Berglund vs. Sobotka: Quality of Competition & Offensive Zone Starts

@ArtLippo posed an interesting question on Twitter yesterday to which our own J-Mill replied...

@ArtLippo Not exactly true: Quality of competition diff is negligible, w/ Sobotka getting more def. zone starts than any Blue except 42 & 40

— Jason McAMERICA (@JMill1120) June 26, 2014

So I was asked if I could show a monthly trend of quality of competition for Sobotka and Berglund.  Instead of breaking it out by month, I actually provided a 10 game moving average during the course of the season for each of the players.  I also included their percentage of offensive zone starts (also as a 10 game moving average).

Berglund definitely saw tougher competition during the course of the season.  Sobotka was seeing slightly weaker competition with less offensive zone starts.  Sobotka did start seeing some tougher competition than Berglund towards the end of the season, but if I remember correctly that was due to the line switching that was occurring due to injuries (I'm sure you all will correct me if I remember that incorrectly).

Some of you will take a look at these charts and notice that I did not start the axis at zero.  That's right.  I'm breaking the rules.  So I did add the charts on a second tab with the zero included in the axis.  They essentially tell the same story.  Maybe even better?  The difference between the QoC faced by Berglund and Sobotka was not that significant.  However, the difference in offensive zone starts really does stand out in my opinion.