Does Plus/Minus Mean Anything Anymore?

[zeke]

it needs far too much "context" to even be a useful starting point.

 

[Menzinger]

I betcha the in house metrics don't ignore quality of competition as much as the public metrics do.

Yeah definitely.

I know dubas had the Leafs instal a player tracking camera system in the ACC - would be curious if that's being used to track matchups

Edit:typo

 

[thewave]

Yeah definitely.

I know divas had the Leafs instal a player tracking camera system in the ACC - would be curious if that's being used to tack matchups

They're all lit up. Know exactly what's going on out there.

 

[Golden_Jet]

good stat to compare players on the same team
Ie. Jake +20 best on team and Morgan -13 worst on team

Need to look at teams GF minus GA and then compare plus minus... ie Toronto is +9

Doesn't take into consideration if a player plays sheltered minutes

 

[Leafidelity]

You can use it alongside other stats - like quality of competition - but individually, it means next to nothing.

 

[Bluelines]

Yeah definitely.

I know dubas had the Leafs instal a player tracking camera system in the ACC - would be curious if that's being used to track matchups

Edit:typo

Hows that work?

 

[LEAFANFORLIFE23]

It's 100% meaningless

 

[Menzinger]

Hows that work?

They're a system of cameras that track a variety of specific player movements over the course of the game: how fast are they moving at dofferent parts of the rink, how often they touch the puck and where that happens, among other things.

 

[-DeMo-]

justin schultz is a +31. all this means is that he is the most sheltered dman on a great team. plus minus suggests he is the best defensive dman on the pens when in fact he is the worst.

It's not that +/- is slightly misleading or just needs context - it's that much of the time it tells us the exact OPPOSITE of what we think it does.

+/- isn't a defensive Stat, and a player with the highest +/- doesn't at all suggest he's been the best defensive player on the team...

 

[nsleaf]

It's awesome when all Leafs are +.

 

[Nithoniniel]

+/- isn't a defensive Stat, and a player with the highest +/- doesn't at all suggest he's been the best defensive player on the team...

But it does make a claim to be an at-glance stat for overall game and two-way impact, and there's plenty of work done that illustrates that it's rather a result of, in approximate order:

1) Team
2) Context & Usage
3) Linemates
4) Individual Player

+/- wants to tell you a little bit about almost, but not quite, everything. What it actually tells us is something undefined about who knows what. A good +/- is inherently good, but to what degree is very hard to tell.

A good statistic has a clear purpose. It knows what it wants to show you. +/- gives you the opposite of that.

Bottom line: Whatever information you want about a player, there's a better option for it than +/-.

 

[FrozenJagrt]

Phil Kessel once led the league in +- with, if I remember correctly, +36.

 

[Confucius]

It's an important stat that is overlooked my many. To answer your question "does it mean anything anymore, yes most hockey pools count plus/minus and it shows if the player is an overall good player, not just scoring, but also defense.

Stamkos is plus 8 for his career, he ranks 980th all time in NHL plus minus
Ovechkin ranks 246th all time
Crosby ranks 99th all time
Three pretty good players with pretty bad plus minus rankings.

 

[Mess]

Babcock in the pregame show mentioned Gardiner's +20 directly and then mentioned it in context to Rielly who is a negative.

He defended that in part by stating Morgan faced the oppositions best players on most nights but needed to be better as he was on for all 4 goals against the previous game.

So we do know Leafs coach is aware of it and applies it to his team in response to their play.

 

[Darch]

+/- is like GAA for goalies. It varies way too much based on who you play with. What role you have.

 

[Confucius]

+/- is like GAA for goalies. It varies way too much based on who you play with. What role you have.

Mostly on just who you are playing against.

 

[Rogie]

Just looking at Boyle's plus/minus - his was the 2nd best on that team - so, that's likely a good thing.

Looking at the better teams over the years and top teams in the league - or Cup winners of the past - you'll frequently see those teams have few or very few plus/minus players, I don't think the Caps have any minus players at the moment, though it changes game to game (you could say, it's just statistically got to be that way to be a top team - true), but, nevertheless, it does make sense as well, if you are adding players to your team, then, adding players who had good plus minuses on another team would be a good thing. Sure, there might situations where you get a player from another team that had the 2nd worst plus minus on the team, but, you'd want to certainly take a pretty close look at that context.

 

[Ash35]

Gardiner is +38 higher than Reilly. Reilly plays against tougher competition but that's way too much of a difference not to mean anything. A high +/- doesn't mean you are good defensively, it just means while you are on the ice you're team scores more than the other side. Which is good.

 

[zeke]

Just looking at Boyle's plus/minus - his was the 2nd best on that team - so, that's likely a good thing.

Looking at the better teams over the years and top teams in the league - or Cup winners of the past - you'll frequently see those teams have few or very few plus/minus players, I don't think the Caps have any minus players at the moment, though it changes game to game (you could say, it's just statistically got to be that way to be a top team - true), but, nevertheless, it does make sense as well, if you are adding players to your team, then, adding players who had good plus minuses on another team would be a good thing. Sure, there might situations where you get a player from another team that had the 2nd worst plus minus on the team, but, you'd want to certainly take a pretty close look at that context.

you're looking at it backwards - good teams cause good plus minuses, not vice versa.

Lars Eller was a -13 last year with the habs, and hadn't been a plus player for years, and now he's a +15 on the caps.

Winnik was a -3 with the leafs but has put up +22 since joining the caps.

These players haven't magically become better with Washington.

meanwhile, brooks orpik at age 36 is putting up a team leading and career best +32. is it because he's playing better than ever? no - the opposite actually. He's been demoted to the most sheltered and limited minutes of his career.

So again +/- tells us the opposite of the truth - Orpik's career best +/- is the result of a demotion to the smallest role of his career, not the result of improvee play.

 

[diceman934]

Gardiner is sheltered and gets a lot of easy comp...played a lot with our highest scoring line against 3 rd lines.

He is having a great year but to be honest we would be a better team if he could be used to face better competition.

Plus minus is as usefull as shots on goal as a stat to evaluated a player individual as it is a team stat.

 

[Leaf Army]

Plus minus is still an important stat. Yes it needs a lot of context but it can still be useful. Just depends on how you use it.

If look at Gardiner at +23 and Rielly at -15 and simply conclude that Gardiner is a better player then you don't know anything about hockey.

But if you look at those numbers and use them as a starting point to ask more questions then it's a very helpful stat. Look at ice time. What types of game situations are they used? Who do they play with? Who do they match up against etc...

So I personally don't look at their +\- and automatically conclude that Gardiner is better than Rielly. That's dumb.

But I DO look at those stats and think Babcock is using Gardiner is all the right situations this year. He's obviously found a role on this team and is fitting in nicely. If anything maybe Gardiner should be taking on a bit more responsibility.

Meanwhile I look at Rielly's -15 and while I don't think it means he's a bad player I do think it means he's not being used correctly. He's being asked to do too much. He's being asked to be a shutdown guy on this team and would probably better suited to more of a two-way role. We need another big minute shutdown guy that can take some of that pressure off Rielly and help put Rielly in more of a situation where he can excel.

So I do think +\- is very useful in that way.