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2011-12 Washington Capitals Usage Charts

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The chart above comes from Rob Vollman‘s latest gift to the hockey world, his 2011-12 NHL Player Usage Charts, which you can download – for free – here (PDF). But what is it?

You’ve seen us discuss “Oz Coke” before, and that’s what this is. As Vollman describes it, “Player Usage charts show how players are used and how they performed at even-strength by mapping the percentage of shifts they started in the offensive zone (horizontal axis) against the average quality of their competition, as measured in attempted shots (vertical axis), with sized and coloured bubbles denoting how well the team performed with them on the ice relative to everyone else.”

Got it? If you don’t, download the PDF and read more (trust me, it’s more accessible than you might think), and if you do… download the PDF and read more. Seeing how each team deployed its players provides valuable insight into the game itself. Read up on the Kings and Devils and then watch to see it all in action.

Back to the Caps, Rob asked me for my take on the chart above, and I had a few thoughts (below), but there’s a lot more “there” there, so feel free to discuss what you see in the comments.

Thanks to Rob for including me in this project, and, more importantly, for pulling this together – hockey fans who read it will be better for having done so.

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