Statistical analysis of star defenseman in NHL

Sureves

Registered User
Sep 29, 2008
11,520
928
Ottawa
Hey everyone,

I had some free time today so and I recently found a useful website for with or without you (WOWY) analysis.

For those of you who don't know what it is, it basically shows how Player X does with Player Y and how Player X does without Player Y so we can see the difference. In mine I'm actually looking at with Player X without Player Y versus Player Y without Player X.

I originally wanted to check this out because some fans have mentioned that Karlsson gets to play with Spezza which drastically improves his goals for. But then when I started that, I decided I may as well look at the other defenseman.

Here are the results. This lookas at:

Karlsson without Spezza
Pietrangelo without Backes
Chara without Seguin
Doughty without Kopitar
Weber without Suter
Suter without Weber

Suter and Weber are a pretty different comparison so I separated it, it's looking at something fairly different than the other 4, but I thought it would be interesting to see who really was "better" last year since a lot of people disagree.

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So CF means Corsi For which measures all shots directed at the opponents net. CA means Corsi Against and is the opposite. GF is Goals For and GA is Goals Against. All measures are per 20 minutes.

So here are the results in words:

Ottawa had 6.85% more shots when Karlsson was on without Spezza than Spezza had without Karlsson. However, they scored 5.56% less. On the defensive side, they allowed 7.14% less shots and 11.89% less goals.

St.Louis had 0.56% more shots when Pietrangelo was on without Backes than Backes had without Pietrangelo. However, they scored 14.92% less. On the defensive side, they allowed 2.74% less shots and 4.43% less goals.

Boston had 2.48% less shots when Chara was on without Seguin than Seguin had without Chara. They also scored 24.67% less. On the defensive side, they allowed 3.47% more shots but allowed 13.14% less goals.

LA had 22.11% less shots when Doughty was on without Kopitar than Kopitar had without Doughty. They also scored 42.99% less. On the defensive side, they allowed 5.73% less shots and 31.68% less goals.

Weber and Suter are of particular interest, and from what these numbers show, Weber is just a much better player than Suter is, however, it's quite possible that this is capturing something different than that. It's possible that Suter is simply used in more of a shutdown role when they are down a goal while they try and use Weber to go out there and score goals more often maybe playing with Ellis or something - I really don't know, maybe some Nashville fans can chime in. Sample size is also small since they only played 200 minutes apart.

And by the way, it would actually appear that Spezza makes the least difference on their respective defenseman than does any of the other players in this study in terms of both goals and corsi. Food for thought.

Anyway, feel free to discuss.
 
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InjuredChoker

Registered User
Dec 25, 2011
31,402
345
LTIR or golf course
Wow, really surprised by Suter numbers, though it's small sample size. He seems to shutdown he's own team and not opposition's lol.

But he didn't play too good after ASG imo, not clearly what he could and has done. And it's really only sample size of three games. Well, we'll see how he does with the Wild. I think he'll be fine.

All dman look ok without one of their best point producers. They get to score less but also get scored less.

Where did you get these numbers? I'd like to know how much Karlsson played without Spezza and Spezza's stats without Karlsson. Also stats reg. Letang and Malkin.

Anyway thanks for posting these, seems interesting.
 

Sureves

Registered User
Sep 29, 2008
11,520
928
Ottawa
Wow, really surprised by Suter numbers, though it's small sample size. He seems to shutdown he's own team and not opposition's lol.

But he didn't play too good after ASG imo, not clearly what he could and has done. And it's really only sample size of three games. Well, we'll see how he does with the Wild. I think he'll be fine.

All dman look ok without one of their best point producers. They get to score less but also get scored less.

Where did you get these numbers? I'd like to know how much Karlsson played without Spezza and Spezza's stats without Karlsson. Also stats reg. Letang and Malkin.

Anyway thanks for posting these, seems interesting.

So this is the website: http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/players.php go there and control f to search the player you want to look up, then click on that person.

For example Stamkos would lead you to this site: http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/showplayer.php?pid=966

Then click 5v5 goals (2011-2012) in the box near the top and then it's pretty straight forward from there.

Karlsson played without Spezza for 933 minutes and with Spezza for 651 minutes (Spezza played 555 without Karlsson).

Karlsson had a GF ON with Spezza of: 3.132 goals for per 60
Karlsson had a GF on without Spezza of: 2.379 goals for per 60
Spezza had a GF on without Karlsson: 2.700 goals for per 60

Letang had a GF on with Malkin of: 5.706 goals for per 60 (outrageous, but should be noted sample size is small at 284 minutes)
Letang had a GF on without Malkin of: 3.150 goals per 60 (but 1/6th of this time would have been with Crosby)
Without Malkin or Crosby: 1.947 goals per 60 (but if he wasn't playing with Crosby or Malkin, it means primarily playing with the 3rd and 4th lines)
Malkin had a GF on without Letang of: 3.270 goals per 60

You can see in the Letang example that it gets tricky to analyse in certain situations so you need to think about if you're missing anything when you're drawing conclusions from the numbers.

Enjoy!
 
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Volodya Krutov

Lost Cosmonaut
Jan 18, 2012
8,135
1,036
I watched maybe 15 Preds games last season and always thought that Suter would be quite more exposed to regression if he wasn't paired with Weber. These numbers could be misleading and I am maybe wrong but sincerely, they are not that surprising to me.
 

