2011 NHL Review Alan Ryder HockeyAnalytics.com Copyright 2011 2011 NHL Review Page 2 Table of Contents Introduction 3 Player Contribution Basics .................................................................................................. 4 Threshold Performance ...................................................................................................... 5 Situational PC ..................................................................................................................... 6 The Currency of PC ............................................................................................................ 7 Team Performances 9 Goals ................................................................................................................................ 10 Lucky and Unlucky Teams ................................................................................................ 11 Team Success .................................................................................................................. 15 Offense ............................................................................................................................. 16 Shots and Shot Quality ..................................................................................................... 18 Defense ............................................................................................................................ 22 Goaltending ...................................................................................................................... 24 The Shootout .................................................................................................................... 31 Top Individual Performances 35 Forwards ........................................................................................................................... 35 Defensive Forwards .......................................................................................................... 40 Defensemen ..................................................................................................................... 45 Defensive Defensemen .................................................................................................... 53 Goaltenders ...................................................................................................................... 56 Transitions ........................................................................................................................ 57 Rookies ............................................................................................................................. 62 Shootout ........................................................................................................................... 65 All Star Contributions 67 NHL .................................................................................................................................. 67 West ................................................................................................................................. 68 East .................................................................................................................................. 69 Rookie .............................................................................................................................. 70 Green ................................................................................................................................ 71 Grey .................................................................................................................................. 72 Offense ............................................................................................................................. 73 Defense ............................................................................................................................ 75 Even Handed .................................................................................................................... 76 Power Play ....................................................................................................................... 77 Short Handed ................................................................................................................... 78 Most Valuable Performances ............................................................................................ 79 All Cap Roster .................................................................................................................. 80 Hall of Fame Watch 85 Copyright Alan Ryder, 2011 Hockey Analytics www.HockeyAnalytics.com 2011 NHL Review Page 3 Introduction This review is focused on the most outstanding individual performances in the NHL during the 2010-11 (“2011”) regular season. But I will also comment 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 Contribution (PC)1. It is a calculation that rationally attributes team results to individual players. It is focused on results rather than process. Therefore, importantly, it contains any noise associated with non-repeatable performance (luck). Noise cancellation techniques are available elsewhere to try to separate skill from results2 and I applaud those who try. In any case, PC remains the most comprehensive assessment of individual performance in hockey. This kind of analysis is done in other sports (and by others in hockey). But buyers beware. The methods used elsewhere may not import so well. Hockey is unlike baseball, football and basketball in two material ways. The first difference is the position of goaltender – a single player with a disproportionate accountability for goal prevention. The closest match in another major North American sport is the pitcher in baseball. The potential impact of the goaltending role is very large. The actual impact depends on a „first to worst‟ analysis – a large span between best and worst performances implies high value (and low span equals low value). The second difference is that skaters (i.e. players other than the goaltender) play offense and defense simultaneously. In the other three sports, teams effectively take turns on offense. Football even has offensive and defensive units. While, in football and basketball turnovers can and do happen, such an event is relatively rare. In hockey, however, the puck is a slippery little sucker. Puck control is very challenging and turnovers happen all the time (whether or not the NHL calls them „giveaways‟ or „takeaways‟). What this means is that, in hockey, offense and defense overlap. Players have concurrent roles and need to be constantly assessing both offensive and defensive opportunities and risks. Forwards have an offensive bias. Defensemen have a defensive bias. But the concurrence still prevails. One cannot truly separate offense and defense in hockey. The conclusion is that the ebb and flow of opportunity and danger in a hockey game tells us something about individual player impact. The most glaring example of this is in 1 PC is described in http://www.HockeyAnalytics.com/Research_files/Player_Contribution_System.pdf but has been refined considerably since I wrote the paper. 2 There are now too many contributors to the advancement of hockey analytics to name all the names, but they know who they are as they run faster and faster with the larger and heavier baton. Copyright Alan Ryder, 2011 Hockey Analytics www.HockeyAnalytics.com 2011 NHL Review Page 4 penalties. The taking of a penalty (typically) puts a team on its heels for (up to or maybe more than) two minutes. Defensive risk increases. Offensive potential is reduced. The drawing of a penalty has the opposite effect. The game has many other „transitions‟ that alter the offensive or defensive „potential‟ of the game. These include the obvious candidates of faceoffs, takeaways and giveaways and the less obvious (and unrecorded) events like the battles for position and possession along the boards and in front of the net. Transitions also include the lightly documented but critical result of moving the puck up (or down) the ice. A player that generates positive transitions is adding value because he elevates the ratio of offense to defense (and vice versa). On balance each of these other transitions have small impact (relative to penalties), but there are players that consistently transition well and it adds up to something. Transitions matter a great deal in the same way that probabilities matter. But goals are more like lightning storms than warm or cold fronts. Goals defy the odds and create finite counts from infinite possibilities. Goals char the scorecard, jarring perceptions rooted in a careful visual or analytic assessment of the rest of the game. In other words, while transitions matter, it‟s (nearly) all about the goals. Player Contribution Basics The PC method is a system of credits and debits. The credits are for the observed elements of individual performance that aggregate to team success. That part is easy to understand. The debits are to subtract the “marginal” aspects of performance – more on that below. „PCO‟ is PC from offense, based on „goals created‟ (credits) in excess of a threshold level of performance (debits). To determine PCO a player is credited for creating goals but debited for ice time (greater ice time, especially for forwards and on the power play, means greater offensive expectations).