As regular season winds down and head coaches continue to tinker with their lineups, many look to different statistics and analytics to help them make their decisions. Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch has shown that he is willing to look at anything that will help him make decisions regarding how he deploys his lines.
During a media scrum, it's clear that analytics are part of his strategy as he was asked about looking at expected goals percentage to determine whether a line is working or not. This was a factor in helping him put together the Foegele – Draisaitl – McCleod line which has been dominate as of late.
Analytics in general has been a recent trend in the NHL and have moved front and centre on how roster construction is built and how to deploy lines. Stats like expected goals for is not an exact science and sometimes the numbers do not go with the trends showing. But it is a tool in the tool belt for head coaches.
It's all head coaches dream to have a balanced set of four lines going into the playoffs, many teams including the Oilers are working hard to find it. With the recent additions of Adam Henrique, Corey Perry and Sam Carrick it certainly gives Knoblauch more options on how his team will look on Game 1 of the first round while having loads of depth.
