Possession is paying off as Nashville Predators are winning battles along the boards

ou could try to match the Predators at their own game, as Los Angeles did in a rugged 4-3 overtime win over Nashville on Saturday. But that can work for only a select handful of teams, writes Rob McKenzie.

Mattias Ekholm and the Nashville Predators are finding that winning battles along the boards translates into victories. Mark Humphrey / AP Photo

As statistical analysis takes hold in the National Hockey League, the leading insight so far is that possession, as measured by shot attempts, is a predictor of future success.

But what drives possession?

The biggest factor is something that is very messy and hard to quantify, though it is much discussed by coaches and commentators: the battles along the boards.

Few teams are as good at these battles as the Nashville Predators are.

READ MORE:

It is the second period of Nashville’s game in San Jose on October 28, and the attacking Sharks dump the puck deep into the Preds’ zone, up against the end boards. Mattias Ekholm gives chase with the Sharks’ Joonas Donskoi glued to his tail. Just before they reach the puck, Ekholm uses his hip leverage to swivel Donskoi and confine him against the wall. Ekholm has his eyes on the puck the whole time; Donskoi loses track of it. The puck is in Donskoi’s skates and Ekholm tries to jam it loose. Ryan Ellis and Paul Gaustad are stationed nearby, ready to pounce if the puck does come free; so is the Sharks’ Joe Pavelski.

Pavelski gets a stick on the puck and pops it into the air. Ekholm, on his backhand, pushes the puck behind the net. The incoming Joe Thornton has a chance at it but Gaustad checks him into the wall. The disc darts loose; Ellis swoops in, passes the pinned Thornton and clears the puck out of the defensive zone.

This is just one segment of play, and it lasted all of six seconds, yet Nashville win these fights time and time again. You can see why their fans call them “Smashville”. This very particular set of skills is hard to appreciate – you have to watch the battles a dozen times in slow motion to tell what happened – but it is a power that can give a team suffocating control of a game.

Another example, from the same period, but this time with the Preds in the offensive zone: Nashville’s Eric Nystrom dumps it in. He and San Jose’s Matt Tennyson pursue it, but this time it is the Predator who is slammed against the wall. So what does Nystrom do?

He bounces off the boards, and uses his kinetic energy to push back Tennyson with his lower body. This creates space for Nystrom to control the loose puck. He gets his stick on it and looks to go right but Thornton is incoming. Nystrom instead swivels around Tennyson, again, leverage and hips, and heads left. Now Nystrom is free to make a pass along the boards to Roman Josi at the point, and the Predators are set for a scoring opportunity.

There was also a phenomenal stretch of play against Pittsburgh on October 24 in which Nashville won eight of nine battles along the boards over a three-and-a-half-minute span, dominated possession and ended up scoring.

What is the antidote?

You could try to match the Predators at their own game, as Los Angeles did in a rugged 4-3 overtime win over Nashville on Saturday. But that can work for only a select handful of teams.

For the rest, maybe the best strategy against an enemy that specialises in trench warfare is to flush them out into the open. On offence, carry the puck in rather than dump and chase. On defence, concede the boards but be in position to blunt the Preds’ attack once they come off the wall.

Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE