Hockey Match Report

Analyst’s Diary Match Report

Italy vs Canada

16 May 2026
IIHF World Championship 2026 – Group Stage
Italy (ITA) 0:6 Canada (CAN)

Report generated from the match shot-location pipeline. Metrics marked as proxies are based on OCR-extracted shot coordinates and should be interpreted as transparent spatial indicators rather than official tracking data.

Prepared by Antonin Kremenak

Executive summary

  • Canada generated the higher official shots-on-goal volume.
  • Canada produced the stronger location-based Shot Quality Index.
  • Canada got more attempts from the inner-slot / high-danger area.
  • Canada led in high-danger chances based on the distance-and-lane proxy.
Shots On Goal
CAN: 41 | ITA: 19
Blocked Shots
CAN: 11 | ITA: 11
Scoring Chances
CAN: 20 | ITA: 3

1. Public layer: simple match metrics

These visuals are designed as a simple entry point for wider audiences: official shots on goal, blocked shots, shot quality proxies and basic chance creation.

Public match summary metrics
Key Metrics: Italy vs Canada
16 May 2026 — Shot Quality Index is a location-based proxy, not a trained xG model.
Metric ITA CAN
OCR detected attempts 9.00 32.00
Corsi attempts 9.00 32.00
Fenwick attempts 7.00 26.00
Scoring chances 3.00 20.00
High-danger chances 0.00 11.00
Shot Quality Index 0.33 2.85

2. Shot maps and spatial overview

Shot maps show where attempts came from, how dangerous they were spatially, and how shot locations changed across periods.

Shot map by period
Shot map with player numbers

3. Shot quality and territorial battle

This section moves from simple shot counts to spatial pressure: location quality, offensive-zone density and period-by-period territorial advantage.

Shot Quality Index by team
Territorial and shot-quality advantage

4. Offensive-zone density

Offensive-zone shot density
Team offensive-zone shot density
Full-rink shot location density

5. Advanced insider layer

The following metrics are proxy-based insider indicators built from the available shot-location sample. They are useful for storytelling, but they are not a substitute for full play-by-play or tracking data.

  • Canada showed the highest aggression profile while tied, based on chance rate, slot access and net-front pressure.
  • Canada had the strongest danger-oriented shot style: slot-heavy / chance-driven.
  • Canada generated the clearest central-access pattern: strong central-lane access.
  • Canada produced the strongest pressure window between shot sequence 4 and 9.
  • Canada had the highest goals-per-SQI finishing efficiency and roughly aligned with chance quality.
Score-state behavior
Shot-style profile
Finishing efficiency vs chance quality

6. Momentum

Shot-sequence momentum

7. Player layer

Player public leaders
Top players from the OCR-extracted shot sample
team player_no ocr_detected_attempts ocr_shots_on_goal scoring_chances high_danger_chances inner_slot_shots net_front_shots rebound_like_shots shot_quality_index avg_shot_distance team_name
CAN 71 4 2 4 2 2 0 0 0.50 25.1 Canada
CAN 24 3 3 3 2 2 0 3 0.43 21.3 Canada
CAN 81 2 1 2 2 2 1 0 0.36 8.4 Canada
CAN 5 3 1 2 1 2 0 0 0.27 30.5 Canada
CAN 94 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 0.20 29.4 Canada
CAN 13 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0.18 20.8 Canada
CAN 19 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 0.18 5.3 Canada
CAN 4 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0.18 22.9 Canada
CAN 87 2 0 2 0 0 0 0 0.14 33.1 Canada
CAN 22 4 2 1 0 0 0 0 0.13 50.4 Canada
ITA 7 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0.09 51.7 Italy
CAN 90 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0.07 37.1 Canada

#Source https://www.iihf.com/en/events/2026/wm/schedule