Canucks Analytics

[tantalum]

Bo Horvat with Gudbranson - 36.4% GF%
Bo Horvat without Gudbranson - 55.6 GF%

Elias Pettersson with Gudbranson - 47.1 GF%
Elias Pettersson without Gudbranson - 67.5 GF%

Gudbranson can even turn the almighty Pettersson into an average hockey player.

I almost feel bad for Green. I mean he can't put Gudbranson out on the ice with anyone other than the best offensive players or they will get completely buried. I say almost because Gudbranson should be in the press box and Green keeps on trotting him out even when everyone is healthy.

 

[Hockeyphysio]

I can see why green keeps Gudbranson and Beagle away from each other, the results are not pretty

 

[4Twenty]

I almost feel bad for Green. I mean he can't put Gudbranson out on the ice with anyone other than the best offensive players or they will get completely buried. I say almost because Gudbranson should be in the press box and Green keeps on trotting him out even when everyone is healthy.

It really shows how Travis feels about Gudbranson that when Edler goes down they move, in Travis' words. "their best defender" to play his offside to baby-sit Mr. 440 NHL games.

 

[Melvin]

I wonder if there's any way to extract data about both shots that go in as well as shots that generate additional scoring chances (ie. a shot and a rebound). I think some shooters that aren't skilled enough to beat a goalie clean must be better at generating second chances with their shot than others. From there you could generate an expected value per shot and track players by that metric, find out who actually turns shot attempts into points, and who just shoots uselessly generating 'possession stats' but not actually creating value.

It might turn out that finding what I'll dub 'shooting playmakers' is a way to further identify high-value players via stats.

Interesting question and yeah, definitely something I can look into. I will get back to you.

Here is a followup to some of the data I posted before. I have broken down shots in all kinds of different ways and basically found 4 distinct curves:

Some takeaways:

1) I found basically no difference between shots taken on the PP vs. SH. This was weird to me at first but then made sense when I thought about it. Most shots that are taken while short-handed are high-quality scoring chances. Taken together, the Special Teams curve is different than the ES curve, as you would expect.

2) The ES And ST curves above are just slapshots, wristshots and snapshots, among which I found basically no difference. Deflections and Backhanders do have a different curve as they have about the same chance of scoring when close but drop off faster as you get further from the net (again, as makes sense.) Deflections and Backhanders drop off at around the same rate. This is the distance of the deflection BTW, not the distance of the original shot. The highest-quality chances are deflections that are close to the net, again as makes sense and as you expect.

3) Wrap-arounds are the 4th distinct curve, scoring at a much lower rate. They are generally successful 5-10% of the time and the "distance" is kind of a hard thing to describe, but it still seems to be meaningful. Here is an example of a "wrap-around" goal that has a longer distance, if you are curious as I was:

Even though there is nothing all that surprising here, it is sometimes nice when the data shows what you expect it to!

Now with 4 curves we can do more precise measurements in terms of calculating the % chance that a shot attempt will be a goal based on the distance, shot type and team-strength. Taken together, guess who leads the league in bettering these percentages?

Player	Shots	Avg. Distance (ft)	Expected Goals	Actual Goals	+/-
ELIAS PETTERSSON	160	31.23	10.46	25	14.54
BRAYDEN POINT	219	22.71	18.85	31	12.15
LEON DRAISAITL	247	27.17	20.42	32	11.58
JEFF SKINNER	272	26.41	22.68	33	10.32
ALEX OVECHKIN	433	37.08	26.85	37	10.15
ALEX DEBRINCAT	265	30.2	18.15	28	9.85
STEVEN STAMKOS	299	33.2	18.85	28	9.15
JOE PAVELSKI	223	22.39	20.07	29	8.93
MARK SCHEIFELE	227	27.5	18.31	27	8.69
MIKE HOFFMAN	285	36.43	15.32	24	8.68

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Jay Cee]

How do we determine expected goals?

 

[Wo Yorfat]

Is guddy uniquely terrible? Are there players around the league as detrimental to teammates performance across the board?

 

[Melvin]

Is guddy uniquely terrible? Are there players around the league as detrimental to teammates performance across the board?

It's a good question. I suspect not but it's hard to quantify such a thing. I'll see if I can come up with something though because it's interesting and I'm curious too.

 

[Melvin]

By the way the worst shooter on the Canucks based on the above methodology, has been Bo Horvat. Based on the shots he's taken, he's expected to have 22-23 goals instead of 18. Is it bad luck or bad shooting?

