Digging Into VGK’s Advanced Data Through One Month Of Hockey

The NHL season is well underway with every team playing at least 10 games to this point. Vegas sits in 7th place in the overall standings with a .708 points percentage and the peculiar distinction of being the only team to be undefeated at home and the only team to be winless on the road.

For the past few seasons the NHL has shared some of its player and puck tracking data through a website called NHL Edge. Each player has his own page including details on skating speed, distance, shot power, and more. Through 12 games, here’s the breakdown of VGK players in three of the most interesting categories.

	Top Speed	Skating Distance	Hardest Shot
Barbashev	20.21	32.27	93.28
Brisson	21.42	12.24	75.06
Dorofeyev	22.07	29.75	87.55
Eichel	23.50	39.83	90.33
Hague	20.62	21.01	89.53
Hanifin	22.65	38.48	93.61
Hertl	20.77	33.37	74.43
Holtz	21.35	25.67	86.05
Howden	21.54	30.75	83.26
Karlsson	22.07	9.65	78.73
Kolesar	21.04	24.26	79.05
Korczak	21.51	9.25	78.37
McNabb	19.37	30.71	84.24
Olofsson	21.08	9.54	74.36
Pearson	21.57	23.89	83.62
Pietrangelo	20.53	36.85	93.20
Roy	21.28	31.15	77.79
Schwindt	21.44	14.71	87.00
Stone	21.19	33.08	90.92
Theodore	20.93	36.54	89.52
Whitecloud	21.41	28.94	94.31

Unsurprisingly, the fastest skater on the team is Jack Eichel, clocking in with a top speed of 23.50 mph on Opening Night against the Avalanche. Eichel has recorded six of the Golden Knights’ nine 22+ mph skating speed occurrences this season. The others to reach that plateau are Noah Hanifin, Pavel Dorofeyev, and William Karlsson, each doing it once this year.

The overall team numbers are quite low as Vegas ranks as one of the slowest teams in the NHL this year, in terms of top speeds. The Golden Knights have 213 “speed bursts” of between 20-22 mph, which is well below the league average of 248. They’re slightly below league average in 18-20 mph bursts as well.

Where the Golden Knights have outpaced the field though is in skating distance. 11 different players have a total skating distance of more than 30 miles in 12 games and the team averages 45.99 miles per games, well above the league average. Vegas’ top skating games was the most recent one in which they posted 49.24 miles against Utah including their top skating period of the season, the 3rd (16.21).

Vegas’ centers and defensemen put in the longest skating shifts nightly. Eichel impressively leads the team by more than a mile and half despite ranking 3rd in total ice time. Tomas Hertl’s work rate is strong coming in ahead of Stone, Barbashev, Roy, and even McNabb and Whitecloud. Hertl has skated three more miles than McNabb and five more than Whitecloud despite playing 19 fewer minutes than McNabb and nearly the same amount of time as Whitecloud.

Whitecloud, however, leads the team with the hardest shot on the season at 94.31 mph. That shot occurred in the 2nd period against St. Louis. Despite posting an average shot speed well below the league average as a team, VGK still sit in 2nd place in the league in shooting percentage, netting a whopping 15.1% of their shots.

Finally, Vegas’ games have seen the puck in the neutral zone more than any other team in the league. It’s especially noticeable at 5-on-5, where the puck is in the neutral zone nearly 20% of the time in VGK games (it’s closer to 18% on average). This has led to the Golden Knights being among the worst teams in overall offensive zone time. Again, surprising considering the hot offensive start.

Where Vegas has been excellent in controlling zone time has been on the power play. VGK’s PP has held the puck in the offensive zone for 62.2% of their time on the man advantage, the 3rd best mark in the NHL. On the flip side, opposing power plays have posted a similar number of 61.3% of offensive zone time against the VGK PK.

All in all, the big takeaways from the advanced data are that Jack Eichel is dominant, the Golden Knights are one of the slower yet harder working teams in the league, and the power play is officially a weapon for the first time in franchise history.