Tactical Efficiency Model

Prepared for Mike Gillis · Private & confidential · August 2026

TEM

How efficiently a team executes in each phase of the game — entries by type, offensive-zone play patterns, and the systems play behind them, every variable captured in coaching terminology and scored two ways — what it produced and what it cost: chances created, counters conceded.

Every finding compares one route with another inside this sample, on the same columns, and ends in a coaching call — build on, cut, review, track. Where a cell is too thin to trust, the finding says so.

2games vs LAK · 5v5 only

247possessions

139in-scope entries

1opponent · Oct 30 & Jan 27

Definitions · read first

The Terms, in Coaching Language

SR (Success Rate) — the possession creates a GrA chance, and/or establishes OZP, or scores.

Exposure — the possession broke down and the opponent re-attacked with an entry inside the counter window.

GrA — a Grade A (high-danger) scoring chance.

GrA% — GrA generated as a share of the entries or possessions in that row.

Quality (OZP) — one run of a play pattern that produced a GrA chance or a goal.

Carry / Non-Carry — puck carried across the blue line versus sent in for retrieval.

OZP — offensive zone possession.

Reset — the release valve. The puck goes back below the goal line when nothing is there, to hold possession and come again. Chances are not expected directly off a Reset, so it is listed but excluded from the active pattern read.

SSD / WSD — strong-side and weak-side defenceman.

HW / BGL — half-wall and below the goal line.

NZR — neutral zone regroup.

BO from NC — breakout after the opponent sends the puck in, i.e. after a non-carry entry against.

DZFO Exit — the play off a defensive-zone faceoff win.

Finding 1 · Entries

Entries established at a high rate in these two games, on both the controlled and the uncontrolled route

139 in-scope entries at 38.8% SR across the sample. Carry: 49.2% SR on 61. Non-Carry: 31.5% SR on 73.
The two games looked alike on this. Carry SR was 53.3% and 45.2%; Non-Carry SR was 27.5% and 36.4%. Whatever this reflects, it was not confined to one night.
The Non-Carry route carried the higher cost: 38.4% Exposure, versus 24.6% on Carry. When a Non-Carry entry failed here, it was followed by an opponent counter entry more often than a failed Carry was.

Entry	n	SR	Exposure	GrA	GrA%	Goals
Carry	61	49.2%	24.6%	11	18.0%	1
Non-Carry	73	31.5%	38.4%	5	6.8%	0

Exposure colours are inverted from the usual table — low Exposure is good. Carry generated GrA at roughly two and a half times the Non-Carry rate, while being followed by a counter at two thirds the rate — and the mix between the two routes was near even. 134 of the 139 in-scope entries fall into a Carry or Non-Carry bucket; the remaining 5 (3 Flip, 2 DZ Dump Exit) sit in Other and are excluded here.

Finding 2 · Entry types

Dump-In was the highest-volume entry in the sample and returned the least of any type ⚑ FLAGGED

30 Dump-In attempts, the largest single entry type across the two games: 20.0% SR, 43.3% Exposure, 1 GrA, 0 goals. 13 of the 30 were followed by an opponent counter entry, while the 30 together produced a single GrA — the widest gap between counters conceded and chances created of any entry type in the sample.
It looked the same in both games: 41.7% Exposure on 12 attempts in the first, 44.4% on 18 in the second. The volume also rose between the two.
The two blue-line passing routes (Lat Pass BL Area, Rec BL Area) covered 40 entries at roughly 47% SR, 20.0% Exposure and 9 GrA — better than the Dump-In on every column, and on more combined volume.

Entry type	Bucket	n	SR	Exposure	GrA	GrA%
Dump In ⛔ cut	Non-Carry	30	20.0%	43.3%	1	3.3%
Lat Pass BL Area ★ build on	Carry	25	48.0%	20.0%	5	20.0%
Skating	Carry	20	50.0%	35.0%	2	10.0%
Rim	Non-Carry	17	58.8%	23.5%	2	11.8%
Rec BL Area ★ build on	Carry	15	46.7%	20.0%	4	26.7%
Pass to Chip	Non-Carry	9	33.3%	33.3%	2	22.2%
Soft Chip to Self	Non-Carry	6	33.3%	33.3%	0	0.0%
X Corner ⚠ thin	Non-Carry	5	20.0%	60.0%	0	0.0%

Bars scale Exposure to the table maximum (60.0%). Sorted by volume, which puts the Dump-In at the top on its own numbers: the most-used entry type in the sample and the weakest return in it. Rim and X Corner stand out in opposite directions but sit on 17 and 5 attempts — film checks, not conclusions. Pass to Chip (n=9) and Soft Chip to Self (n=6) are shown for completeness.

Finding 3 · Offensive zone

When the puck went up top, the looks that moved it returned more than the immediate shot did

The read here is what happened after the puck reached the point. SSD Walk Shot produced Quality on 2 of 5, D2D Shot on 2 of 6, H2L to SSF on 2 of 6 — together 6 Quality on 17 instances. The immediate SSD Shot produced 1 on 7. The pattern is the SSD acting as a passer and a mover rather than shooting on arrival: walking the line, moving it across, or bringing it high to low all returned more here than the shot off the reception.
EW Activation and SSD Activation did not appear at all in these two games, 0 instances each. Both are activation looks off the same top-of-zone situation, so their absence belongs with the read above — a fact of this sample rather than a conclusion about the team.
These are small cells. The moved-first group and the SSD Shot do not separate statistically (p = 0.62), so this is an observation from the sample, not a demonstrated tendency.