 

[Wo Yorfat]

By the way the worst shooter on the Canucks based on the above methodology, has been Bo Horvat. Based on the shots he's taken, he's expected to have 22-23 goals instead of 18. Is it bad luck or bad shooting?

Might be nothing more than him being 0/8000 lifetime on the ol' jam play.

 

[Tables of Stats]

By the way the worst shooter on the Canucks based on the above methodology, has been Bo Horvat. Based on the shots he's taken, he's expected to have 22-23 goals instead of 18. Is it bad luck or bad shooting?

I think it's more the case that he's not being given the help he needs to produce. He's good but not great at a lot of things and his shooting distance just means he's bulled in and taken a shot, not that he's actually in a good position to score on that shot. He needs wingers able to open up space for him if we want him to score, Baertschi seems to fill that role, but with his injury history, we need to look at signing more reliable help for Bo this offseason.

 

[Horse McHindu]

Uh no. This is getting off-topic, but to give this an accurate response: Hulk Hogan is a racist.

Hogan’s not a racist. He’s just incredibly selfish and will bury pretty much anyone (outside of his parents and kids) If it worked to his advantage. He’s also incredibly petty. His racial tirade was just him venting frustration over his daughter. If you’re looking for a true racist wrestler however, look no further than Ric Flair and Arn Anderson.

 

[Horse McHindu]

Troy Stecher.

@Melvin - I’ll have to give you my props here. Great work and research! Also - my hats off to you on your recent interview. Hope you get some good news.

I’m not going to bury Gudbranson on here because I feel sorry for the guy, but I’ll say this about Stecher. I’ve never been a hardcore “advanced stats” guy, but even the old eye test shows that Stecher has taken a leap in his game. Stecher and Hutton both.

Glad to see Stecher continuing to own it from an advanced stats perspective and I hope that materializes into more opportunities for him.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Troy Stecher.

@Melvin - I’ll have to give you my props here. Great work and research! Also - my hats off to you on your recent interview. Hope you get some good news.

I’m not going to bury Gudbranson on here because I feel sorry for the guy, but I’ll say this about Stecher. I’ve never been a hardcore “advanced stats” guy, but even the old eye test shows that Stecher has taken a leap in his game. Stecher and Hutton both.

Glad to see Stecher continuing to own it from an advanced stats perspective and I hope that materializes into more opportunities for him.

You should become advanced stats guy. That way you don't have to rely on your eye. The eye can be extremely inaccurate.

 

[Horse McHindu]

You should become advanced stats guy. That way you don't have to rely on your eye. The eye can be extremely inaccurate.

I respect the advanced Stats but don’t want to be one of those guys that lives and dies by them. As much as the eyes can be extremely inaccurate, Advanced stats can be quite misleading as well if you don’t take other things into consideration. A well balanced approach is the key.

 

[Melvin]

You should become advanced stats guy. That way you don't have to rely on your eye. The eye can be extremely inaccurate.

Hockey doesn't have any advanced stats, unfortunately. I am really excited about the new tracking technology though.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Hockey doesn't have any advanced stats, unfortunately. I am really excited about the new tracking technology though.

Semantics.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I respect the advanced Stats but don’t want to be one of those guys that lives and dies by them. As much as the eyes can be extremely inaccurate, Advanced stats can be quite misleading as well if you don’t take other things into consideration. A well balanced approach is the key.

Weve seen pro scouts, who played years in the NHL have zero talent for using their eyes to evaluate talent.

Definitely use the data over your amateur hockey fan eyes.

 

[Melvin]

Is guddy uniquely terrible? Are there players around the league as detrimental to teammates performance across the board?

OK, so here is what I did. It is somewhat complicated and I might not have the right approach so I appreciate feedback, but bear with me while I try to explain.

This is just using +/- as a first approach, the same technique could be applied to shot attempts or whatever you prefer. Let's not focus on that for now, more on the approach.

For each player, I took their +/- with other players and compared it to the second player's average +/- (weighted by TOI) when not playing with the first player.

For example. Ben Hutton when not playing with Gudbranson has a TOI-weighted average +/- of -1 with every other player.

