In my last post, I looked at how the Oilers did possession wise in 2015/16 and found that the Oilers improved from last season and avoided any sort of drop off over the course of the season. The team finished 20th in the league with 48.71% Corsi For (adjusted for score state, venue and zone by Corsica Hockey), which is still sub-par, but demonstrated some progress.

What’s also worth noting is that for the first time in over seven seasons, the Oilers had a stretch of 25 games where their Corsi For% was over 50%. I’m not declaring that the rebuild is over, but it’s a good sign nonetheless.

Between January 10th and March 4th, 2016, which were games 43-67, the Oilers posted a 50.9% share of all shot attempts at even-strength. The club also saw a bump in their share of goals, reaching 48.3% during those 25 games, but unfortunately only mustered eight wins in that stretch. Team shooting percentage at even-strength went up slightly from 7.1% up to 8.2% in that “streak”, but the Oilers team save percentage stayed around their season long average of 91.5%.

Prior to January 10th, 2016, the Oilers played in 42 games and had an adjusted CF% of 47.9%. That number moved up in the next 25 games to 50.9%, but then dropped to  47.3% over the remaining 15 games. The same trend happened with the Oilers share of unblocked shot attempts and shots on goal. The team’s share of goals was the most significant as the team reached 48.3% over their 25 game stretch, and were far below that before and after that stretch. I want to believe that the Oilers were doing something right between games 43 and 67, so I figured it’d be worth digging into player deployment.

Full article is at The Copper & Blue.