Narrative around PP goals and points being of "lesser value"

[daver]

This comes up quite often as a differentiator between players with similar raw offensive numbers/scoring placements etc.. That the player with the higher % of ES goals/points should be viewed as better given they "relied less on the PP". Or even a player with lower raw offensive numbers/scoring placements gets boosted up a level.

Are there are any concrete player examples that clearly show this?

I am not talking about a general decline in relative scoring due to less PPs being called and I am not talking about a player whose numbers declined for other reasons such as the normal regression due to age. What I am referring to is any statistical anomalies that show up on a player's resume that can clearly be attributed to an increase or decrease in relative PP TOI. I.e. their PP TOI clearly affected their scoring placement.

And even if there are examples of this, is it reasonable to project that broadly to other player's who had a high % of PP points vs. their peers?

Click to read more...

 

[NyQuil]

I find it bizarre myself.

I remember seeing it when Subban won the Norris in the lockout shortened season.

Putting up PP points is absolutely supporting your team in terms of making the most of those key opportunities. Not to mention, it can keep opposing teams honest when you consistently make them pay for infractions.

In the Stanley Cup finals in 2007, the Sens had three 5 on 3 opportunities in five games IIRC and failed to score on any of them.

Given that 3 of 4 losses were by a single goal scored in the third period, and that the Ducks played a physical style of play including running picks at even strength to slow down incoming forecheckers, failing to convert on those high quality opportunities may well have contributed strongly to their loss.

The following season, the Ducks were bounced in the first round by Dallas, undoubtedly partly due to a hangover and personnel changes, but also because the Stars were able to punish their transgressions by torching them on the PP.

Sorry that my rant did not actually address your question.

Personally I think that the whole ES argument is often used to speak critically of a player when you don’t have much else to criticize them about.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

It's not my argument, but I believe it hinges around that players who score a disproportionate share of points with the man advantage are playing in more favorable situations than those who don't.

If it were easier to compare the full time spent by Player A and Player B on the power play during the year, that would be more compelling, but that's not highly promoted (and power play goals are, so everyone can readily compare them).

For instance, if Player A and Player B each had 30 goals, but Player A averaged 6:00/game on the power play and Player B didn't, there's good evidence that Player A has more opportunities to score.

 

[Regal]

It happens all the time with pretty much every player who is traded to a team where he is given an expanded role.

 

[The Macho King]

It's not my argument, but I believe it hinges around that players who score a disproportionate share of points with the man advantage are playing in more favorable situations than those who don't.

If it were easier to compare the full time spent by Player A and Player B on the power play during the year, that would be more compelling, but that's not highly promoted (and power play goals are, so everyone can readily compare them).

For instance, if Player A and Player B each had 30 goals, but Player A averaged 6:00/game on the power play and Player B didn't, there's good evidence that Player A has more opportunities to score.

There's this, but I think there's a couple of more layers.

One being the playoff argument. The argument goes that PPs are less likely in the playoffs (and especially in high leverage situations in the playoffs), so relying on the PP to score is not directly translatable to a playoff environment.

The second is (and I don't think this is exclusive to PP but usage generally) - but just by being on a top PP unit, that locks in a certain number of points no matter how good you are on the PP or how good the PP itself is. Basically - the worst PP in the league is going to click at 15%, and the way secondary assists work, just by being on the ice you're guaranteed to get some of those points.

I think those arguments have a bit of truth when applied to your average player - or maybe even with good players. It's a pretty dumb argument when applied to superstars and especially legends (a la Mario).

 

[NyQuil]

Another layer is the system that the team plays and how goals are scored at even strength vs. the powerplay.

Skillsets that benefit a player from scoring at even strength or shorthanded do not necessarily translate to the PP. I've seen this firsthand in Ottawa, with guys like Alex Formenton much more dangerous in transition and Nick Paul more effective off the cycle.

When it comes to the PP, clean zone entries, maintaining puck possession while waiting/creating the high quality scoring chance, stickhandling, the ability to control the puck, to beat a man cleanly, these all factor in to a greater degree than they typically do at even strength when there is less time and space to operate in.

Ottawa has been besieged by injuries this year and while hard work and effort can take you so far, when it comes to the PP, the Senators have been lacking a lot of depth in the skill department and it shows, particularly when the second unit is out there.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Like others said above, it boils down to guys that score a lot because of the PP aren't seen as reliable come playoff time when PP opportunities disappear.

They're also (rightly IMO) seen as not as good as someone who scores around the same amount but with more ES points. Basically what % of your points come from the PP vs a similar player.

For the ES scorer example, I'd point to Marchand. People point out the mid career jump he made to superstar scoring levels, and that jump was driven almost purely by getting PP time under Cassidy.

When he was a 50 pt forward, he was still putting up 20+ ES goals and 40+ ES points per season. His jump to 100 points has been driven by his PP assists jumping from a career high of 2, to averaging 18-25 a year. In addition his ES assists have gone up from the mid 20s to mid 30s.

To the playoff point, since his jump in PP production, he still has 64 points in 60 playoff games

 

[Rengorlex]

The average powerplay replacement player is much better than the even strength replacement player. A lot of specialists lose their value if their team already has a specialist that is about as good in that role, while this never happens in even strength as the minutes are mostly taken away from 4th line/AHL tweeners.

Obviously every team is going to benefit massively if they take away their worst PP player and replace it with a Kucherov or McDavid. The needle movers are valuable, but a lot of PP players are easily replaceable. Whatever Clayton Keller does in AZ powerplay would bring close to zero value to many teams (say Tampa Bay) in the league, because he isn't good enough to push the powerplay to be better at all in those teams. This doesn't mean he necessarily can't bring value to other teams and other situations, but it's more context dependent and can vanish, which ES value doesn't.

