The Rochester Amerks are through three games of their season. With them being off until later this week, now seemed like a good time to put together the first full season roll-up of our tracking data.

Remember, it’s only three games. So, don’t go over the top about how some players may look early on. Also, some of the charts may look a little goofy because of the small sample size, but I wanted to introduce you to all of them out of the gate.

5v5 Shot Share and Quality

In this first section, we’re going to look at the player’s shot share and shot quality share that we’ve tracked through the first three games.

Takeaways

• Arttu Ruotsalainen is going to jump off the page. He leads the team in 5v5 on-ice shot quality and is one of the better players in shot share. He went 7-0 in high-danger chances on Friday and was on a similar track Thursday. However, two bad shifts in the middle of the second spoiled that.
• The Fogarty-Ruotsalainen-Murray line has probably been the most consistent so far. One interesting note from the Amerks game Friday is when Fogarty moved away from Ruotsalainen his shot share decreased and Michael Mersch saw a boost in his joining that line. Something to keep an eye on as Ruotsalainen may be the driver of that line.
• Rasmus Asplund has inconsistent to be polite about it. It shows in the data above.
• Mattias Samuelsson has played well in two of the three games thus far.

This next chart breaks down the shot share a little deeper. Gives us an idea of which players have a good overall share, are high-event, or low-event.

Takeaways

• Jacob Bryson continues his trend of high-event hockey in the AHL.
• The team is split pretty evenly between low-event and high-event players. Ruotsalaien and Murray stand alone in the good shot share quadrant. They’re joined by Brandon Biro, but he has only played in one game.

5v5 Primary Shot Contributions

In this next section, we’re going to look at which players are having the most impact on generating shots and creating quality chances off high-danger passing.

Takeaways

• Fogarty has been the Amerks’ most consistent forward in terms of being involved in high-danger plays and has made an impact generating offense.
• Samuelsson and Fitzgerald are out early setting the pace for the defensemen. Fitzgerald has been good with his willingness to get involved in the play offensively.

This next chart is one that is going to look a little odd with the small sample, but this is a look at which players are making high-danger passes that result in quality scoring chances.

Takeaways

• This chart belongs to Fogarty. He hasn’t done much in the NHL throughout his career, but he did earn an opportunity to get a call up to the Sabres with his play in the first three games.

5v5 Transition Data

The last section here is going to be a look at zone entries, zone exits, entry defense, and who is creating offense after entering the zone with possession. We’ll start by looking at the defensemen.

Takeaways

• The team as a whole has had an issue exiting the zone with control. They’ve had too many failed exits that result in quality scoring chances against or extended zone time against.
• Bryson is my biggest concern here so far. The strength of his game is supposed to be his puck-moving ability. He can’t be at over a 25% failed exit rate and second-worst on the team. That needs to be corrected.
• Fitzgerald also has a turnover issue in his own end of the ice.
• It’s a little too early to take much away from the entry defense section. We’ll circle back to that when more games are added in.

Let’s move onto zone entries.

Takeaways

• Ruotsalainen and Oglevie are the top two players on the team entering the zone with possession. The difference is that Ruotsalainen generates shooting or passing plays at a higher rate per entry than Oglevie. In fact, the Finnish forward has the highest percentage on the team in that regard.
• Again, the second chart looks a little silly with a limited sample. We’ll get a clearer picture of this data when more games are added.

Photo Credit: Rochester Americans/Facebook