Playoff Scoring Relative to Expectations

[Hockey Outsider]

We often see people say things like "Player X's per-game scoring dropped 15% in the playoffs, so he wasn't very good in the postseason". There are at least two reasons why these types of claims are misleading.

First, it doesn't take into account which years the player made the postseason. Consider Teemu Selanne. His peak was 1993 to 2000. But only 27 of his 130 career playoff games were during those years. A simplistic calculation would suggest he was a horrendous playoff performer, but that's largely because most of his long playoff runs took place when he was no longer an elite player.

Second, scoring usually drops in the playoffs by around 15%. But even that varies widely from year to year. In a few seasons in the 1950's, scoring was actually higher in the playoffs than in regular season. Other times (mostly in the forties and fifties - but also as recently as the 2007) scoring dropped to under 75% of regular season levels. A 15% drop is usually typical - but the devil's in the details, and that drop-off likely shows a strong performance in 2007, and a weak one in 1959.

I've calculated the average change in scoring, from the regular season to playoffs, for each season, back to 1943. Note - the calculation is only done among players who appeared in both RS and PO games. From there I calculated what a player was expected to score (taking into account the change in scoring levels), and compared it to what they actually scored.

Example - in 1995, Claude Lemieux scored 19 points in 45 games in the regular season (0.42 points per game). He played in 20 playoff games. The drop in scoring that year was about 8.1% (among players who played in both RS and PO games). Therefore we'd expect him to score 20 * 0.42 / 1.081 = approximately 7.8 points that spring. In reality, he scored 16 (and won the Conn Smythe). Thus he scored about 8.2 points more than expected based on his regular season production (an excellent result).

The obvious question is - can we use regular season scoring as a baseline estimate for playoff scoring? I think so; someone like Joe Thornton isn't criticized because his 133 playoff points are objectively bad, he's criticized because he doesn't score as much as expected given his regular season production. This method sometimes produces wonky result if you're looking at someone who only played in a small handful of games in the regular season (Raimo Summanen scored 5 points in 2 games in the 1984 regular season - nobody expected him to score 2.50 points per game that spring), but it tends to even out over the course of players' careers.

Click to read more...

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Here's a list of 150 players that I've deemed notable. That was a subjective exercise - mostly looking at current/future/borderline Hall of Fame forwards, high-scoring defensemen, and some other players who had notably high or low results.

