You won't find any Wild players in the top 10 of one NHL stat: offensive zone starts, which is the amount of times a player begins his shift with a faceoff in the offensive zone. A big reason for this is Bruce Boudreau's matchup-focused system. Boudreau's approach has kept Zach Parise's number low in particular, and Parise is often a Wild leader in offensive zone starts.
For these leaders, we look at players who have played a minimum 250 minutes of 5-on-5 time; Parise hasn't played enough games to qualify, but his number (56.8 percent) this season is lower than his usual norm.
Vladimir Tarasenko is sixth in the NHL in offensive zone start percent, and his coach is Mike Yeo, who regularly had Parise above 60 percent in this stat.
NHL leaders
Player (team)O.Z.S. percent
Ryan Spooner (Bos.)79.06
Daniel Sedin (Van.)73.75
Henrik Sedin (Van.) 73.45
Mikhail Sergachev (Tam.)70.95
Anders Bjork (Bos.)70.00
Vladimir Tarasenko (St.L)69.84
Adrian Kempe (L.A.)68.71
Jake DeBrusk (Bos.)68.31
Jeff Skinner (Car.) 67.89
David Krejci (Bos.)67.74
Wild leaders
(Minimum 250 minutes)
Player (pos.)O.Z.S. percent
Mike Reilly (D)54.78
Zack Mitchell (RW)*54.78
Tyler Ennis (LW)50.67
Matt Cullen (C)50.67
Nino Niederreiter (RW)50.46
Chris Stewart (RW)50.20
Marcus Foligno (LW)49.33
Joel Eriksson Ek (C)48.44
Gustav Olofsson (D)48.03
Jared Spurgeon (D)47.65
Ryan Suter (D)47.17
* – waived earlier this month. Source: naturalstattrick.com