DKQ

Generic User Title
Jun 17, 2012
3,128
1
Press Box
I may be understanding how to read this wrong, but should Suter and Weber have the same CF and CA numbers but one should be a positive number and one negative? I mean if Nashville is directing 25% more shots on net when Weber is on without Suter than when Suter is one without Weber, shouldn't they be directing 25% less shots on net when Suter is on without Weber?
 

Sureves

Registered User
Sep 29, 2008
11,520
928
Ottawa
I may be understanding how to read this wrong, but should Suter and Weber have the same CF and CA numbers but one should be a positive number and one negative? I mean if Nashville is directing 25% more shots on net when Weber is on without Suter than when Suter is one without Weber, shouldn't they be directing 25% less shots on net when Suter is on without Weber?

It's a good question, and the answer is you have to read it properly.

I have 20 jelly beans and I gain a jelly bean. Now I have 21, or in other words, I have (21-20)/20 = 4.7% more.

What if I lost a jelly bean? Well now I have (19-20)/20 = 5.0% less jelly beans.

It's just a math thing that causes the difference.

Same thing going on in my numbers, good observation though.
 

Ricky Bobby

Registered User
Aug 31, 2008
8,456
312
Interesting thread and thanks for posting.

The Suter analysis just makes me further believe his cap hit will become one of the worst in the NHL in just a few short seasons.
 

eklunds source

Registered User
Jul 23, 2008
8,323
0
Ed Snider's basement
I'm a fan of anyone who uses hockeyanalysis, but mentioning goals.. Well, they're sort of irrelevant.

Goals are obviously what win or lose you hockey games, but they're so unpredictable. Perry directed a pretty similar number of pucks on net this year and last (13 shots less in 2 less games) and scored 13 goals less. Kuba had an almost identical shot rate for/against in his last two seasons in Ottawa, yet went from -26 to +26.

Over a large enough sample size, those things even out, but one season isn't large enough. That's why you have players who have years like Getzlaf - who looks awful statistically but really just went through two ends of the on-ice shooting percentage spectrum..

Shot rates are much more repeatable, thus much more accurate and a much better predicter of future success. Talking about goals will just lead to people thinking "so he creates higher quality chances", which might happen... But if it does, the effect is so small that it gets buried in statistical noise..



Edit: more detailed analysis of Suter and Weber: http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/7/18/accounting-for-teammates-part-1-corsi-rel-and-wowy

They only played about 3 games without each other. Not nearly enough of a sample size to say for certain how they influence the game apart from their partner.. As the article says, any team in the league can look amazing or awful over a 3 game stretch.
 

Sureves

Registered User
Sep 29, 2008
11,520
928
Ottawa
I'm a fan of anyone who uses hockeyanalysis, but mentioning goals.. Well, they're sort of irrelevant.

Goals are obviously what win or lose you hockey games, but they're so unpredictable. Perry directed a pretty similar number of pucks on net this year and last (13 shots less in 2 less games) and scored 13 goals less. Kuba had an almost identical shot rate for/against in his last two seasons in Ottawa, yet went from -26 to +26.

Over a large enough sample size, those things even out, but one season isn't large enough. That's why you have players who have years like Getzlaf - who looks awful statistically but really just went through two ends of the on-ice shooting percentage spectrum..

Shot rates are much more repeatable, thus much more accurate and a much better predicter of future success. Talking about goals will just lead to people thinking "so he creates higher quality chances", which might happen... But if it does, the effect is so small that it gets buried in statistical noise..



Edit: more detailed analysis of Suter and Weber: http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/7/18/accounting-for-teammates-part-1-corsi-rel-and-wowy

They only played about 3 games without each other. Not nearly enough of a sample size to say for certain how they influence the game apart from their partner.. As the article says, any team in the league can look amazing or awful over a 3 game stretch.

Agreed on the goals topic, Corsi is a better representation for this type of analysis.
 

Muzzinga

Regehr GOAT
Oct 30, 2009
8,573
0
You would need to analyse further than just the face value of these stats. For example, the defenceman might never start in the defensive zone at the same time as the centre whereas they take a lot of offensive faceoffs together, which skews the results..

They are nice stats as an outline and good job on them, but like all stats, they can't be taken as stand alone figures
 
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Raym11

Registered User
Oct 6, 2009
8,173
1,892
Stats aside, i've never went with the hype that Suter is better that some hipsters ran with


Weber to me is just plain better
 

ThirdManIn

Registered User
Aug 9, 2009
55,115
4,034
Stats aside, i've never went with the hype that Suter is better that some hipsters ran with


Weber to me is just plain better

Having seen every NHL game played by both players, I can say that Suter, while better at some aspects of the game, is not the better of the two. Weber isn't necessarily light-years ahead of Suter or anything, but the idea that Suter is better than Weber stemmed from fans watching each play without the other.

When Weber went down to injury for a prolonged period of time (2007-2008/2009-2010) Suter got to play with Hamhuis.

When Suter went down to injury for a prolonged period of time (2010-2011) Weber got to play with Francis Bouillon.

It isn't hard to figure out which pairing looked better on the ice.
 

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