PLAYER	GP	PTS	Exp	Diff	Percentage
Trevor Linden	124	99	70.28	28.72	40.9%
Gary Roberts	130	93	68.13	24.87	36.5%
Claude Lemieux	234	158	118.02	39.98	33.9%
Steve Shutt	99	98	75.05	22.95	30.6%
Alex Delvecchio	121	104	80.68	23.32	28.9%
Brian Leetch	95	97	75.79	21.21	28.0%
Chris Pronger	173	121	94.75	26.25	27.7%
Alex Kovalev	123	100	79.16	20.84	26.3%
Al MacInnis	177	160	126.70	33.30	26.3%
Doug Gilmour	182	188	149.94	38.06	25.4%
Jacques Lemaire	145	139	113.13	25.87	22.9%
Ryan Getzlaf	125	120	99.44	20.56	20.7%
Ted Kennedy	78	60	49.82	10.18	20.4%
Sergei Gonchar	141	90	74.73	15.27	20.4%
Glenn Anderson	225	214	178.52	35.48	19.9%
Sergei Fedorov	183	176	147.25	28.75	19.5%
Maurice Richard	133	126	105.99	20.01	18.9%
Yvan Cournoyer	147	127	107.52	19.48	18.1%
Jean Beliveau	162	176	150.03	25.97	17.3%
Mark Messier	236	295	252.12	42.88	17.0%
Phil Kessel	96	81	69.30	11.70	16.9%
Brad Park	161	125	107.42	17.58	16.4%
Chris Chelios	266	144	124.26	19.74	15.9%
Dale Hawerchuk	97	99	85.63	13.37	15.6%
Gilbert Perreault	90	103	89.60	13.40	15.0%
Gordie Howe	157	160	139.31	20.69	14.9%
Bobby Hull	119	129	112.45	16.55	14.7%
Brad Richards	146	105	91.84	13.16	14.3%
Claude Giroux	85	73	64.04	8.96	14.0%
Larry Murphy	215	152	133.42	18.58	13.9%
Mats Sundin	91	82	72.16	9.84	13.6%
Nicklas Lidstrom	263	183	161.37	21.63	13.4%
Larry Robinson	227	144	127.51	16.49	12.9%
Jari Kurri	200	233	206.79	26.21	12.7%
Darryl Sittler	76	74	65.99	8.01	12.1%
Norm Ullman	106	83	74.11	8.89	12.0%
Scott Stevens	233	118	105.40	12.60	12.0%
Joe Sakic	172	188	168.19	19.81	11.8%
Rick Middleton	114	100	89.51	10.49	11.7%
Jarome Iginla	79	66	59.14	6.86	11.6%
Steve Larmer	140	131	117.40	13.60	11.6%
Sergei Zubov	164	117	105.10	11.90	11.3%
Bernie Federko	91	101	90.89	10.11	11.1%
Borje Salming	81	49	44.21	4.79	10.8%
Dale Hunter	186	118	106.57	11.43	10.7%
Jonathan Toews	137	119	107.51	11.49	10.7%
Pavel Bure	64	70	63.30	6.70	10.6%
Brett Hull	200	190	171.84	18.16	10.6%
Vincent Lecavalier	75	56	50.94	5.06	9.9%
Theoren Fleury	77	79	71.87	7.13	9.9%
Justin Williams	162	102	93.21	8.79	9.4%
Denis Savard	169	175	160.15	14.85	9.3%
Doug Weight	96	72	66.03	5.97	9.0%
Rod Brind'Amour	154	109	100.17	8.83	8.8%
Gary Suter	108	73	67.08	5.92	8.8%
Patrik Elias	162	125	114.98	10.02	8.7%
John Bucyk	124	103	94.91	8.09	8.5%
Dino Ciccarelli	141	118	108.93	9.07	8.3%
Peter Stastny	93	105	97.14	7.86	8.1%
Frank Mahovlich	137	118	109.33	8.67	7.9%
Dave Keon	92	68	63.02	4.98	7.9%
Doug Wilson	95	80	74.21	5.79	7.8%
Steve Yzerman	196	185	171.66	13.34	7.8%
Bernie Geoffrion	132	118	109.94	8.06	7.3%
Butch Goring	134	88	82.41	5.59	6.8%
Mike Modano	174	146	136.92	9.08	6.6%
Stan Mikita	155	150	140.86	9.14	6.5%
Bill Barber	129	108	101.49	6.51	6.4%
Patrick Marleau	195	127	119.41	7.59	6.4%
Jeremy Roenick	154	122	114.75	7.25	6.3%
Henrik Zetterberg	137	120	112.89	7.11	6.3%
Adam Oates	163	156	146.76	9.24	6.3%
Peter Forsberg	131	144	135.50	8.50	6.3%
Mark Recchi	189	147	138.35	8.65	6.2%
Ted Lindsay	133	96	90.49	5.51	6.1%
Brian Propp	160	148	140.01	7.99	5.7%
