It is not uncommon, when debating the merits of players or teams, that a hockey blogger might hear the cliched refrain that they need to "Watch the games!" Well, there is a one-man task force who, with spreadsheets open, has undertaken a project in which he is aiming to watch every single game of the 2013-2014 NHL season. Every. Single. Game. Thats 1,230 in total to cover the regular season. The man is Corey Sznajder, a soft-spoken 23-year-old Salisbury University grad who lives in Annapolis, Maryland and has been charting zone entries and zone exits throughout the NHL. "I love big projects," he said. No kidding. At the 2013 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, I met Eric Tulsky, who presented research on the value of controlled zone entries (short answer: about twice as valuable to enter with control of the puck rather than dumping it in) and Sznajder had charted a couple hundred games that were included in that study. Sznajder said that he had seen Tulsky writing about zone entries on the Broadstreet Hockey blog and, during the NHL lockout in 2012-2013, Sznajder started charting games. Watching the games when no new ones were even being played. Born in Virginia and living in Maryland, Sznajder grew up around the Washington Capitals, but his hockey interests gravitated further south and his analysis has been focused on the Carolina Hurricanes, writing at Shutdown Line, a Hurricanes blog, where he goes in-depth in his analysis. This project is a deeper dive, however. What is Sznajder charting? Whether a team enters the zone under control of the puck or if it is dumped in and that is done for approximately 150 even-strength zone entries per game. As Sznajder says, "There is also an X category, for broken plays, like a puck deflecting off a player in the neutral zone that suddenly turns into a scoring chance." Thats a very small percentage, but Sznajder admits they drive him crazy. These micro events are valuable to interpreting strengths and weaknesses of players. Who is gaining the zone under control? Who is driving puck possession? This is how to find out, with measured results. Theres another aspect to the work that Sznajder is doing that may be even more intriguing to me and that is something that he adopted part-way through the project, tracking which defencemen were targeted, and how they fared, for attempted zone entries. The expectation from people involved in advanced stats, is that Sznajders work would help uncover some mysteries of the game, that it might help indicate why a player has excellent possession numbers and he has shared some partial-season data to whet the appetite and let online analysts dig into it a bit because, as Sznajder admits, he hasnt had the time to do deep analysis while tracking all these games. While he may not have been able to dig deep, Sznajder has seen a ton of hockey -- more than 800 games so far. When pressed a little, he shares a few insights that hes picked up. One of the surprises he has found is that there is a team that is a great possession team, the San Jose Sharks, that isnt particularly strong in the neutral zone. Thats somewhat unexpected. With the understanding that carrying the puck in carries more puck possession value than dumping the puck in, it also seems a little incongruous to have a team like the Los Angeles Kings -- no strangers to dumping and chasing the puck -- as the leagues best puck possession team, to say nothing of Stanley Cup champs. As Sznajder noted, though, "The Kings make it nearly impossible (for the opposition) to enter the zone under control." This is precisely why Im interested to see the individual defence data. The player that closes the defensive gap in the neutral zone better than others can drive possession numbers, yet might not get a whole lot of acclaim for that skill. Conversely, there may be players getting recognition (and big contracts) yet have trouble defending at their blueline. "Its really hard to carry the puck in on a regular basis," Sznajder said. "Virtually every team traps in the neutral zone. Maybe five or six teams have a carry-in rate over 50%, but good teams dump where they can retrieve it and the retrieving player has options." When asked about any specific players that might have exceeded his expectations from when he began the project, Sznajder didnt hesitate. "Tyler Seguin is incredible when it comes to making plays at the blueline, especially when it comes to making passes. I was tracking a Blues-Stars game and noticed that Blues tried to stand him up at the blueline and he managed to dodge the pressure, and get it to (Jamie) Benn a couple of times to create scoring chances." I shared a story with Corey from the night before meeting Tulsky at the 2013 Sloan Conference about how I watched the Bruins game (vs. Ottawa) that night with a real focus on who was entering the zone with control -- knowing this data can change how one watches a game -- and said that I came away even more impressed with Patrice Bergeron than I was already. He drove everything that the Bruins were doing in that particular game. Sznajder picked right up and noted that Bergeron is a zone-entry ace that, when tracking zone entries in the 2013 playoffs, "Bergeron was incredible, especially in the Cup Final." Said Sznajder, "The Bruins dont get much credit for their skill -- its always about their toughness -- but Bergeron and Brad Marchand are two of the better players at generating zone entries under control. They have such a reputation as a defensive line, but the puck is never in their zone." This is a daunting task that Sznajder has undertaken though. When asked about whether he would get help to do it in the future, he responded, "I want to, but want to keep it consistent." Speaking of the future, now that hes found his groove, Sznajder does expect to keep doing this data project moving forward, with some new wrinkles, including full-season entry defence, dump-in and retrieval stats, scoring chances and how those chances are created. Hes also looking at power play tendencies, how shot attempts are created and setup locations, but acknowledges that tracking puck movement on such a large scale can be difficult. That might be one for digital tracking technology to handle in the not-too-distant future. This stuff is gold. Measurable data on team tendencies can be used to further inform (ie. in addition to) team tactics that are already being covered by video and advance scouting. Knowing which players are driving the bus, and which ones are passengers, will help for roster construction. In the