Statistical Quirk: Ever Seen a Year With More Players With High Goals and Low Assists Totals Than 1993-94? Also, Any Explanations?

[MarkusNaslund19]

So one thing that I do when I relax is I engage my hockey nerd brain by doing Sporcle quizzes based around all of our favourite sport. I was doing one on the top 50 scorers from 93-94 when I saw this strange anomaly.

Check this out:

Pavel Bure: 60-47-107

Brendan Shanahan: 52-50-102

Dave Andreychuk: 53-46-99

Brett Hull: 57-40-97

Ray Sheppard: 52-41-93

Mike Modano: 50-43-93

Luc Robitaille: 44-42-86

Keith Tkachuk: 41-40-81

Adam Graves: 52-27-79

Wendel Clark: 46-30-76

Steve Thomas: 42-33-75

Cam Neely: 50-24-74

That's 12 players with at least 40 goals who had more goals than assists, all of whom finished within the top 50 scorers in the league.
Now, I know that was one of the last high-scoring years in the 90's, and I know that all of those names on the list are guys who (exception of Modano maybe) were goal scorers much more than playmakers, but it's like half the league drank a Peter Bondra elixir that season.

For a bonus, guys who had close to as many goals as assists:

Sergei Fedorov: 56-64-120

Eric Lindros: 44-53-97

Kevin Stevens: 41-47-88

Theoren Fleury: 40-45-85

Gary Roberts: 41-43-84

Mikeal Renberg: 38-44-82

Pat Verbeek: 37-38-75

Joe Nieuwendyk: 36-39-75

Nelson Emerson: 33-41-74.

Now, I basically included everyone on the 2nd list who had a goal total within 10 of their assist total and some of them on their own aren't much to look at.

But all told nearly half of the top 50 point scorers in the league either had outlandish goal totals compared to assist totals, or else were very close to having the same number of goals as assists.

Can anyone find years with similarly odd distributions? Any explanations?
To see stat lines like Hull, Graves, Clark, Neely, Sheppard, Andreychuk, and Thomas in a single season is really something. A lot of them are up there on the all-time list for discrepancies between goals and assists.

What say you?

Click to read more...

 

[Midnight Judges]

That is a very interesting set of data.

I think what it shows is the volatility of top player hockey data in general, this likely being an outlier in a league that has averaged roughly 1.7 assists per goal for quite some time now.

 

[MadLuke]

Assist per goals league wide
92-93: 1.67
93-94: 1.66

Top 50 scorer in points, assist per goal ratio (% of goals scored on the PP, among the top 50)

91-92: 1.50 (35.4%)
92-93: 1.54 (36.7%)
93-94: 1.48 (37.4%)
94-95: 1.42 (32.2%)
95-96: 1.54 (35%)

Number of player in the top 50 points with more goals than assists

91-92: 6
92-93: 8
93-94: 12
94-95: 11
95-96: 7

94-95 was a short season too but very similar it seem.

 

[meangene]

This was a fairly common feature of the first few decades of the league, when positions were much more rigid and line changes were not really a thing. Top 10 scorers from 1929-30 season for example:

					GP	G	A	P
1	Cooney Weiland*	25	BOS	C	44	43	30	73		29	12.5				14
2	Frank Boucher*	28	NYR	C	42	26	36	62		16	8.2				1
3	Dit Clapper*	22	BOS	RW	44	41	20	61		38	10.8				7
4	Bill Cook*	33	NYR	RW	44	29	30	59		56	8.1				3
5	Hec Kilrea	22	OTS	LW	44	36	22	58		70	9.8				3
6	Nels Stewart*	27	MTM	C	44	39	16	55		85	10.1				7
7	Howie Morenz*	27	MTL	C	44	40	13	53		72	9.8				5
8	Normie Himes	26	NYA	C	44	28	22	50		15	7.1				4
9	Dutch Gainor	25	BOS	LW	42	18	31	49		39	6.7				2
10	Joe Lamb	23	OTS	C	44	29	20	49		119	7.9

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

This was a fairly common feature of the first few decades of the league, when positions were much more rigid and line changes were not really a thing. Top 10 scorers from 1929-30 season for example:

					GP	G	A	P
1	Cooney Weiland*	25	BOS	C	44	43	30	73		29	12.5				14
2	Frank Boucher*	28	NYR	C	42	26	36	62		16	8.2				1
3	Dit Clapper*	22	BOS	RW	44	41	20	61		38	10.8				7
4	Bill Cook*	33	NYR	RW	44	29	30	59		56	8.1				3
5	Hec Kilrea	22	OTS	LW	44	36	22	58		70	9.8				3
6	Nels Stewart*	27	MTM	C	44	39	16	55		85	10.1				7
7	Howie Morenz*	27	MTL	C	44	40	13	53		72	9.8				5
8	Normie Himes	26	NYA	C	44	28	22	50		15	7.1				4
9	Dutch Gainor	25	BOS	LW	42	18	31	49		39	6.7				2
10	Joe Lamb	23	OTS	C	44	29	20	49		119	7.9

Yeah true, I should have specified the modern game. I also believe there was a time when secondary assists weren't counted.