George Armstrong	110	60	56.94	3.06	5.4%
Henri Richard	180	129	122.89	6.11	5.0%
Paul Coffey	194	196	186.87	9.13	4.9%
Red Kelly	164	92	87.74	4.26	4.9%
Vincent Damphousse	140	104	99.39	4.61	4.6%
Wayne Gretzky	208	382	365.37	16.63	4.6%
Daniel Alfredsson	124	100	96.09	3.91	4.1%
Patrick Kane	136	132	127.14	4.86	3.8%
Anze Kopitar	79	66	63.63	2.37	3.7%
Patrice Bergeron	149	111	107.18	3.82	3.6%
Lanny McDonald	117	84	81.18	2.82	3.5%
Martin St. Louis	107	90	86.99	3.01	3.5%
Brendan Shanahan	184	134	130.00	4.00	3.1%
Alex Ovechkin	136	131	127.13	3.87	3.0%
Joe Nieuwendyk	158	116	112.67	3.33	3.0%
Scott Niedermayer	202	98	95.28	2.72	2.9%
Denis Potvin	185	164	159.66	4.34	2.7%
Pierre Turgeon	109	97	94.76	2.24	2.4%
Jaromir Jagr	208	201	198.22	2.78	1.4%
Bobby Orr	74	92	90.74	1.26	1.4%
Guy Lafleur	128	134	132.21	1.79	1.4%
Raymond Bourque	214	180	178.09	1.91	1.1%
Cam Neely	93	89	88.23	0.77	0.9%
Sidney Crosby	168	189	187.87	1.13	0.6%
Peter Bondra	80	56	55.94	0.06	0.1%
Phil Esposito	130	137	137.00	- 0.00	0.0%
Dean Prentice	54	30	30.05	- 0.05	-0.2%
Marian Hossa	205	149	149.30	- 0.30	-0.2%
Eric Staal	62	51	51.35	- 0.35	-0.7%
Mike Gartner	122	93	93.85	- 0.85	-0.9%
Nicklas Backstrom	128	107	108.14	- 1.14	-1.1%
John Tavares	36	30	30.46	- 0.46	-1.5%
Dany Heatley	77	63	63.98	- 0.98	-1.5%
Mike Bossy	129	160	163.45	- 3.45	-2.1%
Evgeni Malkin	166	169	172.97	- 3.97	-2.3%
Rob Blake	146	73	74.94	- 1.94	-2.6%
Rick Martin	63	53	54.62	- 1.62	-3.0%
Ziggy Palffy	24	19	19.67	- 0.67	-3.4%
Mario Lemieux	107	172	179.49	- 7.49	-4.2%
Bobby Clarke	136	119	124.27	- 5.27	-4.2%
Paul Kariya	46	39	40.74	- 1.74	-4.3%
Brent Burns	94	62	65.35	- 3.35	-5.1%
Henrik Sedin	105	78	82.37	- 4.37	-5.3%
Clark Gillies	164	94	99.35	- 5.35	-5.4%
Markus Naslund	52	36	38.07	- 2.07	-5.4%
Ron Francis	171	143	151.47	- 8.47	-5.6%
John Tonelli	172	115	122.00	- 7.00	-5.7%
Mark Howe	101	61	65.06	- 4.06	-6.2%
Luc Robitaille	159	127	136.34	- 9.34	-6.9%
Phil Housley	85	56	60.62	- 4.62	-7.6%
Jean Ratelle	123	98	106.43	- 8.43	-7.9%
Dave Andreychuk	162	97	105.43	- 8.43	-8.0%
Pat LaFontaine	69	62	67.42	- 5.42	-8.0%
Charlie Simmer	24	18	19.59	- 1.59	-8.1%
Michel Goulet	92	78	86.41	- 8.41	-9.7%
Joe Thornton	179	133	148.08	- 15.08	-10.2%
Eric Lindros	53	57	63.48	- 6.48	-10.2%
Bryan Trottier	221	184	206.58	- 22.58	-10.9%
Alexander Mogilny	124	86	96.71	- 10.71	-11.1%
Teemu Selanne	130	88	99.23	- 11.23	-11.3%
Pavel Datsyuk	157	113	127.67	- 14.67	-11.5%
Daniel Sedin	102	71	82.24	- 11.24	-13.7%
Keith Tkachuk	89	56	64.97	- 8.97	-13.8%
Ilya Kovalchuk	40	28	32.59	- 4.59	-14.1%
Joe Mullen	142	106	125.42	- 19.42	-15.5%
Steven Stamkos	71	54	64.15	- 10.15	-15.8%
Rick Nash	89	46	54.97	- 8.97	-16.3%
Tyler Seguin	88	45	54.12	- 9.12	-16.8%
John LeClair	154	89	109.61	- 20.61	-18.8%
Todd Bertuzzi	87	42	52.14	- 10.14	-19.4%
Marcel Dionne	49	45	57.01	- 12.01	-21.1%
Alexei Yashin	48	27	34.92	- 7.92	-22.7%
Pat Verbeek	117	62	80.45	- 18.45	-22.9%
Andy Bathgate	54	35	45.71	- 10.71	-23.4%
Tomas Sandstrom	139	81	113.18	- 32.18	-28.4%
Mike Ribeiro	67	34	47.53	- 13.53	-28.5%

