Stats for Victoria Game/Analysis

There has been a lot of talk in regards to the amount of minutes Portland's top line of Bittner, Petan and Bjorkstrnad, as well as, power play partner Chase De Leo, have been playing lately. 

Since there is no way to really track the ice time out there, I decided to take it upon myself to calculate the total time on ice (TTOI) myself. As I get more comfortable, doing these stats, I'd like to add face off wins/losses/win %, as well as block shots, hits and giveaways/takeaways (wishful thinking I'm sure).

But lets start with TTOI and shots to begin with though for the Wednesday, January 28th 4-3 win over Victoria.

Player	TTOI	Shots
Bittner	24:57	1
Petan	24:10	2
Bjorkstrand	25:13	3
Koules	18:34	2
De Leo	24:51	7
Schoenborn	16:25	2
McKenzie	15:09	3
Turgeon	14:25	3
Iverson	16:18	2
Overhardt	0:00	0
Flaman	0:00	0
Cederholm	22:57	2
Viveiros	25:08	4
Heinrich	22:35	1
Texeira	14:25	0
De Jong	8:33	1
Henry	16:39	3
Hanson	5:57	0

Analysis

• Player with the most ice time was Oliver Bjorkstrand with 25:13, followed by Layne Viveiros, Bittner, De Leo and Petan. 

• -Seems odd that 4 of the 5 players with the most time on ice are forwards, unless you knew that the gap between the high end talent and their other players(2nd/3rd line) on the Hawks, is high right now so that playing them a ton is the best way for you to win. This is especially true when you consider that they are all so good in their own zone as well.

• -Playing the top 4 forwards this much, is a gamble though, as the final 6 weeks of the season plus the playoffs is intense and could cause exhaustion and injuries. Kompon is gambling a lot in this right.

• -Both Jack Flaman and Alex Overhardt did not get a single shift as the team's de facto 4th line. This I do not understand as they both have improved a lot this year and have not shown signs lately of being a huge risk out there for 1 or 2 50 second shifts.

• -Skyler McKenzie ended up with more minutes then his center-man Dominic Turgeon. This is because he had several extended shifts, where he got pinned deep in his own zone and/or made a mistake in timing his change. These can be forgiven during the regular season, but he needs to shore this up in order to get consistent ice time in the playoffs.

• -Keoni Texeira ended up with the 5th most ice time for D-men. This is due to Adam Henry taking his spot next to Blake Heinrich in the 3rd period. Texeira only had three shifts, a total of 2:16 in the final frame. In one of these shifts, he was beaten severely to the net front by Alex Forseberg, leading to a Forseberg goal. Lack of ice time could be a reason he was beaten there, but regardless, he did not receive another shift for the rest of the game. Not sure that this was completely fair.

• -Chase De Leo was buzzing around the net all game so his 7 shots, is not too surprising.

I should have more of these stats for the last 6 weeks of the season, so I can average out average time on ice and shots per game/shot %.