Biggest +/- differential between two consecutive seasons?

[mrhockey193195]

Looking at Johnny Gaudreau's stats, I found something pretty intriguing. He has obviously failed to live up to expectations in Columbus after finishing his tenure in Calgary on an elite note. But very specifically, the difference in +/- between his last year in CGY (2021-22) and his first year in CBS (2022-23) was eye opening. Across those two seasons, he goes from a league-best +64 all the way down to -33. That swing amounts to a delta of 97.

I'm not here to comment on the usefulness of +/- as a measure of player performance (I personally think it's an extremely flawed metric), but I'm more just curious about the statistical absurdity of it.

Has any other player in NHL history experienced a larger difference in +/- across two consecutive seasons? Has anyone come close?

Click to read more...

 

[Staniowski]

Check out Reggie Leach....that's what happens when you go from the worst defensive team to the best.

 

[mrhockey193195]

Check out Reggie Leach....that's what happens when you go from the worst defensive team to the best.

Holy cow. -62 to +53!!!

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Quoting myself from an older thread:

Let's restrict it to players in at least, say, 50 games in both seasons (otherwise a player can go from a breakeven rating in a few games to a big number during the following season).

These are the biggest change I could find in my database. Only God and Pnep can tell me I'm wrong.

Biggest increases
Reggie Leach, 1975 (-62 to +53 = +115)
Dallas Smith, 1971 (+8 to +98 = +90)
Jerry Korab, 1975 (-41 to +41 = +82)
Bobby Orr, 1971 (+54 to +124 = +70)
Larry Robinson, 1977 (+50 to +120 = +70)

Not surprisingly, all occurred during the 1970s when the talent pool was stretched thin due to expansion and the WHA. Reggie Leach has by far the biggest single-season plus/minus improvement in history. He was dead last in the NHL in 1974 on the awful Golden Seals and jumped to 6th in the league on the Flyers the next year.

Biggest decreases
Brian Engblom, 1983 (+78 to -5 = -83)
Simon Nolet, 1975 (+27 to -52 = -79)
Rick Smith, 1973 (+35 to -43 = -78)
Mikael Renberg, 1998 (+36 to -37 = -73)
Ed Westfall, 1973 (+28 to -42 = -70)

Engblom was traded from the Canadiens (where he had the 2nd best plus/minus in the NHL after Gretzky) to the Capitals (Langway won the Norris that year). Renberg is the only player on either list outside of 1971 to 1983 - getting traded to the expansion Lightning isn't good for your plus/minus.

To answer the question (subject to divine intervention and/or pnep), Gaudreau's -97 in one year appears to be the record.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i wonder what the biggest swing from double digit pluses to minuses, or vice versa, are for players who didn’t change teams

two i found are

curtis leschyshyn: -28 to +25 between 92 and 93 (not the only double digit swing on the nords those years but he was the biggest)

and surprisingly sakic: +14 to -10 between 96 and 97

and several guys on the 97 and 98 sens

derian hatcher on the 93 north stars and 94 stars

and alex edler, -39 on the tortorella canucks of 2014 and +13 on the willie desjardins canucks the year after

 

[The Panther]

Biggest increases
Larry Robinson, 1977 (+50 to +120 = +70)

The other examples kind of make sense to me, considering team fortunes and whatnot, but this one is always curious. The Habs improved five points in the standings from '76 to '77, but they were already arguably the best team ever by 1976. So, what happened to Robinson's ES results that he massively improved from one season to the next?

 

[Staniowski]

The other examples kind of make sense to me, considering team fortunes and whatnot, but this one is always curious. The Habs improved five points in the standings from '76 to '77, but they were already arguably the best team ever by 1976. So, what happened to Robinson's ES results that he massively improved from one season to the next?

He did massively improve as a player from '76 to '77. It was the biggest and most significant improvement of his career. In '76 he was one of many stars on the Habs; he became the team's best player in '77, and the team was better too.

 

[Dingo]

Quoting myself from an older thread:

Let's restrict it to players in at least, say, 50 games in both seasons (otherwise a player can go from a breakeven rating in a few games to a big number during the following season).

These are the biggest change I could find in my database. Only God and Pnep can tell me I'm wrong.

Biggest increases
Reggie Leach, 1975 (-62 to +53 = +115)
Dallas Smith, 1971 (+8 to +98 = +90)
Jerry Korab, 1975 (-41 to +41 = +82)
Bobby Orr, 1971 (+54 to +124 = +70)
Larry Robinson, 1977 (+50 to +120 = +70)

Not surprisingly, all occurred during the 1970s when the talent pool was stretched thin due to expansion and the WHA. Reggie Leach has by far the biggest single-season plus/minus improvement in history. He was dead last in the NHL in 1974 on the awful Golden Seals and jumped to 6th in the league on the Flyers the next year.

Biggest decreases
Brian Engblom, 1983 (+78 to -5 = -83)
Simon Nolet, 1975 (+27 to -52 = -79)
Rick Smith, 1973 (+35 to -43 = -78)
Mikael Renberg, 1998 (+36 to -37 = -73)
Ed Westfall, 1973 (+28 to -42 = -70)

Engblom was traded from the Canadiens (where he had the 2nd best plus/minus in the NHL after Gretzky) to the Capitals (Langway won the Norris that year). Renberg is the only player on either list outside of 1971 to 1983 - getting traded to the expansion Lightning isn't good for your plus/minus.