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Remember, a player who outperformed expectations isn't necessarily better than someone who didn't. Joe Nieuwendyk did better, relative to expectations, than Mario Lemieux. What it really means is Lemieux scored 1.61 PPG instead of the 1.68 expected; Nieuwendyk scored 0.73 PPG instead of the 0.71 expected. Even though one did better than expected, and one did worse, I know who I'd want on my team.

For the most part, the results are as expected. Probably the biggest surprise was seeing Bryan Trottier near the bottom. He was excellent during the Islanders' four Stanley Cup wins (scoring more than expected each year), but he had a few rough years. 1984 (during their "drive for five") was particularly rough, and accounts for nearly half of his career shortfall.

If you sort the data by raw point differential (which might be a proxy for most value contributed over the course of their careers), the top five forwards are Messier, C. Lemieux, Gilmour, Anderson, and Fedorov - all known for being excellent playoff performers. Beliveau, Howe and M. Richard aren't too far behind, which is remarkable since the playoffs were only two rounds for most/all of their careers. The top five defensemen by that metric (raw points, rather than percentages) are MacInnis, Pronger, Lidstrom, Leetch and Chelios.

Based on this metric, the top five single playoff runs are Ville Leino 2010, Brian Leetch 1994, Craig Simpson 1990, Steve Payne 1981, and Logan Couture 2016. There are very few HOF forwards near the top of the list because there's only so much they can increase their already strong production from the regular season. The worst playoff run is Geoff Courtnall in 1988 (66 points in 74 regular season games, and only 3 points in 19 playoff games, in a year where there was only about a 6% drop expected).

As I note in the following post, Forsberg's 2002 season is excluded because he didn't play in any regular season games. If I make a ballpark estimate, he probably scored about 1.5 points more than expected that year (basing his expectation on an average of what he did in 2001 and 2003). He should be slightly higher on the list, but it's not a huge difference.

Obviously, none of this looks at a player's specific matchups. Joe Sakic doesn't get extra credit for playing against three of the top seven stingiest teams in 2001 (excluding his own team). But better to capture what we can, and then discuss what we can't.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Lastly, a technical note - as a data integrity check, I took the 250 players with the most career playoff points from hockey-reference.com. I then compared it to my data. That website shows the top 250 players as having scored 25,464 career playoff points. The absolute difference I have between my data and theirs is 70 (and error rate of 0.27%). Of the difference - 27 points can be attributed to Peter Forsberg (since he didn't play in the 2002 regular season, he was excluded from the sample), and 13 points can be attributed to Toe Blake (my data only went back to 1943, and he scored 13 playoff points before that). I haven't bothered looking into the remaining differences but having an "unexplained" absolute difference of 30 points on a total population of 25,464 works out to an error rate of 0.12% - so I'm confident that the data presented complete in all material aspects.

 

[plusandminus]

Nice to see Mats Sundin placing quite high on the list. I think he really was a player that stepped up when it mattered the most.
His NHL regular season stats still puzzles me. If he had scored 13.6 % more pts in the regular season, his regular season stats, and scoring finishes, would look much better.
(But... What is is what is.)

Other Swedes high too, like Lidström, Salming. Zetterberg, Forsberg...

I wouldn't have guessed Trevor Linden would be so high.

Overall, like you state well, context is still needed.

 

[Johnny Engine]

Noted warriors Alexei Kovalev and Phil Kessel, vs famous chokers Bobby Clarke and Bryan Trottier!

Great work as always.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Great work @Hockey Outsider.

I'd be curious to see the numbers for Ted Kennedy.

 

[GlitchMarner]

Quality work, Outsider.

I bet Seguin would look than Ribeiro if you compared his playoff production to his season production using this method.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Noted warriors Alexei Kovalev and Phil Kessel, vs famous chokers Bobby Clarke and Bryan Trottier!

Great work as always.

Haha, there's a lot to criticize with Kovalev, but he did put up points in the playoffs pretty consistently. Is it bad that the first thing I think of, when I hear "Kovalev in the playoffs", is the time he faked a wrist(?) injury in overtime, and took himself out of the play, which directly led to Boston scoring?

I'd be curious to see the numbers for Ted Kennedy.

I just added him to the table - a good one to include. He looks great by this method - roughly between Gilmour and Fedorov. Consistent with the research about him.