 

[MadLuke]

For me it goes way beyond the realibilty and the there is no power play during the overtime of a game 7.

Why PP, SH and EV points does not have the exact same value in my opinion is this one:

Point does not matter goal created do.
Goal created over the players that would have played your minutes is what make you good offensively or a drag on team.
Points at SH add more goals than points at EV and point at EV adds more goals than power play points.

Are there are any concrete player examples that clearly show this?

To put a concrete example, the Penguins in 91-92 and 92-93 combined together (a rare example of a superstar missing (40) but also playing (124) a lot of games).

With Lemieux they scored 4.64 goals a games, without Lemieux they scored 3.38 goal a game

Lemieux scored 2.36 points a game to add a giant 1.26 goals a game to a team, more than half a goal by points.

The Penguins added .23 power play goal a game and 1.03 non power play goals a game.
Lemieux had .82 powerplay point a game versus 1.52 non power play point game.

It seem grossly that a Lemieux PP point added .28 goals to is team, a non power play point added .677 goals to is team, more than twice.

It could be that it is just way more common to a play make a player that result on a power play goal that would have happened if your regular top 6 players was on is place (giving the puck to the D for example) than on EV strength and it is also way more common than a goal would have still happened on the power play 30s later on by someone else than for a goal on the regular strenght.

An other way to look at it, during the last full season, 2018-2019, an superbe power play was 25% a bad one was 17%, that a major difference, the league average PPO was 239.

If a single player (like a Lemieux) could turn a really bad power play to one of the best in the league single handily, he created 19 goals (if the team get 239 pp that year).
pp player getting a lot of minutes can get 35-40 points and I am not sure they can really do the above.

I think an analysis that look how much teams PP go down and up when a big power play point getter get in and out of the lineup could give some clue.

 

[daver]

I think those arguments have a bit of truth when applied to your average player - or maybe even with good players. It's a pretty dumb argument when applied to superstars and especially legends (a la Mario).

Agree with this sentiment. The ES vs. PP dynamic, and TOI arguments, do not apply when talking the very best offensive players in the game.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

Like others said above, it boils down to guys that score a lot because of the PP aren't seen as reliable come playoff time when PP opportunities disappear.

They're also (rightly IMO) seen as not as good as someone who scores around the same amount but with more ES points. Basically what % of your points come from the PP vs a similar player.

For the ES scorer example, I'd point to Marchand. People point out the mid career jump he made to superstar scoring levels, and that jump was driven almost purely by getting PP time under Cassidy.

When he was a 50 pt forward, he was still putting up 20+ ES goals and 40+ ES points per season. His jump to 100 points has been driven by his PP assists jumping from a career high of 2, to averaging 18-25 a year. In addition his ES assists have gone up from the mid 20s to mid 30s.

To the playoff point, since his jump in PP production, he still has 64 points in 60 playoff games

The average powerplay replacement player is much better than the even strength replacement player. A lot of specialists lose their value if their team already has a specialist that is about as good in that role, while this never happens in even strength as the minutes are mostly taken away from 4th line/AHL tweeners.

Obviously every team is going to benefit massively if they take away their worst PP player and replace it with a Kucherov or McDavid. The needle movers are valuable, but a lot of PP players are easily replaceable. Whatever Clayton Keller does in AZ powerplay would bring close to zero value to many teams (say Tampa Bay) in the league, because he isn't good enough to push the powerplay to be better at all in those teams. This doesn't mean he necessarily can't bring value to other teams and other situations, but it's more context dependent and can vanish, which ES value doesn't.

both of these are kind of my feel about this

you're not losing much if you replace brock boeser on vancouver's PP with a less talented guy, say connor garland or tanner pearson

but you're losing a hell of a lot if you replace alex burrows at ES with almost anyone else

so alex burrows scoring 25 ES goals/45+ ES points a year is an infinitely more valuable 28 goals/50 pts overall than boeser putting up essentially the same numbers but with 1/3 to 1/2 of his points coming on the PP. because burrows getting almost zero PP time means he takes on extra shutdown minutes at ES and a heavy PK load, while mason raymond or mikael samuelsson or whoever is holding down those PP minutes just fine.

but the guy with equivalent overall numbers, like matt moulson or michael ryder, pull them off the PP and they aren't going to do alex burrows stuff, or even score alex burrows points, at ES.

and i'm not saying that if you took away some of burrows' tougher assignments and replaced it with first unit PP time, he'd turn into a 100 pt scorer like marchand did. but if you look at his ES production in his peak four years, all the guys scoring at his ES were putting up 60-75 point seasons, with the exception of 2010, when the guys around him in ES scoring were putting up 80-95 pt seasons. i think you tack on 10-15 pts a year to his total to show his actual offensive value.

 

[Iron Mike Sharpe]

I think you have to look at both (1) the individual play of players & (2) the construction of the team & the systems they play in order to assess each individual and team in terms of what aspects of the game - EV or PP - are of "lesser value."

Thinking back to the Eddie Johnston-coached Penguins of 80-83, this was a team that was fairly mediocre all around in terms of roster construction and systems execution. They were regularly outgunned and outplayed at EV but had a robust PP, one of the best in the league through those three seasons. This is largely because some of their key offensive talents - particularly Paul Gardner, Rick Kehoe and Pat Boutette, the three forwards they relied upon most to generate offense - were notoriously poor defensive players - Gardner and Kehoe seemed lazy and sluggish, while Boutette was simply ineffective (not necessarily for lack of trying). But they all had good to great shots and decent passing skills when they didn't have to worry about fighting for the puck or not having clear shooting lanes. With Randy Carlyle as their PPQB, Pittsburgh managed to squeak into the playoffs the first two out of three of these seasons largely based on the fact that their PP unit could win games for them.