OZ pattern	n	Share of active	Quality
HW Attacks	13	20.0%	7.7%
BGL Attacks	9	13.8%	11.1%
SSD Shot (shot on arrival)	7	10.8%	14.3%
D2D Shot ★	6	9.2%	33.3%
H2L to SSF ★	6	9.2%	33.3%
SSD Walk Shot ★	5	7.7%	40.0%
Rims to Post	5	7.7%	0.0%
High EW Passing Play	4	6.2%	0.0%
EW Activation	0	0.0%	·
SSD Activation	0	0.0%	·
Moved first (SSD Walk Shot, D2D Shot, H2L to SSF)	17	26.2%	35.3%
All active patterns	65	100%	13.8%
Reset (release valve, see note)	20	·	5.0%

On Reset: as a release valve it carries no chance-generation expectation, so its 5.0% is not a shortfall; it is shown for completeness and excluded from the active denominator and the grouped row. On the grouping: moved-first is a descriptive split for this report, not a TEM category, and its constituent patterns are named so it can be checked or redrawn. On volume: every individual pattern here is under 15 instances, so no single row is a finding on its own.

Finding 4 · Systems

Among the systems, the breakout group was where the counters came from in this sample

BO from NC returned the least of the higher-volume systems: 10.4% SR and 47.9% Exposure across 48 possessions. Nearly half were followed by a counter entry.
DZFO Exit: 10.5% SR and 0 GrA on 19. Clean faceoff wins did not turn into offence in these two games.
NZ FO CI returned the most per possession: 54.5% SR, 9.1% Exposure, 18.2% GrA on 11. On 11 possessions that is a track item, but nothing else in the table combined that SR with that Exposure.
NZR (31.8% SR, 13.6% GrA on 22) and NZT (31.6% SR on 19) were the productive transition systems here, which lines up with the entry read in Finding 1.

System	n	SR	Exposure	GrA	GrA%
DZC BO	49	20.4%	36.7%	4	8.2%
BO from NC ⛔ review	48	10.4%	47.9%	2	4.2%
NZR ★	22	31.8%	36.4%	3	13.6%
BO	20	20.0%	45.0%	1	5.0%
NZT ★	19	31.6%	36.8%	1	5.3%
DZFO Exit ⛔ review	19	10.5%	36.8%	0	0.0%
RD Track Trans	12	25.0%	41.7%	1	8.3%
NZ FO CI ★	11	54.5%	9.1%	2	18.2%

Every system except DZC BO (49) and BO from NC (48) sits under 25 possessions. The two carrying real volume were also the two weakest on SR — the only part of the table with enough behind it to act on. The rest are pointers.

Recommendations

What to Do With This

Build on and Cut are what this sample supports acting on now. Review is film confirmation before a call. Track is a number to carry into the next games, not a conclusion from these two.

Build on

The blue-line passing entries (Lat Pass BL Area, Rec BL Area): 40 entries at roughly 47% SR and 20.0% Exposure, the best return of any entry route in this sample.

Moving the puck once it reaches the point (walk, D2D, high to low): 6 Quality on 17, versus 1 on 7 for the shot on arrival.

NZR and NZT: the transition systems that returned the most here (31.8% and 31.6% SR).

Cut

Dump-In volume. 30 attempts at 20.0% SR: 13 counter entries conceded, 1 GrA created, and the same picture in both games.

Review

BO from NC: 47.9% Exposure on 48, the largest single source of counters in the sample.

DZFO Exit: 10.5% SR and 0 GrA on 19.

The absence of EW Activation and SSD Activation: 0 instances across both games. Worth establishing whether that holds over a fuller sample.

Track

NZ FO CI (54.5% SR, 9.1% Exposure on 11) and Rim entries (58.8% SR on 17). Both returned well on low volume here.

HW Attacks volume, 2 instances in the first game and 11 in the second. Establish whether the half-wall lean is a tendency or a one-game response.

Method · caveats

What This Sample Can and Cannot Carry

2 games, single opponent, three months apart (October 30 2025 and January 27 2026), 5v5 only. A fact-finding sample, not a season profile.
Nothing here is an established trend. Two games can differ from a team's normal pattern for reasons the data does not capture — score state, personnel, opponent. Where these numbers disagree with what the staff sees over a season, the season is the better guide.
Only the entry bucket split (n=134) and the active offensive zone read (n=65) carry enough volume to read with confidence. The Dump-In (n=30), BO from NC (n=48) and DZC BO (n=49) cells are next. Everything else is a pointer, flagged as such where it appears.
One goal was scored across the two games. No goal-based read is usable at this volume, and none is offered.
GrA counts include continuations on the originating possession.
Exposure counts a counter only when the opponent re-attacks with an entry inside the counter window on the very next possession.
Mechanisms beyond what the data shows are routed to Review for film confirmation rather than asserted.