I bet Seguin would look than Ribeiro if you compared his playoff production to his season production using this method.

I added him too. He doesn't look as bad as I thought, mostly because of 2011. Excluding that year (not entirely fair if we're only excluding his worst year, and nobody else's - but to illustrate the point), he'd rank dead last on the list.

 

[BenchBrawl]

Haha, there's a lot to criticize with Kovalev, but he did put up points in the playoffs pretty consistently. Is it bad that the first thing I think of, when I hear "Kovalev in the playoffs", is the time he faked a wrist(?) injury in overtime, and took himself out of the play, which directly led to Boston scoring?

I was at that game. But in general, Kovalev was an excellent playoff performer, so I don't get Johnny's comment. He was known to have a flair for the dramatic and to step up when it mattered. I remember many big goals he scored in Montreal, and I think he was also considered clutch in New York. Definitely not one of those players with a reputation for disappearing in the playoffs.

I just added him to the table - a good one to include. He looks great by this method - roughly between Gilmour and Fedorov. Consistent with the research about him.

Thanks. That's what I suspected. He looks even better than I thought, surpassing everyone from his era, including Richard who was leading.

 

[plusandminus]

I just added him (Kennedy) to the table - a good one to include. He looks great by this method - roughly between Gilmour and Fedorov. Consistent with the research about him.

That was a surprise. I got curious and looked at hockey-reference, where he seemed to scored at 0.80 PPG during regular season, and 0.77 during playoffs.
Yet your method puts him at +20.4 %
Ted Kennedy Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

I understand you match regular season PPG with playoffs PPG (one season at the time), which might produce a different result.
But anyway... Can you double check?
Edit: ...Now I get it. The scoring for all players dropped considerably during playoffs. Thus he stood out by scoring at almost the same pace as he did during the regular season.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

wow great work, HO.

Consider Teemu Selanne. His peak was 1993 to 2000, and then also 2010 and 2011. But only 27 of his 130 career playoff games were during those years. A simplistic calculation would suggest he was a horrendous playoff performer, but that's largely because most of his long playoff runs took place when he was no longer an elite player.

Probably the biggest surprise was seeing Bryan Trottier near the bottom. He was excellent during the Islanders' four Stanley Cup wins (scoring more than expected each year), but he had a few rough years. 1984 (during their "drive for five") was particularly rough, and accounts for nearly half of his career shortfall.

this phenomenon seems to really afflict the most surprising guy on the list for me:

Joe Mullen142106 125.42- 19.42-15.5%

an excellent playoff performer in his prime, but because he was still a B regular season scorer for 4-5 years when his playoff scoring fell to washed up old man levels, i guess he super fell.

conversely, trevor linden was a great playoff performer in his prime but my suspicion is he's so high on this list because he was still a B playoff scorer in his washed up old man years while his regular season scoring plummetted.

Trevor Linden12499 70.28 28.7240.9%

speaking of linden, it's funny that half of the vancouver fanbase criticizes linden for his regular seasons not living up to his playoff production, which imo is completely ass backwards thinking.

The worst playoff run is Geoff Courtnall in 1988 (66 points in 74 regular season games, and only 3 points in 19 playoff games, in a year where there was only about a 6% drop expected).

another excellent playoff performer. very curious where he'd be on this list. in his prime he averaged 70 rs points a year, much like linden, but in the playoffs scored at the level of probably a 100 point guy.

 

[K Fleur]

Really awesome stuff.

Kessel is about as “offense only” and soft of a player you’ll ever see but that offense always showed up in the spring(in his prime atleast).

 

[kruezer]

Based on this metric, the top five single playoff runs are Ville Leino 2010, Brian Leetch 1994, Craig Simpson 1990, Steve Payne 1981, and Logan Couture 2016. There are very few HOF forwards near the top of the list because there's only so much they can increase their already strong production from the regular season. The worst playoff run is Geoff Courtnall in 1988 (66 points in 74 regular season games, and only 3 points in 19 playoff games, in a year where there was only about a 6% drop expected).

Great work HO. I’m curious about more individual runs, do you have a top ten or twenty best and worst by this metric?