The year that Carlyle won the Norris, he was 7-39-46 on the PP, with a total of 83 points on the season. Gardner scored 18, 21 and 20 PPG, leading the league two years in a row, for a total of 59 PPG, while only scoring 48 EVG over the same time period, with each year's EVG successively declining (only 8 EVG in 82-83.) Kehoe was 20-19-39 PP out of 88 PTS in 81, 17-33-50 out of 85 in 82, and 15-23-38 out of 65 in 83.

At the time, there were no advanced stats, and the Penguins were largely praised for their PP prowess, as evidenced by the Carlyle Norris win, although within a year of that the hockey community had seriously downgraded their assessment of Carlyle's abilities, even though he put up comparable point totals to the previous year.

But the point is that, overall, while the power play helped lift the Penguins into playoff berths two years in a row, in the long run it wasn't sustainable, and they couldn't continue to mask the problems in their roster construction and their struggles to win games at EV.

We saw something similar with the recent Travis Green-coached Canucks. The 19-20 season which saw the Canucks squeak into the playoffs was partially because they put together an effective PP unit (the biggest factor, of course, was the goaltending.) Canucks fans like myself and others on HFBoards could observe how the Canucks struggled to score at EV, and that the PP successes (+ the goaltending) were to a certain extent providing cover for much deeper flaws in the way the team was coached, and how effective individual offensive players and the team as a whole was at EV. Eventually, when the team's PP success collapsed, it much more obviously exposed the team's flawed coaching system and roster construction, which factored into the coach and GM being fired after a historically disastrous start to this season.

So while a strong PP is always a good thing and should be applauded, if individual players and teams as a whole cannot play effectively at EV, it is always going to be a problem in the long run.

 

[daver]

Thanks for the responses.

I have seen this particular card played when talking about Mario and now about Ovechkin vs. Matthews.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

I think I know which thread you're referring to. It's a bunch of Auston Matthews fans trying to argue that Matthews is equal to (or better than) Ovechkin on the basis that they score around the same rate per minute. Speaking from experience - there's no point engaging, it's an echo chamber (they're looking to confirm their preconceived notions, not try to figure out what's true).

I agree that Ovechkin got more PP ice time relative to Matthews (partly because he entered the league at a time when more penalties were called, and partly due to how their coaches deploy them). But the "Matthews through six years equals Ovechkin through six years" argument doesn't take into account a lot of important points:

The entire argument focuses on the one thing that hurts Matthews (his lack of PP ice time relative to Ovechkin). But those same posters ignore the advantage that helps Matthews, which is that the league today is much higher scoring (per minute, at ES and on the PP). The goals per game in 2022 is almost exactly what it was in 2006 - but that's too simplistic. Players are scoring more per minute in both game situations today (it's just that ES is a larger proportion of the game now). By adjusting for Ovechkin getting more powerplay opportunities, and not adjusting for Matthews playing in a league where teams & players are scoring about 15% more per minute at ES, and about 15% more per minute on the PP, they're only capturing the part of the adjustment that helps their favourite player. You either adjust for both, or you adjust for neither.

The people advocating for Matthews are strangely silent on Stamkos. Even if you play along with their reasoning, and just look at ES and PP production per 60 minutes, Stamkos (from ages 19 to 24) is virtually even with Matthews (once you take into account the scoring environment). So this reasoning is used to argue that Matthews is on par with Ovechkin, but nobody mentions Stamkos (and in fact, I've seen one of them dismiss him), even though it's exactly the same logic.

If you look at Matthews' production on a per-game basis, and you look at how he does in games where he gets more ice time, there's no meaningful increase in his production. I divided the data several different ways (halves, thirds, quarters, fifths), to make sure maybe I wasn't getting a fluky result based on where the splits were. This also holds true when you look at ES and PP game states separately. One of the Matthews advocates said this was due to score effects (the sole extent of his rebuttal was simply throwing out that term, without explaining why or how it affects the data). But even if you look at Matthews' performance in wins and losses separately, the same trend holds true (that couldn't be the case if it was due to score effects - you'd see different patterns in wins vs. losses). Per-60 production is based on the unspoken assumption that production scales linearly with ice time, but it doesn't. (Full disclosure - I did this analysis a couple of years ago, maybe the trend has changed since).

The other issue with the per-60 argument is it doesn't take into deployment. Over the past few years, Matthews has spent the vast majority of his PP time with the Leafs' top unit (Marner, Tavares, and Nylander). All throughout his career, Ovechkin was getting significant time on the 2nd PP unit. The impact on per-minute production should be obvious. The 2nd unit, almost by definition, is weaker than the top powerplay, and scores less efficiently. That's why, looking year by year, Ovechkin usually has a few teammates (who only play on the 1st unit) who score more efficiently than he does on the powerplay - even though it's obvious to anybody who's watched the Capitals that, aside from a couple of down years, Ovechkin is the key to their powerplay. The point is - the per-60 stat isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. It's comparing one star playing almost exclusively with the first unit, to another star playing significant time with the second unit (which drags down the average). The Capitals coaches (and there have been a lot of them since 2006 - so it's hard to attribute this to the peculiarities of a single coach) have obviously felt that it's more valuable to play a fatigued Ovechkin on the 2nd unit (or they wouldn't have had the league's #1 powerplay over the past 17 years) - so even though this makes him look worse through the lens of per-60 production, it unquestionably helps his team. (For Ovechkin to look better, he'd have to stop playing on the 2nd PP unit, which would increase his per-60 production, and reduce his team's ability to score goals with the man advantage - backwards thinking).

