical goal scoring zones are the low center slot (25.5% of goals scored) and the high center slot (13.6% of goals scored).

Finally, one more base chart to consider before I get into Ottawa specific data. This shows the shooting percentage by region.

This makes perfect sense, but the closer to the net the shot is taken from the more likely it results in a goal, but also, shots taken up the middle of the ice are more likely to result in goals than shots taken closer to the boards.

Now to look at some Ottawa Senators defensive data. This shows all 5v5 shots on goal against the Senators from the 2023-24 season. We can use this as a base to compare 2024-25 results to.

Now lets take a look at 2024-25 shots on goal against the Senators up until Dec 2, 2024.

You will notice a slight drop in percentage of shots against taken from the low center slot and from the right side, but overall, a higher percentage of shots where from the home plate zone in early 2024-25 than in 2023-24.

Now for games played after December 2nd.

We now see a dramatic drop in shots on goal against from the low center slot (12.6% in 2023-24 to 11.3% in early 2024-25 to 10.2%) and the high center slot (9.0% to 10.6% to 7.2%). Furthermore, the percentage of shots against from the home plate region has fallen from 51.4% in early 2024-25 to just 45.8% since December 2nd. That’s a significant decrease. For reference, league average is 48.9% this season and since December 2nd no team has been better at keeping shots to the outside than Ottawa (next best are Dallas and Winnipeg, two good defending teams). How important is this? The past three Stanley Cup winners finished 3rd, 4th and 3rd in lowest shots on goal HP% against.

The end result is, while the Senators are giving up more shots against per 60 minutes 5v5 ice time than early in 2024-25 they are giving up fewer shots from the critical home plate region.

	SA/60	HP SA/60	Outside SA/60
2023-24	29.2	14.5	14.8
2024-25 < Dec 2	26.8	13.8	13.0
2024-25 > Dec 2	28.0	12.8	15.2

I have mostly been talking about shots on goal against Ottawa but there is another interesting statistic that is worth noting. If we consider unblocked shot attempts against and the percentage of them that missed the net, we see that Ottawa is doing much better forcing opponents to shoot the puck high or wide. Ottawa’s missed shot percentage against last season was 29.6%, early this season was 30.0% and since December 2nd it has been 34.0%. I think this is largely due to pushing shots to the outside and allowing fewer up the middle of the ice. Players shooting from an angle have ‘less net’ to shoot at than players shooting from directly in front of the net and thus are more likely to shoot wide.

One more key data point in this is rebound shots on goal against. I define a rebound shot as any shot that was taken within 3 seconds after a previous shot and Ottawa has been giving up fewer rebound shots against. This too is attributable to defending the area in front of the net better.

	Rebound SOG Against
2023-24	3.09
2024-25 < Dec 2	2.23
2024-25 > Dec 2	2.44

 

Summary of Ottawa’s 5v5 defensive statistics:

	SAA/60	SA/60	HP SA/60	GA/60	xSv%
2023-24	41.52	29.22	14.50	2.93	91.7
2024-25 < Dec 2	38.28	26.79	13.80	2.82	91.7
2024-25 > Dec 2	42.42	27.99	12.80	2.12	92.3

 

To finish up, I think Travis Green deserves a lot of credit for getting the Senators playing more sound defensive hockey. It took some time, but after about 6-8 weeks of play the players seemed to buy in to Green’s defensive system. They are defending the critical home plate much better and pushing shots to the outside where they are less dangerous and more likely to be miss the net. They are also reducing the number of rebound shots against. The end result is clear. Prior to December 2nd the Senators had a 10-12-2 record (a 75 point pace) and are 26-13-3 since (a 107 point pace).