For the bolded: bullshit. It’s a strong indicator of how a dman is deployed and what their usage looks like.
No argument from me that was a bad change, but I’m not hanging that solely on Parayko. End of a long shift mostly hemmed in you own zone against McDavid. Flipping the puck into oiler zone and going for a change is usually a fine play. Just so happened that Leddy and Thomas also had the same idea and all 3 went at the same time leaving the center of the ice too open.
Did Parayko play a perfect game? No. Did he play very well for half the f***ing game? Yes.
this season Parayko starts 19.2% of his shifts in the defensive zone, so 1 in 5 times he steps on the ice it is the defensive zone after a whistle
zone start rate is a useless stat, unless you are arguing that that coaches putting who they perceive as their best defensive d-men on the ice in their own zone after a whistle is some sort of deep mystery we can only perceive with the magic zone start stat
is McDavid a horrid defensive player, worse than Kyrou even, because he has a o-zone start above 60%, or do his coaches (rightfully) look at him as being a really good offensive player so they put him on the ice in the o-zone after a whistle (his overall percent of shifts that start in the o-zone is 22.1%)
I think Parayko is a very, very good defenseman who has been consistently underrated by a lot of Blues fans, but, to me, last night was more a so-so game for him