Does goals to assist ratio from draft eligible players have any correlation with bust probability?

[BigRangy]

I have a hypothesis and I feel like someone here can check it in one tenth the time it will take me.

Goals to assist ratio (G/A): the amount of goals scored by a player divided by the amount of assists the player has.

My thought is that as a draft eligible player’s G/A gets larger, they become more likely to fail to impress relative to their draft selection.

What I would like to do is sample all top 10 picks, all top 30 picks, and all picks to see if there’s any learnings to be had.

I’ll do top 10 picks at some point with the resources I have but I don’t know how to efficiently do more than that.

What would your thoughts be on this? If a player demonstrates low talent in assists in junior then I would think they’ll struggle to adapt to the NHL, when precision passing is a huge chunk of offense. Conversely, do players with low G/A ratios end up being impact NHLers? I imagine someone has done this analysis before so if anyone knows where that is I’d be interested in a link.

Click to read more...

 

[BigRangy]

There's 61 players from draft year 2005 to 2017 who played their draft year in the CHL.

My analysis is not scientific at all.

Of the 20 players with the lowest G/A ratios:
average pick: 5.5
busts: 4 (sheppard, glass, burmistrov, hamill)

Of the middle 21 players with the most balanced G/A ratios:
average pick: 3.8
busts: 5 (A Nylander, Glennie, MDC, included Drouin and Patrick here, not sure if those are fair)

of the 20 players with the highest G/A ratios:
average pick: 6.0
busts: 6 (brule, yak, hodgson, brett connolly, nick ritchie, virtanen; rasmussen and tippett were close to making it but seem to be panning out now)


So it seems like on average the players that are more goal skewed are usually picked later (Tavares/Stamkos being big exceptions), and seem to end up busting more. Probably someone who has better data science knowledge than me can probably do more to see.

The 4 players with the highest ratios were Rasmussen, Tippett, Niederreiter, and Virtanen. Not a great group of guys overall, especially for the teams that drafted them.

 

[rubenflamshep]

If we're only looking at G:A ratio, I'm not convinced there would be enough of a signal there to garner anything meaningful.

Overall though, the people who "can check it in one tenth the time it will take me" are able to do that because they did it a bunch of times when it took them 10x the time. That practice is how they got good at it! Seems like you're pretty excited by this hypothesis so I'd be happy to point you to resources/give you some advice if you'd like to take this project on.

 

[BigRangy]

The “take less time” thought is more about people with the database handy, I had to go to hockeydb and transcribe every top 10 pick’s draft year stats. Didn’t take as long as I thought it would but once I did the actual analysis was like 5 min. I need to figure out how to scrape data from the web and tabulate it.

 

[GAGLine]

I don't think it can be distilled in that way. There are too many other contributing factors. A player may skew more toward goals or assists, but the important thing is how they get those goals or assists and how that will translate to the NHL.

Some guys have to reinvent themselves when they get to this level because what made them successful at lower levels no longer works. Some guys aren't able to manage it and they bust. I look at a guy like Wahlstrom. I wouldn't necessarily call him a bust as he's only 23 and still has time to figure it out, but it's clear that what worked for him in the USHL/NTDP isn't working for him now.

Then there's a guy like Kreider whose game was built on speed and strength coming out of high school prep. Today he's one of if not the best at deflecting pucks. He also leads the league in SHG over the last 2+ years (when he first started killing penalties). He still gets a portion of his goals by using his speed, but that alone was only able to take him so far in the NHL. It wasn't until age 30 that he scored more than 28 goals in a season. He had to add other weapons to his arsenal to reach that next level.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Your concept isn't bad, because there is something here. It's just very incomplete. Also, there isn't going to be a one size fits all deal here...

 

[rubenflamshep]

The “take less time” thought is more about people with the database handy, I had to go to hockeydb and transcribe every top 10 pick’s draft year stats. Didn’t take as long as I thought it would but once I did the actual analysis was like 5 min. I need to figure out how to scrape data from the web and tabulate it.

Yea doing it by hand will always be a pain. There is a API end point here with NHL draft information and the skatersummary endpoint documented here will get you season summary statistics.

If your python isn't so good the free version of chat gpt can get you from 0 -> 1 on this with some prodding!

 

[Akrapovince]

I wish there was a way to put a number on a goal and assist to differentiate them.

A goal bouncing off of your shin pad and a goal scored by finding a sweet spot in the ice and rifling it over a goalie’s shoulder is different.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I wish there was a way to put a number on a goal and assist to differentiate them.

You can. I've done it with goalie goals against - factoring quality and timing to adjust the GAA. You can do anything you want...

 

[Akrapovince]

You can. I've done it with goalie goals against - factoring quality and timing to adjust the GAA. You can do anything you want...

Are you the guy that breaks down defensemen prospects on YouTube??

If you are just wanted to mention how great those analysis were. I remember you saying those types of videos for forwards were hard to do, any particular reason?

 

[Michael Farkas]

Are you the guy that breaks down defensemen prospects on YouTube??

If you are just wanted to mention how great those analysis were. I remember you saying those types of videos for forwards were hard to do, any particular reason?

Haha I am...well, was. Thank you very much.

One, they're harder because I am worse at them. And two, I find that there's more to learn about team tactics when it comes to the two way play (forecheck/backcheck) of forwards than there is for d-men. It just makes it a little tougher to read their thought process without doing even more homework. From a pure technical skill perspective, it's not so bad...but technical is an incomplete analysis,.gotta have mental too...

 

[Golden_Jet]

So the more goals a draft eligible player gets, they become more likely fails to impress, relative to draft position.

Not sure there is a correlation there.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

So the more goals a draft eligible player gets, they become more likely fails to impress, relative to draft position.

Not sure there is a correlation there.

Unless they also get more assists as well.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Unless they also get more assists as well.

And the flip side of what I said, if they get more assists, than goals does that make it more impressive for draft position.

Not sure there is a correlation there either.