By focusing solely on per-game or per-minute metrics, intentionally or not, they're ignoring the fact that Ovechkin was much more durable. Through six years, Matthews has already missed 43 games. (I'm ignoring the games he missed due to COVID shortening the seasons, as that's obviously beyond his control). If I've counted correctly, Ovechkin has missed 42 games in his entire 17 year career (a mind-blowing stat). Even if Matthews is just as productive as Ovechkin per game or per minute, Ovechkin is more valuable by virtue of staying in the lineup more.

Even if Matthews is as good a goal-scorer as Ovechkin through six years, what (arguably) gets Ovechkin to the top of the greatest goal-scorers list is his freakish longevity. Nobody except maybe Gordie Howe (and probably not even him) has scored goals at such a high level so late into their career. Ovechkin's defiance of normal aging patterns are unprecedented. Ovechkin has his weaknesses as a player, and I've written about those before, but make no mistake - we're witnessing something special here. It's wishful thinking (mixed with entitlement) to make any career-based comparison between Ovechkin and a 24 year old who is maybe (with some funny math) on par with him through six years.

This was a much longer response than I planned. But I wanted to state my position on the disingenuous arguments in the Matthews vs Ovechkin debate, without being dragged into it.

 

[daver]

I think I know which thread you're referring to. It's a bunch of Auston Matthews fans trying to argue that Matthews is equal to (or better than) Ovechkin on the basis that they score around the same rate per minute. Speaking from experience - there's no point engaging, it's an echo chamber (they're looking to confirm their preconceived notions, not try to figure out what's true).

I agree that Ovechkin got more PP ice time relative to Matthews (partly because he entered the league at a time when more penalties were called, and partly due to how their coaches deploy them). But the "Matthews through six years equals Ovechkin through six years" argument doesn't take into account a lot of important points:

The entire argument focuses on the one thing that hurts Matthews (his lack of PP ice time relative to Ovechkin). But those same posters ignore the advantage that helps Matthews, which is that the league today is much higher scoring (per minute, at ES and on the PP). The goals per game in 2022 is almost exactly what it was in 2006 - but that's too simplistic. Players are scoring more per minute in both game situations today (it's just that ES is a larger proportion of the game now). By adjusting for Ovechkin getting more powerplay opportunities, and not adjusting for Matthews playing in a league where teams & players are scoring about 15% more per minute at ES, and about 15% more per minute on the PP, they're only capturing the part of the adjustment that helps their favourite player. You either adjust for both, or you adjust for neither.

The people advocating for Matthews are strangely silent on Stamkos. Even if you play along with their reasoning, and just look at ES and PP production per 60 minutes, Stamkos (from ages 19 to 24) is virtually even with Matthews (once you take into account the scoring environment). So this reasoning is used to argue that Matthews is on par with Ovechkin, but nobody mentions Stamkos (and in fact, I've seen one of them dismiss him), even though it's exactly the same logic.

If you look at Matthews' production on a per-game basis, and you look at how he does in games where he gets more ice time, there's no meaningful increase in his production. I divided the data several different ways (halves, thirds, quarters, fifths), to make sure maybe I wasn't getting a fluky result based on where the splits were. This also holds true when you look at ES and PP game states separately. One of the Matthews advocates said this was due to score effects (the sole extent of his rebuttal was simply throwing out that term, without explaining why or how it affects the data). But even if you look at Matthews' performance in wins and losses separately, the same trend holds true (that couldn't be the case if it was due to score effects - you'd see different patterns in wins vs. losses). Per-60 production is based on the unspoken assumption that production scales linearly with ice time, but it doesn't. (Full disclosure - I did this analysis a couple of years ago, maybe the trend has changed since).

The other issue with the per-60 argument is it doesn't take into deployment. Over the past few years, Matthews has spent the vast majority of his PP time with the Leafs' top unit (Marner, Tavares, and Nylander). All throughout his career, Ovechkin was getting significant time on the 2nd PP unit. The impact on per-minute production should be obvious. The 2nd unit, almost by definition, is weaker than the top powerplay, and scores less efficiently. That's why, looking year by year, Ovechkin usually has a few teammates (who only play on the 1st unit) who score more efficiently than he does on the powerplay - even though it's obvious to anybody who's watched the Capitals that, aside from a couple of down years, Ovechkin is the key to their powerplay. The point is - the per-60 stat isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. It's comparing one star playing almost exclusively with the first unit, to another star playing significant time with the second unit (which drags down the average). The Capitals coaches (and there have been a lot of them since 2006 - so it's hard to attribute this to the peculiarities of a single coach) have obviously felt that it's more valuable to play a fatigued Ovechkin on the 2nd unit (or they wouldn't have had the league's #1 powerplay over the past 17 years) - so even though this makes him look worse through the lens of per-60 production, it unquestionably helps his team. (For Ovechkin to look better, he'd have to stop playing on the 2nd PP unit, which would increase his per-60 production, and reduce his team's ability to score goals with the man advantage - backwards thinking).

By focusing solely on per-game or per-minute metrics, intentionally or not, they're ignoring the fact that Ovechkin was much more durable. Through six years, Matthews has already missed 43 games. (I'm ignoring the games he missed due to COVID shortening the seasons, as that's obviously beyond his control). If I've counted correctly, Ovechkin has missed 42 games in his entire 17 year career (a mind-blowing stat). Even if Matthews is just as productive as Ovechkin per game or per minute, Ovechkin is more valuable by virtue of staying in the lineup more.