But let's say from the 60's or so on.

 

[MadLuke]

But let's say from the 60's or so on.

The year just after, which could have been a very similar nhl and for the same reason if something was actually going on.

Fleury, LeClair, Shanahan, Kariya, Zhamnov, Sundin were goals heavy, Nolan, Bondra, Audette, Hull and maybe more surprisingly Turgeon had more goals than assists, Ferraro, Robitaille, Neely, Murphy, Tocchet Reichel, , Sheppard, Richer, Andreychuck.

48 games seasons was maybe a force there as well.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

So one thing that I do when I relax is I engage my hockey nerd brain by doing Sporcle quizzes based around all of our favourite sport. I was doing one on the top 50 scorers from 93-94 when I saw this strange anomaly.

Check this out:

Pavel Bure: 60-47-107

Brendan Shanahan: 52-50-102

Dave Andreychuk: 53-46-99

Brett Hull: 57-40-97

Ray Sheppard: 52-41-93

Mike Modano: 50-43-93

Luc Robitaille: 44-42-86

Keith Tkachuk: 41-40-81

Adam Graves: 52-27-79

Wendel Clark: 46-30-76

Steve Thomas: 42-33-75

Cam Neely: 50-24-74

That's 12 players with at least 40 goals who had more goals than assists, all of whom finished within the top 50 scorers in the league.
Now, I know that was one of the last high-scoring years in the 90's, and I know that all of those names on the list are guys who (exception of Modano maybe) were goal scorers much more than playmakers, but it's like half the league drank a Peter Bondra elixir that season.

For a bonus, guys who had close to as many goals as assists:

Sergei Fedorov: 56-64-120

Eric Lindros: 44-53-97

Kevin Stevens: 41-47-88

Theoren Fleury: 40-45-85

Gary Roberts: 41-43-84

Mikeal Renberg: 38-44-82

Pat Verbeek: 37-38-75

Joe Nieuwendyk: 36-39-75

Nelson Emerson: 33-41-74.

Now, I basically included everyone on the 2nd list who had a goal total within 10 of their assist total and some of them on their own aren't much to look at.

But all told nearly half of the top 50 point scorers in the league either had outlandish goal totals compared to assist totals, or else were very close to having the same number of goals as assists.

Can anyone find years with similarly odd distributions? Any explanations?
To see stat lines like Hull, Graves, Clark, Neely, Sheppard, Andreychuk, and Thomas in a single season is really something. A lot of them are up there on the all-time list for discrepancies between goals and assists.

What say you?

It was also the era of more defined roles between playmakers and goal scorers.

Detroit had 14-63 Coffey and 24-58 Yzerman
The Pens had 32-67 Jagr, 27-66 Francis and 17-56 Murphy
Boston had 32-80 Oates and 20-71 Bourque
STL had 16-68 Janney
NYR had 12-77 Zubov, 26-58 Messier and 23-56 Leetch
Vancouver had it by committee with Courtnall-Ronning-Craven-Lumme combining for 78-159
Toronto had 27-84 Gilmore
Philly had 28-64 Brind'amour and 10-60 Galley
Dallas had 23-57 Courtnall
LAK had Gretzky go for 38-92

 

[MadLuke]

It was also the era of more defined roles between playmakers and goal scorers.

Maybe I am not looking at this correctly but

correlation between goals and assist among the top 50 players with most points

93-94: -.53
22-23: -0.0165

correlation between goals scored and points among them

93-94: 0.334
22-23: 0.612

Seem like a giant difference (scoring a lot of goals being less linked to score a lot of points)

 

[Crosby2010]

I really don't know for sure and I am just bouncing a couple of ideas for the heck of it, but I will point out that almost all of the names listed are wingers. Naturally they are going to have a better chance at higher goal totals and lower assist totals than centres.

The best guess I can think of is that there were some prominent centres that missed a lot of hockey in 1994 who had full years in 1993. Mario missed most of 1994, Lafontaine did too, Yzerman missed 1/3 of the season. Maybe that just meant there was more room for sniping wingers to thrive.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

IIRC didnt TV timeouts become a thing either in 1992-93 or the next year?

That might explain part of this as usage changed a fair bit towards set offensive lines monopolizing a lot of fully rested offensive zone starts after waiting out several minutes of coaches drawing out plays for the coming faceoff.

 

[overpass]

Interesting point. I don't know if I have any answers. Maybe watching Cam Neely score 50 goals will shed some light on the subject.

 

[Dennis Bonvie]

Interesting point. I don't know if I have any answers. Maybe watching Cam Neely score 50 goals will shed some light on the subject.

#6 was an eye opener.