summer of hockey analytics, with more and more hires joining NHL front offices, Sznajder will worry about any potential opportunities that may come later. "A couple teams have been in contact to find out more about what Im doing," he said. "But Im trying not to think about that so much. I have a commitment to get this project done." As someone who watches a ton of games, Sznajder has naturally heard a lot of announcing teams. His favourites? "Im a big homer on that. Fox Sports Carolinas John Forslund. I like both TSN crews. Im not sucking up to TSN either. Cuthbert, Miller, Ferraro especially, Mike Johnson are all good." When taking on this mountain of games, Sznajder has also had some fun tracking other parts of the game, including Pierre McGuire name-drops and arena music. Its one way to break up the tediousness of the chore. It may be lots of fun to watch hockey but, still, its a lot of games. When everything is running smoothly, Sznajder can get through a game in about 90 minutes and a standard day means completing six games. Thats nine hours of game-charting, so Sznajder has been treating this project like a full-time job. "The donation site certainly helped so that I could do it on a full-time basis. For a while I was doing it secretly, doing Hurricanes and Canucks games. Then something came up in late January and, once I got that squared away, I started tracking the whole league." When word got out about Sznajder taking on this challenge, the online hockey community started suggesting he use some crowd funding. "Im pretty humbled by the response to the fund raising page," Sznajder said. Its an indication how hungry people are for the data hes tracking. "Im hoping to have them ready by the time the season starts," Sznajder said. "I wanted to be done by now, but tracking over 1000 games in six months is a grueling task. Its more work than I thought." However, asked if he has any regrets about what hes doing, Sznajder isnt going to complain. "Not really. I enjoy watching hockey a lot and learning about the game and Im learning more things every day. Its been a pretty fun ride so far." If youd like to help fund Coreys efforts, and have access to full data when the project is completed, click here. He can followed on Twitter here. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Kurt Suzuki Nationals Jersey .Stanton suffered fractures in his face and other injuries when he was hit by a pitch Sept. 11. The Marlins are confident hell fully recover and be ready for spring training, and they hope to reach a long-term agreement with him. Ivan Rodriguez Jersey . Huntelaar also had a penalty saved by Wolfsburg goalkeeper Diego Benaglio. The two goals brought Huntelaars total for the season to 18, level with Bayern Munichs Mario Gomez for most in the league. https://www.cheapnationals.com/1137r-wil...ationals.html.Y. -- Nothing seems to phase No. Anibal Sanchez Jersey . But San Diego had even more trouble against right-hander Tanner Roark, who pitched a three-hitter for the first complete game of his career as the Nationals shut out the Padres 4-0. The 27-year-old set down the first 16 batters before San Diego catcher Rene Rivera, an . Austin Voth Nationals Jersey .com) - Jahlil Okafor erupted for 25 points and 20 rebounds as No.CLEVELAND -- Upset and frustrated with his defence, Carlos Carrasco made his own error. On Tuesday, he tried to fix it. The Indians right-hander apologized for criticizing two teammates for not making plays behind him during Mondays 2-0 loss to the Kansas City Royals, a setback that pushed Cleveland closer to elimination from the AL playoff race. Carrasco allowed two runs in 7 1-3 innings and afterward said he felt the Indians didnt support him like he needed. "Everything was good. Everything went perfect," Carrasco said to reporters. "We shouldve made those plays right there. That cost me two runs." In the first inning, Indians first baseman Chris Gimenez couldnt handle a hard liner by Eric Hosmer and had it glance off his glove for an RBI single. In the fifth, shortstop Jose Ramirez failed to come up with a grounder as a run scored. Carrasco was asked if he thought both plays should have been made. "Yeah," he said. "I thought they had a pretty good chance of making them, but sometimes we dont make those plays. That can cost us." Poor defence has been an issue all season for the Indians, who lead the majors with 113 errors. Before Tuesdays game, Carrasco issued an apology through the team. "It was a terribly immature and foolish thing to say," he said in a statement emailed to media members. "I know better and I apologize for saying it. I have made some terrible pitches in my career and position players could have questioned what I was doing. No one wants to be criticized when making their best effort. I will apologize to everyone and it wont happen again." Indians manager Terry Francona chalked up Carrascos comments to his competitiveness and disappointment after a tough loss.dddddddddddd. Francona said he got a text message from Carrasco and the right-hander was waiting for him in his office when he arrived at Progressive Field. "Hes a good kid," Francona said. "To me, thats not the end of the world. Now, the fact he was upset that he said it and he caught it and he didnt try to backtrack and he apologized. And I thought his apology was really sincere." Francona dismissed the idea that Carrascos irritation had been building because of the Indians sometimes shoddy fielding. "The defence behind Carlos has been pretty good," Francona said. "There havent been too many runs scored. I just think it was a big game." The loss was a costly one for the Indians, dropping them 3 1/2 games behind Kansas City for the second wild-card spot with five games left. Gimenez felt bad about not handling Hosmers smash and apologized to Carrasco after the first inning and again following the game. "Theres no excuse. I should have caught the ball," Gimenez said. "It wasnt the easiest line drive -- it had a little tail to it -- but it hit my glove, and I cant help but think I cost us the game." Gimenez said Carrasco approached him in the clubhouse Tuesday and told him he was sorry. Gimenez believes his teammate truly regrets his comments. "Im not mad at him at all," he said. "Its that time of the year. Were in a playoff race and anything like that just seems to get magnified. We didnt score any runs, but Im not mad. I would rather him say something like that than be like, Whatever. "I understand. Hes intense. Hes fired up. Everybody wants to do well. I didnt want to not catch that ball." ' ' '