Even if Matthews is as good a goal-scorer as Ovechkin through six years, what (arguably) gets Ovechkin to the top of the greatest goal-scorers list is his freakish longevity. Nobody except maybe Gordie Howe (and probably not even him) has scored goals at such a high level so late into their career. Ovechkin's defiance of normal aging patterns are unprecedented. Ovechkin has his weaknesses as a player, and I've written about those before, but make no mistake - we're witnessing something special here. It's wishful thinking (mixed with entitlement) to make any career-based comparison between Ovechkin and a 24 year old who is maybe (with some funny math) on par with him through six years.

This was a much longer response than I planned. But I wanted to state my position on the disingenuous arguments in the Matthews vs Ovechkin debate, without being dragged into it.

Thanks, very well written and thought out as usual. In a nutshell, you have captured all of the different variables that come into play once the "what if" can of worms gets opened. The sentiment that these variables may apply for your average forward, or even an average Top 6 forward, but not to a superstar level forward seems to be agreed on by most people in the HOH as far as I can tell.

 

[TheTechNoir]

Sorry, this isn't contributing really. Just wanted to say thank you guys and/or gals, this is why I signed up for this forum years ago. Refreshing thread. Maybe I have rose-tinted glasses, but I love it.

 

[quietbruinfan]

I think you have to look at both (1) the individual play of players & (2) the construction of the team & the systems they play in order to assess each individual and team in terms of what aspects of the game - EV or PP - are of "lesser value."

Thinking back to the Eddie Johnston-coached Penguins of 80-83, this was a team that was fairly mediocre all around in terms of roster construction and systems execution. They were regularly outgunned and outplayed at EV but had a robust PP, one of the best in the league through those three seasons. This is largely because some of their key offensive talents - particularly Paul Gardner, Rick Kehoe and Pat Boutette, the three forwards they relied upon most to generate offense - were notoriously poor defensive players - Gardner and Kehoe seemed lazy and sluggish, while Boutette was simply ineffective (not necessarily for lack of trying). But they all had good to great shots and decent passing skills when they didn't have to worry about fighting for the puck or not having clear shooting lanes. With Randy Carlyle as their PPQB, Pittsburgh managed to squeak into the playoffs the first two out of three of these seasons largely based on the fact that their PP unit could win games for them.

The year that Carlyle won the Norris, he was 7-39-46 on the PP, with a total of 83 points on the season. Gardner scored 18, 21 and 20 PPG, leading the league two years in a row, for a total of 59 PPG, while only scoring 48 EVG over the same time period, with each year's EVG successively declining (only 8 EVG in 82-83.) Kehoe was 20-19-39 PP out of 88 PTS in 81, 17-33-50 out of 85 in 82, and 15-23-38 out of 65 in 83.

At the time, there were no advanced stats, and the Penguins were largely praised for their PP prowess, as evidenced by the Carlyle Norris win, although within a year of that the hockey community had seriously downgraded their assessment of Carlyle's abilities, even though he put up comparable point totals to the previous year.

But the point is that, overall, while the power play helped lift the Penguins into playoff berths two years in a row, in the long run it wasn't sustainable, and they couldn't continue to mask the problems in their roster construction and their struggles to win games at EV.

We saw something similar with the recent Travis Green-coached Canucks. The 19-20 season which saw the Canucks squeak into the playoffs was partially because they put together an effective PP unit (the biggest factor, of course, was the goaltending.) Canucks fans like myself and others on HFBoards could observe how the Canucks struggled to score at EV, and that the PP successes (+ the goaltending) were to a certain extent providing cover for much deeper flaws in the way the team was coached, and how effective individual offensive players and the team as a whole was at EV. Eventually, when the team's PP success collapsed, it much more obviously exposed the team's flawed coaching system and roster construction, which factored into the coach and GM being fired after a historically disastrous start to this season.

So while a strong PP is always a good thing and should be applauded, if individual players and teams as a whole cannot play effectively at EV, it is always going to be a problem in the long run.

80-83 Penguins were the first team that came to my mind because of the difference between their pp and es production. I didn't see as much of 2019 Canucks, but I will take your word for it.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

I mean, Andreychuk is the OG person of interest when it comes to this matter. He's the guy to inspect with regard to whether the PP has inflated his career worth.

 

[filinski77]

I think I know which thread you're referring to. It's a bunch of Auston Matthews fans trying to argue that Matthews is equal to (or better than) Ovechkin on the basis that they score around the same rate per minute. Speaking from experience - there's no point engaging, it's an echo chamber (they're looking to confirm their preconceived notions, not try to figure out what's true).

I agree that Ovechkin got more PP ice time relative to Matthews (partly because he entered the league at a time when more penalties were called, and partly due to how their coaches deploy them). But the "Matthews through six years equals Ovechkin through six years" argument doesn't take into account a lot of important points:

The entire argument focuses on the one thing that hurts Matthews (his lack of PP ice time relative to Ovechkin). But those same posters ignore the advantage that helps Matthews, which is that the league today is much higher scoring (per minute, at ES and on the PP). The goals per game in 2022 is almost exactly what it was in 2006 - but that's too simplistic. Players are scoring more per minute in both game situations today (it's just that ES is a larger proportion of the game now). By adjusting for Ovechkin getting more powerplay opportunities, and not adjusting for Matthews playing in a league where teams & players are scoring about 15% more per minute at ES, and about 15% more per minute on the PP, they're only capturing the part of the adjustment that helps their favourite player. You either adjust for both, or you adjust for neither.

