Hockey Outsiders posts about the players Playoff R ON and R OFF made me wonder how Firsov who in his prime both was the greatest scorer in international hockey and an expert at keeping the opponents off the scoresheet would do in this regard. This already posted quote from VMBM suggests that Firsovs R ON/R OFF must have been incredibly impressive in at least the 1969 WHC and the 1972 Olympics.
According to a Finnish sports book, the Soviets did not allow a single goal when Firsov was on the ice at the 1969 World Championships (USSR allowed 23 goals in the tournament). And according to the same book, the Vikulov-Firsov-Kharlamov-Tsygankov-Ragulin unit allowed only 1 goal (and scored masses) at the 1972 Olympics, and Firsov had very much a defensive/playmaking kind of role in the tournament.
I mean look at those 1969 WHC numbers. Firsov led the tournament in scoring at the same time as he completely held the opponents off the scoresheet throughout the entire tournament. Although we can't know exactly how many even strenght goals Firsov was in on we know that he had 11 even strenght points which means that he at the very minimum went 11-0 at even strenght. This while the Soviet team let in 23 goals in total. 18 of those 23 goals were let in at even strenght according to the boxscores but still it is obvious that the Soviet team had far stronger numbers when Firsov was on the ice than when he was off the ice. Let us also remember that this was a Soviet team where the Kharlamov-Petrov-Mikhailov line was on the ice for a large part of the time when Firsov was off the ice at even strenght.
While that quote shows that Firsov had outstanding R ON/R OFF numbers at the 1969 WHC and the 1972 Olympics I also wanted to look at his R ON/R OFF in the available footage. As already mentioned my video study of Firsov showed that his ability to prevent the opponents from scoring very much was possible to see in the available footage considering that he in the approximately 11 available games (10 full games and 2 partial games) only was on the ice for 2 goals against in total (1 at even strenght and 1 while shorthanded). So it did not exactly come as a surprise to me that Firsovs R ON/R OFF numbers in those games were incredibly impressive.
Here are the numbers.
Total all games (11 gp):
R ON: 12.000 (12 g f, 1 g a) - R OFF: 1.917 (23 g f, 12 g a)
As you can see above the Soviets outscored their opponents with a 12:1 ratio at even strenght when Firsov was on the ice while they outscored the opponents with less than a 2:1 ratio when Firsov was off the ice. This is of course very impressive numbers from Firsov.
And it is also worth noting that Firsov did not create most of this gap compared to his teammates against the weaker opponents but rather against the stronger ones. As you can see in the post linked here below Czechoslovakia and Sweden were clearly the strongest opponents of the Soviets during the time frame of my video study (1964-1970) and this is Firsovs R ON/R OFF numbers against them.
Round 2, Vote 6 (HOH Top Wingers)
Total versus top 2 opponents (6 gp):
R ON: 6.000 (6 g f, 1 g a) - R OFF: 0.800 (8 g f, 10 g a)
Considering that the Soviets were outscored with 8:10 at even strenght without Firsov on the ice against Czechoslovakia and Sweden it is in my opinion extremely impressive that they went 6:1 at even strenght when Firsov was on the ice. And again let us remember that the Kharlamov-Petrov-Mikhailov line was on the ice for a large part of the R OFF considering that 4 out of the 6 games were played at the 1969 and 1970 WHCs.
Since I have the penalty killing data available as well I can say that the Soviets did far better when Firsov was on the ice than when he was not in that part of the game as well. With Firsov on the ice the Soviets had 1:1 over those 11 games and 0:0 in the games against Czechoslovakia and Sweden. Without Firsov on the ice the numbers are 0:3 and 0:2 respectively.
Here is how Firsovs does in a combined even strenght and penalty killing R ON/R OFF stat.
Combined EVS and PK all games (11 gp):
R ON: 6.500 (13 g f, 2 g a) - R OFF: 1.533 (23 g f, 15 g a)
Combined EVS and PK versus top 2 opponents (6 gp):
R ON: 6.000 (6 g f, 1 g a) - R OFF: 0.667 (8 g f, 12 g a)
Here are the games and the data.
10 Full games
USSR-Canada 1964: R ON 0 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 2 gf*, 2 ga
USSR-Canada 1967: R ON 1 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 1 gf, 0 ga
USSR-CSSR 1967: R ON 2 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 2 gf, 2 ga
USSR-West Germany 1968: R ON 2 gf 0 ga - R OFF 6 gf, 0 ga
USSR-Sweden 1968: R ON 2 gf, 1 ga - R OFF 0 gf, 1 ga
USSR-Canada 1968: R ON 1 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 2 gf, 0 ga
USSR-Sweden 1969: R ON 1 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 2 gf, 2 ga
USSR-CSSR 1969: R ON 0 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 0 gf, 1 ga
USSR-Sweden 1970: R ON 0 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 2 gf, 3 ga
USSR-Sweden 1970: R ON 1 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 2 gf, 1 ga
2 Partial games (together they roughly equal one full game worth of footage)
USSR-Finland 1968: R ON 0 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 3 gf, 0 ga
USSR-USA 1968: R ON 2 gf, 0 ga - R OFF 1 gf, 0 ga
* In the boxscore from the USSR-Canada game at the 1964 Olympics there are two different versions. On the Soviets second goal the official version says that the goal was scored 20 seconds after the powerplay ended while the other version says it was a powerplay goal scored the last second of the powerplay. Watching the footage I find the second version far more likely since there is no way that Canada had been at full strenght for 20 seconds when the goal was scored which is why I used that version here. But even if we use the official seemingly inaccurate version the one added even strenght goal to the R OFF does not really make much of a difference considering how dominant Firsovs numbers are. (12:1 to 24:12 instead of 12:1 to 23:12)
1964 Чемпионат Мира и Олимпийские Игры: Австрия (Инсбрук) - Форум хоккейных статистиков им. Виктора Малеванного
I have never worked with R ON/R OFF before so please point out if I am making some mistakes when using the method here in this post.