Then I took that metric and divided by the players ice-time, and multiplied by their ice-time with the "evaluated player" to get an expected +/-. So Ben Hutton, since he has spent about 70% of his TOI with Gudbranson, has an expected "+/-" of -0.70 with Gudbranson. Basically. Then, Gudbranson's "impact" on Hutton is (-19) - (-0.70) = -18.3. Finally, I then applied this to every player to calculate the average impact that Gudbranson has on each player.

Then, finally, I calculated the "average impact" that every player has on every other player on the team, again weighted by TOI.

Does that make sense? I know, it's confusing and took me some time to get my head around it.

Here is the Canucks:

Player	AverageImpact
ERIK GUDBRANSON	-6.39
BRANDON SUTTER	-4.09
BEN HUTTON	-3.59
TYLER MOTTE	-2.09
MARKUS GRANLUND	-1.81
BRENDAN LEIPSIC	-1.36
TIM SCHALLER	-1.34
CHRISTOPHER TANEV	-1.07
LOUI ERIKSSON	-0.87
JAY BEAGLE	-0.82
JAKE VIRTANEN	-0.53
ALEXANDER EDLER	-0.37
ADAM GAUDETTE	-0.35
SVEN BAERTSCHI	-0.35
BO HORVAT	-0.11
ALEX BIEGA	0.11
MICHAEL DEL ZOTTO	0.44
NIKOLAY GOLDOBIN	1.01
ANTOINE ROUSSEL	1.22
DERRICK POULIOT	1.51
TROY STECHER	3.17
JOSH LEIVO	3.33
BROCK BOESER	3.43
ELIAS PETTERSSON	5.17

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Pouliot is pretty surprising here, as is Tanev, but it does line up with what we saw from the individual WOWY's, where Gudbranson and Sutter have basically terrible scores with everyone, and Pettersson great scores with everyone, so we accomplished our goal.

But the question was, is Erik Gudbranson the worst in the NHL? Are there other players who consistently have worse "with" than "without" on their teammates?

Here is your answer:

Player	AverageImpact
ERIK GUDBRANSON	-6.39
MATT NISKANEN	-6.01
DMITRY ORLOV	-5.78
IVAN PROVOROV	-4.99
MARC-EDOUARD VLASIC	-4.27
MAGNUS PAAJARVI	-4.26
CODY CECI	-4.25
RYAN CARPENTER	-4.18
BRANDON DUBINSKY	-4.14
BRANDON SUTTER	-4.09

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

So there you have it. At least in terms of goal +/-, nobody consistently has worst +/- with everyone on their team, than their teammates do without.

Having said that though, this list indicates that this is likely not a perfect approach. Most of these players are not considered terrible players. In fact, Vlasic is often considered elite. Is this just because we are using goal +/- instead of something like shot attempts?

* EDIT: I removed a table which applies the same methodology to Shot Attempts because I found problems with the Shot Attempt data. I will re-post after I fixed it. *

Anyway, so this is a work in progress but feel free to let me know what you think.

 

[Melvin]

Semantics.

I suppose. I guess it's just a pet peeve of mine that "shot attempts" is considered "advanced" just because someone for some stupid reason decided to call it "Corsi."

 

[Peter10]

OK, so here is what I did. It is somewhat complicated and I might not have the right approach so I appreciate feedback, but bear with me while I try to explain.

This is just using +/- as a first approach, the same technique could be applied to shot attempts or whatever you prefer. Let's not focus on that for now, more on the approach.

For each player, I took their +/- with other players and compared it to the second player's average +/- (weighted by TOI) when not playing with the first player.

For example. Ben Hutton when not playing with Gudbranson has a TOI-weighted average +/- of -1 with every other player.

Then I took that metric and divided by the players ice-time, and multiplied by their ice-time with the "evaluated player" to get an expected +/-. So Ben Hutton, since he has spent about 70% of his TOI with Gudbranson, has an expected "+/-" of -0.70 with Gudbranson. Basically. Then, Gudbranson's "impact" on Hutton is (-19) - (-0.70) = -18.3. Finally, I then applied this to every player to calculate the average impact that Gudbranson has on each player.

Then, finally, I calculated the "average impact" that every player has on every other player on the team, again weighted by TOI.

Does that make sense? I know, it's confusing and took me some time to get my head around it.

