Quarter Season Statistical Analysis of Top 20 Point Producers

[NoName]

Barring injury to him or JT, 90 points is a given also.

History would suggest it is more likely to be in the mid 70s to mid 80s. He generally hovers near a ppg pace or a bit under it when the season is done and has been quite consistent here since his sophmore year.

 

[AvsFan29]

This isn't the first time they have changed goalie gear or made other rule changes to increase scoring.


I've been looking at oiSH% for years and from what I can tell no one has ever finished a season over 13% in the last ten years and no one has been able to hit 12%+ over a 2-3 year span.

So if you are a fan of someone on this list that is sitting at 13-14% what you are looking at is a hot streak and they are almost certainly going to slow down.

Sorry if you are a fan of one of these players.

Wait, does that mean Duchene isn't going to put up 100 points and sign a 9m contract?

 

[NoName]

Yeah I always wished Statistics had more character, it was never quite the life of the party. Now Human Eye on the other hand, man that guy is an animal!

I will say that as someone who works with statistics, it all really depends on what analysis you choose to apply to a dataset. Two statisticians can process the same data set in two very different methods and end up with vastly different results. As subjective as the "eye test" is, statistical analysis can be just as dependent on the individual judgments of the statistician. Not that stats are useless, far from it but while indeed, "numbers don't lie" it is more accurate to say "numbers don't lie, but they can be processed and interpreted to say whatever you want them to".

 

[NoName]

Wait, does that mean Duchene isn't going to put up 100 points and sign a 9m contract?

I know you are joking, but I could see a 75-80 point season quite easily; this is a contact year after all, and he is the focal point for the Sens offense. It does scream "career year".

 

[Critical13]

I will say that as someone who works with statistics, it all really depends on what analysis you choose to apply to a dataset. Two statisticians can process the same data set in two very different methods and end up with vastly different results. As subjective as the "eye test" is, statistical analysis can be just as dependent on the individual judgments of the statistician. Not that stats are useless, far from it but while indeed, "numbers don't lie" it is more accurate to say "numbers don't lie, but they can be processed and interpreted to say whatever you want them to".

My prof used to say "bad data is worse than no data"

 

[Tage2Tuch]

Marner will take Duchenes spot and Eichel takes Monahans

 

[BKarchitect]

It’s certainly not any worse at this early stage than the commonly accepted metric around here of “so and so is on pace for X points (over 82 games)...so not sure why everybody has their panties in a bunch.

Also if you don’t think Matt Duchene is capable of scoring “only” 41 points in 60 games - you haven’t really followed his career. He’s had stretches of 60 games where he has been far less than a 41 point player. Not sure why a 68 point projection would be considered such an insult - that essentially close to a career year. I’d wager the “over” on 68 - slightly - but certainly closer to that then 100. All the OP is suggesting is he’s a candidate to cool down a bit.

I’d love to think Rantanen and MacKinnon will continue at a higher pace as well but there’s little fault for me to find in the general observation that “they might slow down a little from their current pace”.

 

[24 others]

Thanks for doing the stats, 42. Really interesting.

 

[TruePowerSlave]

MacKinnon with 86 points lol

 

[AvsFan29]

I know you are joking, but I could see a 75-80 point season quite easily; this is a contact year after all, and he is the focal point for the Sens offense. It does scream "career year".

Yes I was joking.

It could be a career year for him. I have no idea. He's had hot stretches like this before, and he's never kept it going for a significant amount of time.

The only time he hit 70 points, was also a contract year. The Avalanche were arguably better up front that year than the Sens this year.

He hasn't hit 60 points since the 13-14 season. He very well could hit 70+ points, but it's not something I would say I could "easily see".

I could "easily see" him fall apart or get injured, because I have, many times before.

 

[PunkRockLocke]

This doesn't take into account age and new linemates... interesting though

Why should age matter?

 

[PunkRockLocke]

This doesn't take into account age and new linemates... interesting though

That's age-ist

 

[Soundwave]

Leon Draisaitl is up to a 102 point pace for the season and 50 goal pace now. 8th in the league for scoring, where does he fit in there?

 

[BKarchitect]

If you want to be more optimistic, another approach would be to project the remaining games based on career best oiSh% over a full season on not just career average - which includes early years of inexperience, potential injury riddled seasons and other factors which may not portray how well some of these guys can play when at their best over a full season - particularly for the guys still in or even just entering their prime seasons (it might not be so useful for the guys who are older).

For example - you can definitely argue Duchene just looks recharged this season. He’s put up a 10.6 oish% over an entire season before so even if he cools down to a sustainable and proven career best level, that’s going to keep his point total projection much higher than 67.

Likewise, MacK is a completely different player now than he was before he broke out and there’s no reason to think his 11.9% last season is not sustainable at this point (though his current 13.5 undoubtedly is). It’s an elite number and he’s an elite player. Taking his career average puts too much weight on a 19-20 year old season during which he was going through growing pains. He’s a guy just entering his prime so using his career total is a skewed evaluation of who he is.

 

[tucker3434]

At seasons end, many of the guys towards the top of the Art Ross race will have “unsustainable” numbers, because they can be sustained for a whole season. It may end up being career highs for some of them, but so what, if the focus is on this year’s Art Ross race only.

Edit: Also, your predicted points looks like you just did career oish% multiplied by 82 games. That would mean a lot of these guys would have to go well below their oish% the rest of the way to correct for early season hot streaks. That’s unlikely. You might want to just do the remaining games and add to what they already have.