The people advocating for Matthews are strangely silent on Stamkos. Even if you play along with their reasoning, and just look at ES and PP production per 60 minutes, Stamkos (from ages 19 to 24) is virtually even with Matthews (once you take into account the scoring environment). So this reasoning is used to argue that Matthews is on par with Ovechkin, but nobody mentions Stamkos (and in fact, I've seen one of them dismiss him), even though it's exactly the same logic.

If you look at Matthews' production on a per-game basis, and you look at how he does in games where he gets more ice time, there's no meaningful increase in his production. I divided the data several different ways (halves, thirds, quarters, fifths), to make sure maybe I wasn't getting a fluky result based on where the splits were. This also holds true when you look at ES and PP game states separately. One of the Matthews advocates said this was due to score effects (the sole extent of his rebuttal was simply throwing out that term, without explaining why or how it affects the data). But even if you look at Matthews' performance in wins and losses separately, the same trend holds true (that couldn't be the case if it was due to score effects - you'd see different patterns in wins vs. losses). Per-60 production is based on the unspoken assumption that production scales linearly with ice time, but it doesn't. (Full disclosure - I did this analysis a couple of years ago, maybe the trend has changed since).

The other issue with the per-60 argument is it doesn't take into deployment. Over the past few years, Matthews has spent the vast majority of his PP time with the Leafs' top unit (Marner, Tavares, and Nylander). All throughout his career, Ovechkin was getting significant time on the 2nd PP unit. The impact on per-minute production should be obvious. The 2nd unit, almost by definition, is weaker than the top powerplay, and scores less efficiently. That's why, looking year by year, Ovechkin usually has a few teammates (who only play on the 1st unit) who score more efficiently than he does on the powerplay - even though it's obvious to anybody who's watched the Capitals that, aside from a couple of down years, Ovechkin is the key to their powerplay. The point is - the per-60 stat isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. It's comparing one star playing almost exclusively with the first unit, to another star playing significant time with the second unit (which drags down the average). The Capitals coaches (and there have been a lot of them since 2006 - so it's hard to attribute this to the peculiarities of a single coach) have obviously felt that it's more valuable to play a fatigued Ovechkin on the 2nd unit (or they wouldn't have had the league's #1 powerplay over the past 17 years) - so even though this makes him look worse through the lens of per-60 production, it unquestionably helps his team. (For Ovechkin to look better, he'd have to stop playing on the 2nd PP unit, which would increase his per-60 production, and reduce his team's ability to score goals with the man advantage - backwards thinking).

By focusing solely on per-game or per-minute metrics, intentionally or not, they're ignoring the fact that Ovechkin was much more durable. Through six years, Matthews has already missed 43 games. (I'm ignoring the games he missed due to COVID shortening the seasons, as that's obviously beyond his control). If I've counted correctly, Ovechkin has missed 42 games in his entire 17 year career (a mind-blowing stat). Even if Matthews is just as productive as Ovechkin per game or per minute, Ovechkin is more valuable by virtue of staying in the lineup more.

Even if Matthews is as good a goal-scorer as Ovechkin through six years, what (arguably) gets Ovechkin to the top of the greatest goal-scorers list is his freakish longevity. Nobody except maybe Gordie Howe (and probably not even him) has scored goals at such a high level so late into their career. Ovechkin's defiance of normal aging patterns are unprecedented. Ovechkin has his weaknesses as a player, and I've written about those before, but make no mistake - we're witnessing something special here. It's wishful thinking (mixed with entitlement) to make any career-based comparison between Ovechkin and a 24 year old who is maybe (with some funny math) on par with him through six years.

This was a much longer response than I planned. But I wanted to state my position on the disingenuous arguments in the Matthews vs Ovechkin debate, without being dragged into it.

Fantastic summary. On top of that, there's so many other variables to consider:
-> Overall elite player scoring is up even more than league-wide scoring is up. Even if only a slight amount, 5-10% of a swing is pretty significant.
-> Matthews playing on a much more elite team through his first 6 years than Ovechkin did
-> For the powerplay specifically, Ovechkin's shot and one-timer (especially in his second half of his career) allow him to force teams to make a choice to leave him open or to cover and create a 4-on-3. This is a unique skill that Matthews does not have, and it allows Ovechkin to conserve a ton of energy while also contributing even if he doesn't put up points. If you swapped Matthews and Ovechkin, the Caps would be forced to change their powerplay strategy to accommodate for a different set of skills and players.

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I think that even strength scoring is more valuable than power play scoring when evaluating individual players, and it is absolutely worth differentiating between the two game states in any analysis.

First of all, there are a number of additional variables I could discuss here (many already mentioned in this thread), such as:
- adaptability to the playoffs
- decreasing marginal value of depth at a specific PP role compared to ES (imagine Ovechkin, Stamkos and Pastrnak all on the same team and how that impacts their PPG relative to their ESG)
- relative PP ice time varying even among elite players across teams and eras
- PP team effects being more strongly concentrated than at ES, since forward lines don't play with the same D-pairs all the time at 5-on-5 and few teams stack their top lines in the way that PP1s tend to do with their 5-man units
- PP stats being more role dependent, because roles are more specialized than at ES, and we see how a player's goals/assists split will change when they switch PP roles (this is particularly important if you're focusing on goal scoring or playmaking in isolation)
- ES play is more chaotic whereas a PP unit can practice and run specific patterns, suggesting it is more coaching/systems-dependent and less reflective of the individual player's skill

However, I'll focus on the two main points:

1. The replacement value of power play scoring is higher.

2. ES scoring tends to be a more reliable indicator of individual offensive contribution than PP scoring, especially over shorter time frames such as a single season

