Inside the analytics of Merrimack's series at ASU
The data backs up what I thought I watched over the weekend.
Merrimack had more scoring chances than ASU at even strength (32-24), but were limited to just two goals on the weekend. With unbalanced time on the power play, the Sun Devils out-chanced the Warriors 11-2 with the extra man.
The story of the weekend was the penalties and special teams. ASU spent 19:21 on the power play this weekend, and the Warriors spent 10:06. Merrimack needed more from its power play (particularly on Friday night), and much of where the weekend went sideways boiled down to ASU's power play time and what they did with it.
In other words … the Warriors have to stay out of the box. However, I would argue the penalty kill played well for most of the weekend. It wasn’t that the unit played poorly. Rather, ASU just had enough time with the extra man to convert.
Overall, the data says to me that Merrimack didn't play poorly. Despite the extra power-play time for ASU on Saturday, the Warriors still had three more minutes of offensive-zone possession time than ASU.
Remember, this was all without their biggest offensive threat (Alex Jefferies).
Here are some more data/analytic insights on the weekend:
