projexns
Matchups Matter
It’s always fun watching a lot of hockey fans lose their minds when Jonathan Toews is ranked highly by those that make a living out of the game, players, coaches, GM’s etc. There are two things that are particularly amusing:
1.) Many people actually, really, truly believe that they know more about the sport then the people making a living from the game
2.) Rather than come up with some angle or advanced stat to support this “appeal to the layman†or “appeal to the ignorant†they instead bring nothing more than the most simplistic of statistics: goals, assists and points, the 50% of the game that is about generating goals, but entirely ignoring the other 50% of the game, the prevention of goals.
Interesting that one would attempt to take on the experts by removing half of the game from consideration.
There are very tangible reasons why Jonathan Toews is regarded so highly by the hockey professionals, but these attributes will remain “intangible†to those who only understand the game to the extent of goals, assists and points (and mostly in the regular season, as many tune out once their teams have missed or been elimated from the playoffs) and who give nothing more than lip service to the other aspects of the game.
Before getting into the more tangible areas of scoring and goal prevention, the quality of competition will be given initial consideration. It is easier to put up good numbers playing against Darren Helm rather than Pavel Datsyuk.
The formula is simple. From the following website, a forward’s quality of competition is ranked, in this case, for the 2014-15 season (minimum 30 games):
http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_stat...+RW&f7=30-&c=0+1+3+5+4+6+7+11+12+13+14+15+16#
This is repeated for each of the past five seasons, with the shortened 2012-13 season having a 20-game minimum.
In the case of Toews, his quality of competition in each of the past five seasons were ranked as 7th, 18th, 90th, 48th, and 173rd. Adding up these numbers brings a total of 336, dividing it by the five seasons yields an average number of 67.20. Very simple.
I’ve used the past five seasons for all statistical comparisons because I didn’t want to pad Toews’ numbers. Going back six years would include the 2010 Cup season. A shorter timeframe would bring an over-weighting of the past three successful seasons of two Cups and a Western Conference Final. Five years brings Toews back to the pack so to speak, removing the 2010 championship season from his statistics but including the 1st-round exit seasons of 2011 and 2012.
I also like the fairness of the quality-of-competition metric. Remember when Ovechkin played in a division that included no other playoff teams except for his Capitals? That gets reflected in his quality of competition. Remember when the Western Conference was dominating the Eastern Conference in head-to-head matchups? That gets reflected in the quality of competition. Western players were strengthening their metrics. Eastern players were weakening theirs. The result was that the players in the West were statistically recognized for facing better competition compared to their Eastern peers over the course of an entire season, as it should’ve been.
The quality of competition chart over the past five years includes Toews and the other top centers over that timespan, plus teammates Kane and Hossa, plus winger Ovechkin. Younger centers like Seguin haven’t been around long enough in top-line roles to be included in a five-year comparison:
QUALITY OF COMPETITION – FORWARDS PAST 5 SEASONS
[table="head;width=500]PLAYER|2014-15|2013-14|2012-13|2011-12|2010-11|TOT|5YR AVG||
Zetterberg|53|12|7|22|4|98|19.60||
Datsyuk|70|116|20|30|6|242|48.40||
Kopitar|65|55|41|28|140|329|65.80||
TOEWS|7|18|90|48|173|336|67.20||
Thornton|96|34|147|9|85|371|74.20||
Bergeron|10|82|116|151|13|372|74.40||
HOSSA|5|17|141|221|179|563|112.60||
----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
Giroux|142|132|191|85|43|593|118.60||
Getzlaf|139|52|275|78|69|613|122.60||
H. Sedin|79|69|45|212|249|654|130.80||
Tavares|89|142|261|143|119|754|150.80||
Backstrom|59|137|160|313|124|793|158.60||
----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
KANE|258|212|80|142|194|886|177.20||
Crosby|273|51|210|135|218|886|177.40||
Stamkos|224|152|174|232|106|888|177.60||
Krejci|270|175|177|209|120|951|190.20||
Malkin|90|143|247|229|285|994|198.80||
Ovechkin|58|199|301|327|150|1035|207.00||
[/TABLE]
Note that the toughest matchups went to the “two-way forwards†(Joe Thornton excepted) while the players thought to be the offensive stars of the league got the softest matchups.
Looking at this quality of competition chart may cause one to re-think what the conventional definition of a “two-way†player is. It may have been thought of as a way to recognize defensive play so that the gap between the “two-way player†and the “true, offensive superstar†was narrowed. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, Ovy and Stamkos are superior, but we’ll give some credit to Toews and Kopy and Dats for playing some defence.
In looking at this chart, it looks like the offensive numbers of the stars are coming from a conscious effort by their coaches to match them against inferior competition. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but one has to wonder how the offensive numbers would compare if say Kopitar was getting soft minutes while say Stamkos got more difficult matchups.
To what degree are the better numbers a result of matchups rather than ability?
The coaches and the players who manage and play the game shift-by-shift would notice these nuances, but many fans watch and celebrate the goals without noticing or giving a second thought as to who is on the ice for the other team when these events are taking place.
