Well I can certainly see how ban on forward pass could effect the way the game is played, in a manner that would result in lower assists.
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I agree, I can see that too; however, assists per goal rose from 26 to 27 and from 27 to 28 and from 28 to 29, and the rise from 29 to 30 was not out of line with what was already happening. It continued to happen that way for nearly another decade.
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If there was a big spike in 1930… absolutely I would say more passes led to more assists. But the stats don’t indicate that.
THIS SAID, yeah, the rise predates forward passing, and the said rise was pretty much consistent 1926-onwards. The game was possibly different, which COULD mean less real assists. But not at such a point.
Yeah, that’s exactly my point.
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So some normalization needs to be done, but exactly how much? It’s guesswork, probably.
Let's reword certain assumptions in play. Instead of accounting for higher scoring in different eras let's look at accounting for scoring differences across eras. Just looking at centers it has become rather clear that the distribution of center scoring in the same era was impacted by various factors such as whether the team rolled lines around three or four centers. You saw and supported this point when the Mikita example was provided. VsX has certain attributes but it fails to account for line rotations dictated by roster size and until it does it offers little insight.
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Would you please stop saying I support this? You claimed the Hawks started rotating another center in 1971. I told you that icetime estimates also indicate this. That’s where it ended.
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I agree that if any player had a particular advantage within their era compared to other centers then it should be looked at. But when you claim that someone was on a two-center team and others had four, we should be looking at players with TOI estimates in the 30 minute range and there’s just no such thing.
Assists and the 1929-30 Forward Pass Rule. Most of the impact on assists happened later when the granting of assists was liberalized thru amendments to how assists were granted. The introduction of the Blue Line offside a few weeks into the season is deeply under appreciated here. Previously, as long as a player held the puck, no offside was possible. Eventually even passing the puck backwards could create offside situations at the Blue Line.
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I’m well aware of the rules. But the granting of assists was already liberalized before they changed.
1927, counting and the old time machine argument. You are totally ignoring strategy and style of play having an impact on assists.
Specifically, the strategy of crashing or cluttering the opponents net did not exist. Offensive players could not risk creating offside situations since it was hard to clearly distinguish a shot from a pass. Likewise rebound assists. Wanting to avoid offsides had the downside that offensive players did not camp in prime rebound areas.
Instead of looking for multipliers, a simple appreciation for the nuances of an era are sufficient.
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OK, and none of this changes anything I said.
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Do you think that 2/3 of goals in 1926 were unassisted?
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Do you think that one player’s point totals from a league with liberal assist granting are directly comparable to another player’s totals from a league with barely any assists awarded?
I would say its more likely Stastny missed out on a couple more 100 point seasons by not starting in the NHL until he was 24.
As for taking a step back by using unadjusted numbers, how about the old, "watched the guy play a lot" method. Hopefully that isn't considered a step back also.
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No, but it can be unreliable. In the end if a guy like Stastny looked way better than Hawerchuk but a deeper look indicates that Hawerchuk consistently outperformed Stastny (for example), one should strongly consider the possibility that what they saw (skill) and what results actually occurred were incongruent.
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Anyway, I don’t mean to downgrade “watched him play†all that much, but knowing everything about Peter Stastny says little to nothing about your credentials for comparing him to someone like Stewart or Bentley (who you didn’t see) or Norm Ullman (who you barely saw). Right?
Marginally more defensive. Not enough to offset the difference in rolling three instead of four lines which can mean a difference of app 30% in a centers ice time.
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Ice time numbers do not support this.
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Stastny averaged 21.5 minutes per game according to TOI estimates from 1981-1988. Hawerchuk averaged 20.9 minutes in that time. Trottier 20.4. Nicholls 20.1. Gretzky 25.2. Dionne 21.0 through 1986. Federko averaged 19.4 and Savard 20.3. Looking at the top offensive centers from that chunk of time, the only player with a 30% ice time advantage is Gretzky over the lowest guy on the list. Although Stastny is 2nd highest there, he’s right with the rest of the pack.
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I wouldn’t claim that an average advantage of one minute over Hawerchuk/Trottier/Dionne/Savard/Nicholls/Federko is meaningless. It’s something to consider at least. But the Adams division
was harder to score in and he’s the only one on this list who played in that division.* In all likelihood, the two factors cancel eachother out fairly neatly, leaving us with his raw scoring stats.
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Stastny is not a special offensive player compared to others available in this round. We agree on that. We don’t need to make wild assertions about his ice time advantage to prove it, though.