 

[barbu]

Amazing work HO.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

That was a surprise. I got curious and looked at hockey-reference, where he seemed to scored at 0.80 PPG during regular season, and 0.77 during playoffs.
Yet your method puts him at +20.4 %
Ted Kennedy Stats | Hockey-Reference.com

I understand you match regular season PPG with playoffs PPG (one season at the time), which might produce a different result.
But anyway... Can you double check?
Edit: ...Now I get it. The scoring for all players dropped considerably during playoffs. Thus he stood out by scoring at almost the same pace as he did during the regular season.

That's exactly it. Playoff scoring in the mid forties to early fifites was particularly low. Over Kennedy's career, doing a weighted average based on the number of games he played in the postseason each year, the average player scored about 26% less in the playoffs. The fact that he maintained virtually the same level of production, given that context, is pretty amazing.

 

[The Panther]

Lindros comes out a little unfairly (-10% doesn't look too hot) due to a small sample size, mainly. The one time he had a deep run, he led the playoffs in scoring.

I had often noted that Tomas Sandstrom did not perform that well in the playoffs, and this list sort-of confirms it!

As you note in the OP, this kind of list would ideally only focus on players' primes, but that's getting into subjective territory. Great work!

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Great work HO. I’m curious about more individual runs, do you have a top ten or twenty best and worst by this metric?

Top 25 playoff runs vs expectations

PLAYER	YEAR	PO GP	PO Pts	Exp Pts	Diff
Ville Leino	2010	19	21	3.67	17.33
Brian Leetch	1994	23	34	16.77	17.23
Craig Simpson	1990	22	31	14.28	16.72
Steve Payne	1981	19	29	13.74	15.26
Logan Couture	2016	24	30	15.10	14.90
Jake Guentzel	2018	12	21	6.20	14.80
Rick Middleton	1983	17	33	18.22	14.78
Al MacInnis	1989	22	31	16.67	14.33
Claude Lemieux	1997	17	23	8.68	14.32
Daniel Briere	2010	23	30	15.69	14.31
Miro Heiskanen	2020	27	26	11.90	14.10
Brayden Point	2020	23	33	19.10	13.90
John Druce	1990	15	17	3.12	13.88
Bob Bourne	1983	20	28	14.38	13.62
Paul Coffey	1985	18	37	23.39	13.61
Clark Gillies	1984	21	19	5.44	13.56
Duane Sutter	1983	20	21	7.62	13.38
David Krejci	2013	22	26	12.90	13.10
Ron Francis	1992	21	27	13.90	13.10
Justin Williams	2014	26	25	12.87	12.13
Brent Sutter	1983	20	21	8.93	12.07
Alyn McCauley	2002	20	15	3.09	11.91
Denis Savard	1985	15	29	17.13	11.87
Pat Stapleton	1973	16	17	5.17	11.83
Bryce Salvador	2012	24	14	2.19	11.81

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

An odd mix of players, to say the least. A mix of a few HOF forwards, many role players playing the best hockey of their careers, and a few high-scoring defensemen.

A few quick comments - Ron Francis, one of the most consistent players in history, had a surprisingly poor regular season in 1992, but had maybe the best playoff run of his career. Alyn McCauley in 2002 filled in for Mats Sundin who was injured (so his performance was based on a huge boost in ice time, more than anything else). And I've been critical of Williams' Smythe in 2014 (it should have gone to Kopitar, or maybe Doughty), but he really did step up that spring.

Bottom 25 playoff runs vs expectations

PLAYER	YEAR	PO GP	PO Pts	Exp Pts	Diff
Geoff Courtnall	1988	19	3	15.96	- 12.96
Stephen Gionta	2012	24	7	19.94	- 12.94
Morgan Geekie	2020	8	1	13.70	- 12.70
Tomas Sandstrom	1996	18	6	17.70	- 11.70
Corey Millen	1993	23	6	17.59	- 11.59
Patrik Elias	2012	24	8	19.20	- 11.20
Wayne Babych	1981	11	2	12.83	- 10.83
Todd Richards	1991	6	0	10.47	- 10.47
Kirk Muller	1988	20	12	22.14	- 10.14
Bryan Trottier	1984	21	14	24.08	- 10.08
Ilkka Sinisalo	1985	19	7	17.02	- 10.02
Petr Klima	1990	21	5	14.82	- 9.82
Kent Nilsson	1981	14	12	21.72	- 9.72
Conor Sheary	2017	22	7	16.52	- 9.52
Valeri Zelepukin	1995	18	3	12.41	- 9.41
Denis Potvin	1984	20	6	15.31	- 9.31
Bob Sweeney	1990	20	2	11.19	- 9.19
Daniel Sedin	2011	25	20	29.04	- 9.04
Esa Tikkanen	1987	21	9	17.74	- 8.74
James Neal	2014	13	4	12.69	- 8.69
Ron Francis	1986	10	3	11.42	- 8.42
Chris Simon	1998	18	1	9.35	- 8.35
Cory Stillman	2004	21	7	15.34	- 8.34
Blake Dunlop	1981	11	3	11.33	- 8.33
Joe Sakic	2000	17	9	17.33	- 8.33