To answer the question (subject to divine intervention and/or pnep), Gaudreau's -97 in one year appears to be the record.

really indicates the lack of parity during that era!

 

[The Panther]

He did massively improve as a player from '76 to '77. It was the biggest and most significant improvement of his career. In '76 he was one of many stars on the Habs; he became the team's best player in '77, and the team was better too.

I don't doubt that he suddenly became stronger and I'm sure it was a "perfect storm" kind of thing to have such a massive leap in ES results, but... Could any individual player actually improve that much individually (when the team otherwise didn't) over one summer? I'm just wondering if Robinson's deployment changed, or if his D-partner changed...?

 

[overpass]

I don't doubt that he suddenly became stronger and I'm sure it was a "perfect storm" kind of thing to have such a massive leap in ES results, but... Could any individual player actually improve that much individually (when the team otherwise didn't) over one summer? I'm just wondering if Robinson's deployment changed, or if his D-partner changed...?

I posted about Robinson's likely partners, based on game-by-game plus-minus correlation, in the post below.

D-partners of the greats

Using the game-by-game plus-minus correlation method I outlined here, I'm going to go through the careers of some of the great defencemen from 1960 to 2000 and identify who their defence partners were. Starting with the great Bobby Orr. I'm bolding anything about 0.7 as more-or-less a full...

forums.hfboards.com

Based on the numbers, he didn't really have a regular partner in 1975-76, and then in 1976-77 he played mostly with Serge Savard. His correlation with Guy Lafleur increased in 76-77 as well, suggesting he may have played more with the top line that season. Which makes sense since he was levelling up as a player and was a very effective rusher with Savard watching his back.

Generally speaking, I found Robinson played more of an offensive role than a defensive role for much of his career, based on him having played more with offensive players. Particularly in the 1970s, and then again in the mid-to-late 80s when he played with young Petr Svoboda. For a player with a great defensive reputation, it was only a short period in the early 80s when he was really playing a defensive role. There was often someone else like Guy Lapointe, Craig Ludwig, Chris Chelios, or Rick Green taking the toughest defensive minutes.

 

[vikash1987]

Holy cow. -62 to +53!!!

Reggie Leach was the first player who came to mind. Credit Fred Shero, the Flyers’ coach, for getting Leach into a system which encouraged checking and defensive responsibility away from the puck. Super helpful, since he wasn’t hot in the scoring department right off the bat.

Interesting when you look at his game logs: in ‘74-‘75, he was a minus in only five R.S. games (never worse than -1). By contrast, in the previous season with the system-less California Golden Seals, there were a handful of games where he was a -4 or a -5 while going pointless.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

ok so some 40+ pt swings for players who didn't change teams where both years are in double digit:

brian leetch — 1997: +31, 1998: -36, swing: 67

jerry korab — 1974: -23*, 1975: +41, swing: 64

thomas vanek — 2005: -11, 2006: +47, swing: 58 (campbell also with a 40+ swing on that team)

mike modano — 1996: -12, 1997: +43, swing 55

curtis leschyshyn — 1992: -28, 1993: +25, swing: 53 (sundin also with a 40+ swing)

alex edler — 2014: -39, 2015: +13, swing: 52

al secord — 1982: -17, 1983: +35, swing: 52

aaron ekblad — 2022: +38, 2023: -14, swing: 52

filip kuba — 2011: -26, 2012: +26, swing: 52 (phillips and karlsson also with 40+ swings)

david shaw — 1986: +13, 1987: -36, swing: 49

mike o’connell — 1987: -24, 1988: +24, swing: 48

alex ovechkin — 2007: -19, 2008: +28, swing: 47

derian hatcher — 1993: -27, 1994: +19, swing: 46

alex ovechkin — 2014: -35, 2015: +10, swing: 45

garry howatt — 1974: -13, 1975: +32, swing: 45 (potvin also with a 40+ swing)

dino ciccarelli — 1987: +11, 1988: -29, swing: 40



* -23 was in only 45 games with the sabres; korab also racked up another -18 in 31 games on the canucks in ’74

 

[The Panther]

If the topic were 20 games played, with the same team, I'm confident that nobody in history can "beat" Jack Lynch (defenceman from Toronto area).

In his last 20 games with Washington in 1974-75 (shortly after being traded there), Lynch was -54.
In his first 20 games with Washington in 1978-79, Lynch was +7.

That's a plus'minus difference of 61 over 20-game samples.

 

[Crosby2010]

Lemieux had a couple of major decreases in his career. +41 in 1989 to -18 in 1990, a difference of -59. Then +55 in 1993 to -2 in 1994 a difference of -57. Gretzky's biggest drop was +30 in 1991 to -12 in 1992, especially to all of the people that like to point out his play after the Suter hit. This certainly supports that theory.

Twice Ovechkin took some big leaps. 2007 he was -19 to +28 in 2008. Then that bizarre year where he was -35 in 2014 and then onto +10 in 2015.

Big drop for Espo with +17 in 1975 to -39 in 1976, thanks to the trade to the Rangers.