2008 NHL Review
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2008 NHL Review Alan Ryder HockeyAnalytics.com Copyright Alan Ryder 2008 2008 NHL Review Page 2 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Team Performances 5 Lucky and Unlucky Teams .................................................................................................. 5 Offense ............................................................................................................................... 7 Shots and Shot Quality ....................................................................................................... 8 Defense ............................................................................................................................ 10 Goaltending ...................................................................................................................... 11 The Shootout .................................................................................................................... 14 Individual Performances 16 Top Forward ..................................................................................................................... 16 Top Defensive Forward .................................................................................................... 20 Top Defenseman .............................................................................................................. 22 Top Defensive Defenseman ............................................................................................. 24 Top Goaltender ................................................................................................................. 26 Clean Play Awards ........................................................................................................... 27 Top Rookie ....................................................................................................................... 30 Most Improved .................................................................................................................. 31 Shootout Awards .............................................................................................................. 33 All Star Contributors 34 NHL .................................................................................................................................. 34 East .................................................................................................................................. 35 West ................................................................................................................................. 36 Rookie .............................................................................................................................. 36 Green ................................................................................................................................ 37 Grey .................................................................................................................................. 38 All Offense ........................................................................................................................ 38 All Defense ....................................................................................................................... 39 Even Handed .................................................................................................................... 40 Power Play ....................................................................................................................... 40 Short Handed ................................................................................................................... 41 Most Valuable Performances ............................................................................................ 42 All Cap Roster .................................................................................................................. 43 Sidney Crosby Watch 46 Copyright Alan Ryder, 2008 Hockey Analytics www.HockeyAnalytics.com 2008 NHL Review Page 3 Introduction This paper provides a commentary on the most outstanding individual performances in the NHL during the 2007-08 (“2008”) season. I will also be commenting on certain aspects of team performance since individual performances are difficult to assess without understanding the team context. My tool for measuring individual player impact is Player Contribution1 (PC). The method is a system of credits and debits. Offensively, a player is credited for goals and assists but debited for ice time (greater ice time, especially for forwards and on the power play, means greater expectations). Defensively, players get credited for ice time but debited for goals scored while on ice. Goaltenders are measured based on their save percentage, adjusted for the quality of team defense, in excess of a threshold. ‘PCO’ is a measure of offense – it is based on goals created in excess of a threshold level of performance. ‘PCD’ and ‘PCG’ are, respectively, based on ‘goals prevented’ in excess of a threshold for defense and goaltending. PC is also determined for penalty taking and drawing. In this case, however, the benchmark is essentially the average propensity to take/draw penalties (rather than the marginal propensity). Threshold performance is a mathematical construct. It is determined by observing that (a) the marginal impact of more/fewer goals on wins is nearly linear over the normal performance range of teams and (b) the “slope” of that linear relationship is the average number of goals scored per game. Marginal or threshold performance is determined by extrapolating the linear relationship between goals and wins until it predicts zero wins. Although not really true, you can think of a ‘marginal’ player as a borderline NHLer. It is difficult to be precise about where the borderline is, so the PC method draws a line in the sand somewhere near that line. Why subtract out marginal performance? Because, in theory, performance at that level is worth ‘nothing’. Marginal players sit on the end of the bench and / or spend a great deal of time in transit to / from the minors. Marginal performance is so far from average as to be zero valued. Where we can, PC is measured separately for even handed (EH), short handed (SH), power play (PP) and shootout (SO) situations. This ensures that specialty team performance is assessed relative to marginal performance on specialty teams. In other words, a player who runs up big offensive numbers on the power play is judged against other power play performances while a penalty killing specialist has his offense judged against other penalty killers. 1 PC is described in http://www.HockeyAnalytics.com/Research_files/Player_Contribution.pdf Copyright Alan Ryder, 2008 Hockey Analytics www.HockeyAnalytics.com 2008 NHL Review Page 4 On defense, short handed situations are further subdivided into penalty killing (PCDSHK) and penalty taking (PCDSHO). On offense, power play situations are further subdivided into power play production (PCOPPP) and penalty drawing (PCOPPO). Finally, since advancing in the standings is the objective, PC is denominated in points in the standings (that is goals created/prevented are translated into points in the standings). A PC “point” is scaled to be 1/10th of a standings point and the PC points allocated to a team are therefore 10 x Points. To get a lot of PC points one needs to both (a) play a lot and (b) play well. As (a) and (b) tend to be correlated, PC is also a measure of ‘talent’. However, coaches tend to over play top talent with a resulting distortion of apparent relative 2008 Detroit Red Wings value. Cost per As a rough rule of thumb it takes Player Cap Cost PC PC Point 100 or more PC points for a skater Pavel Datsyuk 6,700,000 132 50,786 to be an all-star candidate (the story Nicklas Lidstrom 7,600,000 121 62,663 with goaltenders is different). At 80 Henrik Zetterberg 2,650,000 121 21,901 points you would consider a skater Brian Rafalski 6,000,000 105 57,116 to be a team star, 60 is a team Chris Osgood 850,000 75 11,289 leader, 40 is a solid contributor and Niklas Kronwall 3,000,000 74 40,386 20 is a weak link. With a salary cap Chris Chelios 1,150,000 57 20,279 Johan Franzen 941,667 54 17,538 of $50 million (all figures U.S.) for Daniel Cleary 662,500 53 12,602 the 2008 season, a rough guide to Valtteri Filppula 733,333 49 14,966 player value is $50,000 per annum Jiri Hudler 1,015,000 47 21,591 per PC point (or $1,000,000 for Brett Lebda 650,000 46 14,048 every 20 PC points). This is based Mikael Samuelsson 1,200,000 38 31,880 on a team spending the cap amount Dominik Hasek 4,100,000 37 109,963 and targeting a 100 point season (a Andreas Lilja 1,000,000 34 29,395 comfortable berth in the playoffs). Tomas Holmstrom 2,250,000 29 77,590 A conference winner will need to Dallas Drake 1,100,000 17 64,945 get more value for players. And, of Kris Draper 2,128,000 14 152,415 course the market value of a player Derek Meech 483,333 14 34,848 may be different due to supply and Kirk Maltby 883,333 13 69,296 demand and other factors. Jimmy Howard 733,333 12 63,279 Tomas Kopecky 500,000 7 69,515 To put this in perspective I have Brad Stuart 3,500,000 6 546,129 shown, to the right, cap costs, the Matt Ellis 475,000 3 145,745 PC scores (rounded to the nearest Jonathan Ericsson 495,000 3 156,041 integer) and cap costs per PC point Kyle Quincey 520,000 2 241,420 (I have shown negative cost per PC Mattias Ritola 511,667 1 642,473 points results as 999,999) for the Garrett Stafford 500,000 1 856,065 Detroit Red Wings. Note that cap