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

A few of these seasons (Gionta, Geekie, Richards) are flukes caused by small sample sizes. This past year Geekie scored 4 points in 2 regular season games. Obviously nobody expected him to score 2 points per game in the playoffs.

There are more HOF forwards on this list compared to the previous one - Sakic, Trottier, Francis, Elias, D. Sedin. This can be unforgiving to players who play through injuries (Joe Thornton in 2004 is another good example).

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Lindros comes out a little unfairly (-10% doesn't look too hot) due to a small sample size, mainly. The one time he had a deep run, he led the playoffs in scoring.

I had often noted that Tomas Sandstrom did not perform that well in the playoffs, and this list sort-of confirms it!

As you note in the OP, this kind of list would ideally only focus on players' primes, but that's getting into subjective territory. Great work!

Thanks! It's supposed to be "self-correcting" in the sense that if a player hangs around way past their prime, the expectations are lowered, so they're not penalized. Obviously he's a defensive defenseman, but Chelios is a good example. His scoring (and overall play) fell off a cliff after 2002. So although his playoff scoring plummeted, he doesn't get penalized here because his regular season scoring plummeted too. So, relative to expectations, he did fine. In fact, he's very slightly positive looking at 2003 to 2009.

 

[JackSlater]

Very interesting stuff. I don't weigh playoffs all that heavily when looking at players due to sample sizes and how unbalanced the situations can be relative to the regular season, but this is still a good look. Bobby Hull looks good here, which s a definite plus for him given Chicago's playoff results. Overall the list really looks "right" on a superficial level with the names you'd expect to see showing up in pretty prominent spots.

 

[kruezer]

Top 25 playoff runs vs expectations

PLAYER	YEAR	PO GP	PO Pts	Exp Pts	Diff
Ville Leino	2010	19	21	3.67	17.33
Brian Leetch	1994	23	34	16.77	17.23
Craig Simpson	1990	22	31	14.28	16.72
Steve Payne	1981	19	29	13.74	15.26
Logan Couture	2016	24	30	15.10	14.90
Jake Guentzel	2018	12	21	6.20	14.80
Rick Middleton	1983	17	33	18.22	14.78
Al MacInnis	1989	22	31	16.67	14.33
Claude Lemieux	1997	17	23	8.68	14.32
Daniel Briere	2010	23	30	15.69	14.31
Miro Heiskanen	2020	27	26	11.90	14.10
Brayden Point	2020	23	33	19.10	13.90
John Druce	1990	15	17	3.12	13.88
Bob Bourne	1983	20	28	14.38	13.62
Paul Coffey	1985	18	37	23.39	13.61
Clark Gillies	1984	21	19	5.44	13.56
Duane Sutter	1983	20	21	7.62	13.38
David Krejci	2013	22	26	12.90	13.10
Ron Francis	1992	21	27	13.90	13.10
Justin Williams	2014	26	25	12.87	12.13
Brent Sutter	1983	20	21	8.93	12.07
Alyn McCauley	2002	20	15	3.09	11.91
Denis Savard	1985	15	29	17.13	11.87
Pat Stapleton	1973	16	17	5.17	11.83
Bryce Salvador	2012	24	14	2.19	11.81

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

An odd mix of players, to say the least. A mix of a few HOF forwards, many role players playing the best hockey of their careers, and a few high-scoring defensemen.