 

[Bedards Dad]

Thanks OP for putting the work in. I love seeing this stuff, even if I dont agree with it. Many of the counter points have been made, but the glaring misplacements to me are:

TOO LOW - Mackinnon, Marner, Tavares

TOO HIGH - McDavid (still first but not 127 points), Tkachuk

Would be great to see at 1/2 and 3/4 along with a final analysis.

 

[42]

Tavares is only putting up 41 points over the next 61 games. Shoot

That is an interesting way to predict points but I don't really buy many of the final predictions. Duchene and Tavares are going to put up way more points, particularly Tavares, given his past production and his current scoring a mere 41 points over the last 61 games would be way out of line from him, especially given how rock solid his season by season production is. I would also be surprised if McDavid put up 127 points this season, that is way more then any player has scored in a season for many years and way above his previous career high.

I suspect Tavares' low predicted points are the result of him having low PP points compared to EV points (6 PP so far only). See my previous comments about a shortcoming of my analysis, which basically does not take into account the fact the oiSH% is calculated for EV production only but I used total points in my prediction. As I said, I might re-do the calc (if the motivation strikes me) to see what differences it produces. I suspect Tavares' number will go up.

 

[42]

Leon Draisaitl is up to a 102 point pace for the season and 50 goal pace now. 8th in the league for scoring, where does he fit in there?

He wasn't top 20 in scoring before last game. What a difference one 3-point game makes this early in the season.

 

[RedWingzz]

Some of these seem very low. Tavares and Duchene will not finish that low. I understand what the analysis is saying, but no way their production drops this low. Also, Marner will finish with over a point per game as well.

 

[Holymakinaw]

Yeah I always wished Statistics had more character, it was never quite the life of the party. Now Human Eye on the other hand, man that guy is an animal!

When talking about hockey and analyzing players and speculating on how players & teams will do.........the simple human eyeball test is WAY better at a party than math.

 

[42]

If you want to be more optimistic, another approach would be to project the remaining games based on career best oiSh% over a full season on not just career average - which includes early years of inexperience, potential injury riddled seasons and other factors which may not portray how well some of these guys can play when at their best over a full season - particularly for the guys still in or even just entering their prime seasons (it might not be so useful for the guys who are older).

For example - you can definitely argue Duchene just looks recharged this season. He’s put up a 10.6 oish% over an entire season before so even if he cools down to a sustainable and proven career best level, that’s going to keep his point total projection much higher than 67.

Likewise, MacK is a completely different player now than he was before he broke out and there’s no reason to think his 11.9% last season is not sustainable at this point (though his current 13.5 undoubtedly is). It’s an elite number and he’s an elite player. Taking his career average puts too much weight on a 19-20 year old season during which he was going through growing pains. He’s a guy just entering his prime so using his career total is a skewed evaluation of who he is.

Yes, you are right, these are some of the shortcomings of the analysis and need to be kept in mind when lookking at the prediction. It'll be way too much work and involve some biased opinions, as opposed to just relying on career averages, to use the scheme you are suggesting. Whose last season should I use as the bench mark? Maybe his last two seasons? Or last three? Maybe said player had an outlier career year last season. I know in the case of MacKinnon there is a strong argument to be made that his oiSH% will be higher going forward than his career average. There is also an argument to be made for the contrary. Look at other star players. Take Malkin for example and look at his career oiSH% progression. It doesn't just go up, it fluctuates.

 

[42]

Thanks OP for putting the work in. I love seeing this stuff, even if I dont agree with it. Many of the counter points have been made, but the glaring misplacements to me are:

TOO LOW - Mackinnon, Marner, Tavares

TOO HIGH - McDavid (still first but not 127 points), Tkachuk

Would be great to see at 1/2 and 3/4 along with a final analysis.

Yeah, I plan to do this analysis again at the half point at least.

I agree that MacKinnon and (especially)Tavares are too low. Marner I really don't think is that low. I can see finishing the year around PPG and is predicted to get 78. I can see 85 for him but definitely don't see 100.

Tkachuk (and Domi) I think are too high, I agree with you. McDavid can do it, though.

 

[JetsWillFly4Ever]

Interesting list.

As others have noted, it would be more accurate to separate into 5v5 OIS% and PP OIS% but that is more work and harder to find.

I'm not sure I like the idea of projecting what they will get if they return to career norms because players have career years and sustain higher than average OIS% quite regularly. To me it's more interesting to use this list as a reference for some players getting luckier than others. If someone ends the season with a career year and a very high OIS% you can be quite confident they will have a worse season the next season.

 

[Nithoniniel]

Sorry, but this kind of analysis is so cold and sterile. It lacks the "eye test" of a real human eyeball.

The statistics say what all of these guys MIGHT get but it's pointless, really. If we lived in a vacuum, then it might be good. But we live in the real world.

What about injuries? What about trades to teams with all new line-mates? What about luck? What about too much legal weed while playing in Canada?

Yeah, this chart is cool looking and has a lot of numbers and stuff.......but the reality will be completely different. So.......pointless.

You're basically saying that we can't be 100% sure about the future, so any kind of prediction whatsoever is pointless. It has nothing to do with the kind of analysis used here.

 

[Holymakinaw]

You're basically saying that we can't be 100% sure about the future, so any kind of prediction whatsoever is pointless. It has nothing to do with the kind of analysis used here.

Is that what I'm saying? I thought I was saying that such a detailed breakdown is pointless, because it only applies in a complete vacuum. Once any part of reality comes into play(and it will, 100% of the time, according to my math ), none of these fancy numbers work. So why do all this work, creating this?