Preseason film: Zohorna forcing his way onto roster

The giant forward is picking up right where he left off with the Penguins.

Radim Zohorna — Photo via Penguins

Possession. Beast.

That’s how I’d describe 6-foot-6, 220-pound forward Radim Zohorna, who is back with the Penguins this season after being claimed off waivers by the Flames a year ago.

With so many depth forwards battling for a spot on the Penguins’ opening night roster, it originally seemed like he was destined for the AHL to start the new campaign.

But after a pair of dominant showings to open the preseason, Zohorna stock is skyrocketing. He’ll leave management with no choice but to roster him if he keeps it up over the next two weeks.

Let’s revisit his first stint with the Penguins before we get to the preseason film. It might be much better than you remember.

In 25 games from 2020-2022, he scored four goals to go along with six assists. Decent production at the bottom of the lineup. Nothing crazy about it. What is crazy, though, is how the Penguins performed during his 230 minutes of 5-on-5 action (via Evolving-Hockey):

• +17 goal differential (20-3)

• +2.6 expected goal differential (8.8-6.2)

• +22 shot differential (118-96)

• +37 shot attempt differential (204-167)

It’s true that the Penguins massively benefitted from percentage luck during Zohorna’s full-strength ice-time (16.8% on-ice shooting percentage, 96.9% on-ice save percentage), but removing that from the picture entirely doesn’t change the fact that they did a respectable job of controlling play.

Within that, they were rock-solid in the defensive zone. Take a look at how well they suppressed the opposition with Zohorna on the ice in 2021-22 (the larger sample between his two seasons with the Penguins), per HockeyViz:

If you’re unfamiliar with such a heatmap: the darker the red, the more unblocked shot attempts the Penguins allowed from that location relative to league average. The darker the blue, the fewer unblocked shot attempts they allowed from that location relative to league average.

The most dangerous area of the ice was a ghost town for the opposition, as was the slot, plus every other location of significance.

Zohorna was unquestionably a major influence on those results.