Replacement Level of PP vs. ES Scoring

Here are all of the forwards in the NHL in 2021-22, sorted by their average TOI/GP at each game state (source: Natural Stat Trick), and then separated into bins of 100:

5-on-5 Scoring, 2021-22 (Forwards Only), grouped by 5-on-5 TOI/GP:

Group	Avg 5-on-5 TOI	Avg 5-on-5 Pts/60	Exp 5-on-5 Pts/82 GP
Top 100	14.49​	2.11​	41.9​
Next 100	13.19​	1.91​	34.4​
Next 100	12.20​	1.53​	25.6​
Next 100	11.16​	1.31​	20.0​
Next 100	10.00​	1.21​	16.6​
Rest	8.53​	1.01​	11.8​

Power Play Scoring, 2021-22 (Forwards Only), grouped by PP TOI/GP:

Group	Avg PP TOI	Avg PPP/60	Exp PPP/82 GP
Top 100	3.20​	5.66​	24.7​
Next 100	2.25​	3.97​	12.2​
Next 100	1.49​	2.93​	6.0​
Next 100	0.64​	2.53​	2.2​
Rest	0.10​	2.51​	0.3​

There are 32 teams and 3 forwards per line, so this is effectively giving us the typical scoring rates for players skating on each line, albeit fudged a bit because of all the usual call-ups and injury replacements over a long season.

It's important to note the selection effects here. Coaches will naturally give better players more ice time, which means that playing on the first line gives better linemates to work with (and vice versa for playing with 4th liners), creating a bit of a feedback loop. We can't assume that players will maintain exactly equal rates of production if they get shifted up or down the lineup, but it gives us a baseline to start from.

The key takeaways are that PP ice time is divided very unevenly compared to 5-on-5 ice time, and that first power play units tend to be very efficient. Individual teams will vary, but there is not always a huge difference between being on the 1st and 2nd lines at even strength (especially on a per-minute basis). On the other hand, there is usually a pretty major gap between being on the 1st or 2nd PP unit (or no PP unit at all). The replacement scoring rate at 5-on-5 appears to be slightly over 1 point per 60 minutes, while on the power play it looks to be around 2.5 (and it's really closer to 3.0 per 60 for players who get any sort of regular PP deployment). In addition, for 1st unit PP players, the per-game ice time with the man advantage is so low and the average scoring rate so high that a player has to be scoring at an off-the-charts rate to create a significant value advantage.

If a top line player misses a game you can bump everyone up on the depth chart to cover for him, but you are still going to end up needing to find a guy who previously wasn't good enough to make your 4th line and give him about 10 minutes of action at 5-on-5. However, that replacement likely won't even get a sniff on the power play, where most of your team's ice time will still involve 80% of the regular top unit plus someone called up from the second group (a player who is likely good enough offensively to be a regular in your top 6).

Even Strength Scoring Has a Higher Ratio of Signal to Noise

It is important to remember that points are only a proxy for offensive performance. If you make a great cross-ice pass to set up a teammate shooting at an open net, you made the exact same individual offensive contribution whether they scored or whether they whiffed, even though those end up being very binary outcomes in the points column. Over a long period of time that randomness will tend to balance out (subject to things like teammate quality), but the shorter the time frame the less that is guaranteed to happen. That's why it's foolish to say things like "Player X disappeared in that big game" simply because they scored 0 points. They might have been shut down, or they might have created 8 high-danger chances and hit 2 posts while keeping the other team out of their end all night, but simply never managed to be one of the last 3 players to touch a puck before it went in.

The key factor here is sample size. As we see in the numbers above, a typical first liner will get 4-5 times as much TOI at 5-on-5 as they will on the power play over a single season, making those stats less vulnerable to hot and cold streaks.

A recent example of an elite season created by unsustainable power play scoring is Patrick Kane's Hart and Art Ross winning 2015-16. Look at it in the context of his career:

Patrick Kane Scoring Results, 2014-2018:

Season	GP	ESP	PPP	ESP/60	PPP/60	PGF*	PP IPP*
2014​	69​	44​	25​	2.35​	6.58​	32​	78%​
2015​	61​	42​	22​	2.56​	5.88​	30​	73%​
2016​	82​	69​	37​	2.93​	8.65​	44​	84%​
2017​	82​	66​	23​	2.70​	4.95​	32​	72%​
2018​	82​	54​	22​	2.37​	4.72​	31​	71%​

(*: PGF - Power play goals scored while Kane was on the ice, PP IPP - The percentage of PGF that Kane got a point on)

There is zero chance that Kane suddenly got ~60% better on the power play just for one 82 game stretch. Compared to his usual benchmarks, Kane scored an extra 6-7 points because he was involved in an unusually high percentage of scoring plays, and he picked up an additional 6-7 points because his team got hot on the PP overall, which is a tide that tends to lift all boats (especially for the main puckhandlers on any given unit). It is reasonable that he was peaking that year at least to some degree (as his much smaller improvement in ES scoring suggests), but I'm quite sure it's nowhere close to accounting for the majority of that PP discrepancy.

I think it's worthwhile to think conceptually of each player having a hypothetical "true offensive performance" which is separate from their actual goals and assists, i.e. what their point total would be after perfectly adjusting for extraneous factors like puck luck, usage and team effects. Since there is more randomness in the PP sample, we're less confident that it reflects a player's "true" output. Kane may have been credited with 106 points in 2015-16, but I'd estimate his "true" performance was something like 96 points, and I'm far more confident that 69 ES points over 1,413 minutes of ES ice time reflected his individual offensive contribution than his 37 power play points scored in just 256 minutes. Applying similar logic to all players leads to the conclusion that ES scoring tends to be a more reliable indicator than PP scoring when evaluating individual seasons.