A few quick comments - Ron Francis, one of the most consistent players in history, had a surprisingly poor regular season in 1992, but had maybe the best playoff run of his career. Alyn McCauley in 2002 filled in for Mats Sundin who was injured (so his performance was based on a huge boost in ice time, more than anything else). And I've been critical of Williams' Smythe in 2014 (it should have gone to Kopitar, or maybe Doughty), but he really did step up that spring.

Bottom 25 playoff runs vs expectations

PLAYER	YEAR	PO GP	PO Pts	Exp Pts	Diff
Geoff Courtnall	1988	19	3	15.96	- 12.96
Stephen Gionta	2012	24	7	19.94	- 12.94
Morgan Geekie	2020	8	1	13.70	- 12.70
Tomas Sandstrom	1996	18	6	17.70	- 11.70
Corey Millen	1993	23	6	17.59	- 11.59
Patrik Elias	2012	24	8	19.20	- 11.20
Wayne Babych	1981	11	2	12.83	- 10.83
Todd Richards	1991	6	0	10.47	- 10.47
Kirk Muller	1988	20	12	22.14	- 10.14
Bryan Trottier	1984	21	14	24.08	- 10.08
Ilkka Sinisalo	1985	19	7	17.02	- 10.02
Petr Klima	1990	21	5	14.82	- 9.82
Kent Nilsson	1981	14	12	21.72	- 9.72
Conor Sheary	2017	22	7	16.52	- 9.52
Valeri Zelepukin	1995	18	3	12.41	- 9.41
Denis Potvin	1984	20	6	15.31	- 9.31
Bob Sweeney	1990	20	2	11.19	- 9.19
Daniel Sedin	2011	25	20	29.04	- 9.04
Esa Tikkanen	1987	21	9	17.74	- 8.74
James Neal	2014	13	4	12.69	- 8.69
Ron Francis	1986	10	3	11.42	- 8.42
Chris Simon	1998	18	1	9.35	- 8.35
Cory Stillman	2004	21	7	15.34	- 8.34
Blake Dunlop	1981	11	3	11.33	- 8.33
Joe Sakic	2000	17	9	17.33	- 8.33

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

A few of these seasons (Gionta, Geekie, Richards) are flukes caused by small sample sizes. This past year Geekie scored 4 points in 2 regular season games. Obviously nobody expected him to score 2 points per game in the playoffs.

There are more HOF forwards on this list compared to the previous one - Sakic, Trottier, Francis, Elias, D. Sedin. This can be unforgiving to players who play through injuries (Joe Thornton in 2004 is another good example).

thanks, very interesting. Interesting to see both Trottier and Potvin on the underperforming list for 1984, were they both hurt? Or was the drive for five finally too much.

also interesting to see the two Sutters on the positive side for the 83 Islanders, they brought huge value in the run for four.

Francis is the only player on both lists eh?

 

[The Panther]

In fairness to Geoff Courtnall, who takes a beating here, 1987-88 was his breakout year in Boston and he got some ice-time on a not-very-deep group at forward, including PP-time with Bourque, etc. He was on pace for a 41-goal season (having never scored more than 21 prior).

Then, he got traded to Edmonton towards the end of the season, and, aside from one hat-trick against Buffalo, he scored 1 goal in 11 games, before 0 goals in 19 playoff games. The problem here was that Courtnall was basically on the 4th-line, or at least in a revolving door of players jockeying for that 7-10 minutes of ice-time per game... if they were lucky.

(Mind you, he did apparently put 32 shots on net in the playoffs, which I find hard to believe. For comparison, Craig Simpson had the exact same number of shots, and scored 13 goals to Courtnall's 0.)

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Very interesting stuff. I don't weigh playoffs all that heavily when looking at players due to sample sizes and how unbalanced the situations can be relative to the regular season, but this is still a good look. Bobby Hull looks good here, which s a definite plus for him given Chicago's playoff results. Overall the list really looks "right" on a superficial level with the names you'd expect to see showing up in pretty prominent spots.

Bill James (the brilliant baseball writer) once said something to the effect of "if your statistic is never surprising, it's not interesting - but if it's consistently surprising, it's probably wrong". So I agree - doing a "common sense" check really helps.

Bobby Hull was a very good playoff performer. Mikita was a fair bit weaker. The Hawks only won one Cup primarily because their depth players, for the most part, vanished.