1.) Many people actually, really, truly believe that they know more about the sport then the people making a living from the game
2.) Rather than come up with some angle or advanced stat to support this “appeal to the layman†or “appeal to the ignorant†they instead bring nothing more than the most simplistic of statistics: goals, assists and points, the 50% of the game that is about generating goals, but entirely ignoring the other 50% of the game, the prevention of goals.
Interesting that one would attempt to take on the experts by removing half of the game from consideration.
There are very tangible reasons why Jonathan Toews is regarded so highly by the hockey professionals, but these attributes will remain “intangible†to those who only understand the game to the extent of goals, assists and points (and mostly in the regular season, as many tune out once their teams have missed or been elimated from the playoffs) and who give nothing more than lip service to the other aspects of the game.
Before getting into the more tangible areas of scoring and goal prevention, the quality of competition will be given initial consideration. It is easier to put up good numbers playing against Darren Helm rather than Pavel Datsyuk.
The formula is simple. From the following website, a forward’s quality of competition is ranked, in this case, for the 2014-15 season (minimum 30 games):
http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_stat...+RW&f7=30-&c=0+1+3+5+4+6+7+11+12+13+14+15+16#
This is repeated for each of the past five seasons, with the shortened 2012-13 season having a 20-game minimum.
In the case of Toews, his quality of competition in each of the past five seasons were ranked as 7th, 18th, 90th, 48th, and 173rd. Adding up these numbers brings a total of 336, dividing it by the five seasons yields an average number of 67.20. Very simple.
I’ve used the past five seasons for all statistical comparisons because I didn’t want to pad Toews’ numbers. Going back six years would include the 2010 Cup season. A shorter timeframe would bring an over-weighting of the past three successful seasons of two Cups and a Western Conference Final. Five years brings Toews back to the pack so to speak, removing the 2010 championship season from his statistics but including the 1st-round exit seasons of 2011 and 2012.
I also like the fairness of the quality-of-competition metric. Remember when Ovechkin played in a division that included no other playoff teams except for his Capitals? That gets reflected in his quality of competition. Remember when the Western Conference was dominating the Eastern Conference in head-to-head matchups? That gets reflected in the quality of competition. Western players were strengthening their metrics. Eastern players were weakening theirs. The result was that the players in the West were statistically recognized for facing better competition compared to their Eastern peers over the course of an entire season, as it should’ve been.
The quality of competition chart over the past five years includes Toews and the other top centers over that timespan, plus teammates Kane and Hossa, plus winger Ovechkin. Younger centers like Seguin haven’t been around long enough in top-line roles to be included in a five-year comparison:
QUALITY OF COMPETITION – FORWARDS PAST 5 SEASONS
[table="head;width=500]PLAYER|2014-15|2013-14|2012-13|2011-12|2010-11|TOT|5YR AVG||
Zetterberg|53|12|7|22|4|98|19.60||
Datsyuk|70|116|20|30|6|242|48.40||
Kopitar|65|55|41|28|140|329|65.80||
TOEWS|7|18|90|48|173|336|67.20||
Thornton|96|34|147|9|85|371|74.20||
Bergeron|10|82|116|151|13|372|74.40||
HOSSA|5|17|141|221|179|563|112.60||
----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
Giroux|142|132|191|85|43|593|118.60||
Getzlaf|139|52|275|78|69|613|122.60||
H. Sedin|79|69|45|212|249|654|130.80||
Tavares|89|142|261|143|119|754|150.80||
Backstrom|59|137|160|313|124|793|158.60||
----|----|----|----|----|----|----|----|
KANE|258|212|80|142|194|886|177.20||
Crosby|273|51|210|135|218|886|177.40||
Stamkos|224|152|174|232|106|888|177.60||
Krejci|270|175|177|209|120|951|190.20||
Malkin|90|143|247|229|285|994|198.80||
Ovechkin|58|199|301|327|150|1035|207.00||
[/TABLE]
Note that the toughest matchups went to the “two-way forwards†(Joe Thornton excepted) while the players thought to be the offensive stars of the league got the softest matchups.
Looking at this quality of competition chart may cause one to re-think what the conventional definition of a “two-way†player is. It may have been thought of as a way to recognize defensive play so that the gap between the “two-way player†and the “true, offensive superstar†was narrowed. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, Ovy and Stamkos are superior, but we’ll give some credit to Toews and Kopy and Dats for playing some defence.
In looking at this chart, it looks like the offensive numbers of the stars are coming from a conscious effort by their coaches to match them against inferior competition. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but one has to wonder how the offensive numbers would compare if say Kopitar was getting soft minutes while say Stamkos got more difficult matchups.
To what degree are the better numbers a result of matchups rather than ability?
The coaches and the players who manage and play the game shift-by-shift would notice these nuances, but many fans watch and celebrate the goals without noticing or giving a second thought as to who is on the ice for the other team when these events are taking place.