We can avoid this problem by looking at a larger sample size (e.g. the entire 5 year period for Kane above), which will end up removing a lot of the randomness and giving us a better estimate of the player's offensive level. After all, the very best power play performers do deliver a lot of value over the long term by consistently creating lots of PP offence year after year (although even they are absolutely still subject to contextual factors like teammates and PP deployment, their skill simply transcends those factors more clearly than for typical players). However, a lot of player analysis and all awards voting focuses on 82 games or less, and that's why it is important to keep reliability in mind when looking at individual player seasons, especially those involving scoring outliers on special teams.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

I mean, Andreychuk is the OG person of interest when it comes to this matter. He's the guy to inspect with regard to whether the PP has inflated his career worth.

imo nieuwendyk is next in line

that said, both guys were absolutely elite at that one thing. that's a valuable valuable skill, and can be the difference between your PP cooking and your PP dying on the vine, as opposed to your garden variety 25th-30th place ES scorer who finishes in the top 15 and peaks in the top 5 in points because he gets PP time on a good unit. marc savard is someone whose scoring placements i look askance at, for ex.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

imo nieuwendyk is next in line

And Ovechkin's late 20s, he had a 5 year run where his ES goals dropped by 30% and his PP goals shot up.

From 2012-13 to 2016-17, his goal scoring looks like:

Year	ES Goals	PP Goals
2012-13	16	16
2013-14	27	24
2014-15	28	25
2015-16	31	19
2016-17	16	17

4 of the years were Rocket years, and he led the league in PP goals all 5 years but only 1x led in ES goals. Outside of those 5 seasons, he led in ES goals 4x and PP goals only 1x. Before and after this 5 year run, he scored well over 2/3 of his goals at even strength. I don't follow the Caps enough to know/remember, but those seasons had to be a coaching thing given it's outlier status

 

[ContrarianGoaltender]

I mean, Andreychuk is the OG person of interest when it comes to this matter. He's the guy to inspect with regard to whether the PP has inflated his career worth.

One notable thing about Andreychuk is that he was viewed as a huge playoff underachiever. It turns out that the "Andreychoke" narrative was almost entirely a result of him being unable to transfer his regular season power play goal scoring success to the playoffs in his prime.

If you look at his entire prime as a top scorer (1982-83 to 1996-97), using his regular season scoring rates each year multiplied by his playoff games played to create an expected goals baseline, Andreychuk would have been expected to score 24 even strength and 22 power play goals in his 88 playoff games. He actually scored 19 at even strength and 12 on the power play. That 22% drop at ES is not atypical for playoffs, however seeing his PPG cut almost in half is pretty noteworthy.

This discrepancy was the most significant during his Buffalo tenure, where his reputation was really forged. As a Sabre, Andreychuk was expected to score 11 ES and 8 PP goals in 41 playoff games. He actually scored 9 at ES (-16%) compared to just 3 on the PP (-64%). I think it would still be a mistake to put all of the blame for this on Andreychuk individually, there were a lot of different reasons why Sabres went 9 straight years without winning a single playoff series, but at the same time it is the unfortunate reality of his performance record.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

One notable thing about Andreychuk is that he was viewed as a huge playoff underachiever. It turns out that the "Andreychoke" narrative was almost entirely a result of him being unable to transfer his regular season power play goal scoring success to the playoffs in his prime.

If you look at his entire prime as a top scorer (1982-83 to 1996-97), using his regular season scoring rates each year multiplied by his playoff games played to create an expected goals baseline, Andreychuk would have been expected to score 24 even strength and 22 power play goals in his 88 playoff games. He actually scored 19 at even strength and 12 on the power play. That 22% drop at ES is not atypical for playoffs, however seeing his PPG cut almost in half is pretty noteworthy.

This discrepancy was the most significant during his Buffalo tenure, where his reputation was really forged. As a Sabre, Andreychuk was expected to score 11 ES and 8 PP goals in 41 playoff games. He actually scored 9 at ES (-16%) compared to just 3 on the PP (-64%). I think it would still be a mistake to put all of the blame for this on Andreychuk individually, there were a lot of different reasons why Sabres went 9 straight years without winning a single playoff series, but at the same time it is the unfortunate reality of his performance record.

one thing i remember about peak andreychuk is the '94 leafs lived and died on their powerplay

against the canucks in the third round, it felt like the only goals that team scored at all was on the PP. the unit, iirc, was gilmour, clark, ellett, with mironov's big shot from the point and andreychuk in front of the net. so while andreychuk personally didn't factor into a lot of those PP goals, mironov and ellett both had very productive series, including combining for all three toronto goals in game two. you have to think dave andreychuk standing in front of the net had something to do with that. my memory is certainly that he was a focal point for diduck and babych to tangle with in the crease.

i just looked it up and the chicago series was even more extreme. six game series, five one-goal games, toronto scored 5 ES goals, 1 SH goal, and 9 on the PP.

in total, the '94 leafs scored 24 ES goals, 22 PP goals, and 4 SH goals in that that campbell's finals run.

all to say, at least in his very best regular season, 4th in goals, 9th in points, he also got it done (on the PP at least) in the playoffs, taking that team to the third round.

 

[Regal]

Speaking of those Leafs teams, Gilmour’s peak in Toronto, at least from a scoring perspective, is almost entirely due to an increase in PP production from his Calgary days. Calgary already had great PPs, but Gilmour wasn’t as big of a focal point. You have to think he’s a prime example of opportunity, and likely ice time, affecting his totals.