Evan Bouchard, Cale Makar, and weak side activation
How Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard stayed involved offensively in very inconsistent minutes last season, and how Avalanche star Cale Makar does the same in a much larger role
Evan Bouchard fell victim to Dave Tippett and a deep right side for the Oilers last season (Oilers, right side, deep???), playing only fourteen games while watching many more from the press box. Bouchard is due for a major increase in minutes next year— the Oilers will probably need either a whole new level of insanity from McDavid or Bouchard to immediately grow into a strong top-four RHD if they want to match last season— but that’s not the topic for today’s newsletter. We’re still thinking about last season, where Bouchard managed 1.25 even strength points-per-sixty-minutes in his limited ice time— good enough for 41st among defencemen with more than 50 minutes played and nearly identical to teammate Darnell Nurse, Edmonton’s #1 defenceman. Bouchard, known for having a booming shot since his OHL days, had the 12th highest rate of individual expected goals per 60 and the very highest individual shot attempts taken per 60. So, in other words, Bouchard was taking a ton of shots during his limited ice time and many of those shots were from reasonably dangerous locations. Small sample size, yes, but Bouchard has been playing this way since before he was drafted out of the OHL and it’s rather impressive that he seems to have carried his offensive style and involvement over to the NHL in a small role where you could forgive him for looking to do little more than play decent defence.
How did he create all those opportunities? Isn’t it hard to step right into the NHL and continue to generate those types of chances against the best competition you’ve seen in your career? Typically, yes, it would be very difficult. But Bouchard employs weak side activation very frequently, choosing his spots to activate when the defence in front of him is very limited in numbers. He found the easiest way to involve himself offensively in a very difficult league to play in.
What’s weak side activation? The puck starts off on the far boards here— that’s the strong side. Naturally, the Jets are all congregated towards that side of the ice. So if you’re the right-handed defenceman, manning the weak side on this play, what do you do? You take that space! Bouchard literally gets to waltz right into the offensive zone, stop up, take his time and find a play without encountering any real defensive pressure because he snuck up the weak side.
Puck battle on the far wall? Move the puck to the weak side and take the space. Easy controlled entry.
On a more developed level, this is a foundation of Cale Makar’s offensive game. He does this very frequently, because it’s the most opportune time for a defenceman to join the rush. Watch him absolutely take off up the weak side to create a rush chance— again, there’s no resistance at all through the neutral zone. In fact, Makar doesn’t encounter a defender until after crossing the offensive blueline in all three of these examples.
Switching the play from the strong side to the weak side is never a bad idea. Yesterday, we talked about how D-to-D passes (strong side to weak side) create easy transition opportunities. Here’s Bouchard taking advantage.
I expect the weak-side activation to continue to be an early pillar of Bouchard’s offensive game next season, where he’s expected to start in a full-time third-pairing role but could probably bypass Cody Ceci on the depth chart very, very quickly if he plays well. As Bouchard develops, look for him to be able to activate into tighter windows and at times where there’s a little more than zero defensive resistance. We’ve seen him do it in the OHL and the AHL; it’s only a matter of time until he’s doing it in the NHL too. But for his first games in the NHL, he’s found an excellent low-risk method of offensive involvement.