Here is the Canucks:

Player	AverageImpact
ERIK GUDBRANSON	-6.39
BRANDON SUTTER	-4.09
BEN HUTTON	-3.59
TYLER MOTTE	-2.09
MARKUS GRANLUND	-1.81
BRENDAN LEIPSIC	-1.36
TIM SCHALLER	-1.34
CHRISTOPHER TANEV	-1.07
LOUI ERIKSSON	-0.87
JAY BEAGLE	-0.82
JAKE VIRTANEN	-0.53
ALEXANDER EDLER	-0.37
ADAM GAUDETTE	-0.35
SVEN BAERTSCHI	-0.35
BO HORVAT	-0.11
ALEX BIEGA	0.11
MICHAEL DEL ZOTTO	0.44
NIKOLAY GOLDOBIN	1.01
ANTOINE ROUSSEL	1.22
DERRICK POULIOT	1.51
TROY STECHER	3.17
JOSH LEIVO	3.33
BROCK BOESER	3.43
ELIAS PETTERSSON	5.17

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Pouliot is pretty surprising here, as is Tanev, but it does line up with what we saw from the individual WOWY's, where Gudbranson and Sutter have basically terrible scores with everyone, and Pettersson great scores with everyone, so we accomplished our goal.

But the question was, is Erik Gudbranson the worst in the NHL? Are there other players who consistently have worse "with" than "without" on their teammates?

Here is your answer:

Player	AverageImpact
ERIK GUDBRANSON	-6.39
MATT NISKANEN	-6.01
DMITRY ORLOV	-5.78
IVAN PROVOROV	-4.99
MARC-EDOUARD VLASIC	-4.27
MAGNUS PAAJARVI	-4.26
CODY CECI	-4.25
RYAN CARPENTER	-4.18
BRANDON DUBINSKY	-4.14
BRANDON SUTTER	-4.09

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

So there you have it. At least in terms of goal +/-, nobody consistently has worst +/- with everyone on their team, than their teammates do without.

Having said that though, this list indicates that this is likely not a perfect approach. Most of these players are not considered terrible players. In fact, Vlasic is often considered elite. Is this just because we are using goal +/- instead of something like shot attempts?

Here is what happens if we apply the same methodology to shot attempts.

Player	AverageImpact
MAXIME LAJOIE	-69.43
CODY CECI	-67.03
ERIK GUDBRANSON	-56.5
TOM PYATT	-53.95
CHRIS TIERNEY	-53.39
NEAL PIONK	-50.94
MATT NISKANEN	-47.96
BOBBY RYAN	-45.36
BRETT HOWDEN	-45.33
RYAN DZINGEL	-44.78

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

People might like this list better, but on the other hand there is a whole lot of Ottawa on that list! Which indicates to me that I haven't appropriately accounted for the bad team effect.

Anyway, so this is a work in progress but feel free to let me know what you think.

Since you do a sort of "player relative to other players on the team", shouldnt that then be followed up by "team relative to the league (average)"? That should give you the expected result for a player on an average team. However, no real idea how to do that in a way it makes sense.

 

[Melvin]

Since you do a sort of "player relative to other players on the team", shouldnt that then be followed up by "team relative to the league (average)"? That should give you the expected result for a player on an average team. However, no real idea how to do that in a way it makes sense.

But you shouldn't have to, right? If your "expected" is -5 (because your team sucks) and you are actually "only" -2 than your relative impact is +3. So it shouldn't matter how bad your team is.

Anyway, I found a bigger problem with the shot-attempts data so I removed that data table for now until I figure out what's wrong with it.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I suppose. I guess it's just a pet peeve of mine that "shot attempts" is considered "advanced" just because someone for some stupid reason decided to call it "Corsi."

The stats have advanced from +/- etc.

Its all relative.

 

[Peter10]

But you shouldn't have to, right? If your "expected" is -5 (because your team sucks) and you are actually "only" -2 than your relative impact is +3. So it shouldn't matter how bad your team is.

Anyway, I found a bigger problem with the shot-attempts data so I removed that data table for now until I figure out what's wrong with it.

I meant that to get rid of the "bad team effect" for the shot attempts.

 

[Melvin]

The stats have advanced from +/- etc.

Its all relative.

Some have, sure,but Corsi is no more "advanced" than +/-. It's the exact same thing, with all shot attempts instead of only ones that are goals.

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Some have, sure,but Corsi is no more "advanced" than +/-. It's the exact same thing, with all shot attempts instead of only ones that are goals.

Less of a low event stat. Its a step in the right direction.

I doubt we disagree too much on this.

We lack a bunch of data compared to sports where collecting it is easier.