OT: Top-6 Forwards Statistical Peak

[Bender]

Ok...so here we go.

I went team by team and took top-6 forwards from each team who are 28 and older and compared their seasons from year to year. Then I found a list of the NHL's all-time leading scorers and found the top guys with a cut-off birth date of 1971 (cuz you gotta cut it off at some point)...so it's guys who have recently retired. I just went player by player taking the next one off the list. (If I missed any, I'll gladly add them to this list)

For the purpose of this analysis, I used the birth year of the player and matched it with the year of the season...for example :

Alex Tanguay was born in 1979 started playing in the 1999-2000 season. So for this analysis, I put his first year at age 20. (He is a November birthday and started the season at 19 but played most of it at age 20. There was no real best cutoff date, so I used this formula for all the players across the board as it was easier calculate)

Here are the results of the 75 players used in this analysis (PPG) :

18 yrs old - 42.51 PPG
19 yrs old - 63.3 PPG
20 yrs old - 60.15 PPG
21 yrs old - 61.34 PPG
22 yrs old - 67.07 PPG
23 yrs old - 70.29 PPG
24 yrs old - 72.11 PPG
25 yrs old - 71.64 PPG
26 yrs old - 70.74 PPG
27 yrs old - 73.48 PPG
28 yrs old - 68.97 PPG
29 yrs old - 70.81 PPG
30 yrs old - 69.89 PPG

So before some people start freakin' out saying "you can't use those old farts to prove anything from today's game, they played in a different era!!!".

Here it is again with the retired guys taken out. (51 Players remaining)

18 yrs old - 44.03 PPG
19 yrs old - 61.53 PPG
20 yrs old - 57.46 PPG
21 yrs old - 58.59 PPG
22 yrs old - 60.98 PPG
23 yrs old - 69.31 PPG
24 yrs old - 69.36 PPG
25 yrs old - 69.11 PPG
26 yrs old - 69.48 PPG
27 yrs old - 71.84 PPG
28 yrs old - 65.35 PPG
29 yrs old - 66.10 PPG
30 yrs old - 67.12 PPG

It's still clearly 27 years old that forwards peak at and not 22-23 though there is a noticeable 'jump' from 22 to 23 in both cases. Doing this analysis, I started to wonder where those players contract years happen to be at and if that had any effect on the results.

Here is the excel file in case some are doubting the validity of the document. Hopefully I didn't omit anyone important, if so, it's an honest mistake.

Enjoy!

Click to read more...

 

[henchman21]

75 seems like a low sample number for what you are using here. If you went team-by-team and recently retired... you should be well over 75 names. For example I don't see Backstrom, Giroux, Jokinen, Voracek, and Hartnell on the list off the top of my head.

Found a couple of the original list in here.

 

[LieutenantDangle]

this is amazing. Must have taken quite a good chunk of time to prepare and then execute. very good stuff

 

[Bender]

75 seems like a low sample number for what you are using here. If you went team-by-team and recently retired... you should be well over 75 names. For example I don't see Backstrom, Giroux, Jokinen, Voracek, and Hartnell on the list off the top of my head.

Found a couple of the original list in here.

Only Toews & Kane are 28 and are on the list. I could easily add Backstrom and Giroux though I don't know that it would make a huge difference. Voracek is only 27 and I thought about Hartnell but to me he's a borderline top-6 guy to me and a guy who played on the 3rd line a lot so I left him out. I could add him as well.

With the 'recently retired', I could have kept going but decided to stop at Saku Koivu.

I would have posted the results no matter what they were going to be.

 

[ABasin]

This is great, Bender. Appreciate you putting that together. Seems like a lot of work.

I admit that I've always been skeptical of the 'peak scoring age of 22' thing. It seems that the delta between the high- and low-water marks (between the ages of 23 and 30) are less than a 10% difference also. Which makes sense: players need a few years to learn the game and build their bodies up from their teens to hit their peak, then they begin to regress as they near their 30s.

 

[henchman21]

Only Toews & Kane are 28 and are on the list. I could easily add Backstrom and Giroux though I don't know that it would make a huge difference. Voracek is only 27 and I thought about Hartnell but to me he's a borderline top-6 guy to me and a guy who played on the 3rd line a lot so I left him out. I could add him as well.

With the 'recently retired', I could have kept going but decided to stop at Saku Koivu.

I would have posted the results no matter what they were going to be.

They may not make a huge difference, but to get the numbers it should be pretty inclusive IMO.

 

[dahrougem2]

Some good work. Thanks Bender

 

[Cousin Eddie]

That drop off at 28 is pretty crazy. Does that align with the common UFA age by any chance? 27 is a contract year which causes players to try a little harder. 28 they just cashed in and may take their foot off the gas a little?

 

[Bender]

They may not make a huge difference, but to get the numbers it should be pretty inclusive IMO.

Give me a couple of days and I'll add those guys in.

That drop off at 28 is pretty crazy. Does that align with the common UFA age by any chance? 27 is a contract year which causes players to try a little harder. 28 they just cashed in and may take their foot off the gas a little?

Yeah, I was wondering about that myself. The drop-off seems to be more significant now than it used to be...so it is definitely trending downwards towards younger players.

So teams are right to invest in the big 2nd contract coming out of ECL and teams going all-in on UFAs 27+ on July 1st probably ought to tread carefully.

It would be interesting to do the same exercise for D-Men and see what comes out of it. If anyone wants to come up with a list, I can calculate the data.

 

[ASmileyFace]

Thanks for doing this Bender. Really interesting stuff. I'd love to take a further look at why the drop off at 28 is so drastic. It has to be something like contract year as kento was saying.

 

[ABasin]

That drop off at 28 is pretty crazy. Does that align with the common UFA age by any chance? 27 is a contract year which causes players to try a little harder. 28 they just cashed in and may take their foot off the gas a little?

8-10 years of wear and tear on their bodies?

 

[Cousin Eddie]

8-10 years of wear and tear on their bodies?

But then production goes back up.

I don't mean I'm surprised that players production starts to go down at age 28. There's many reasons that make sense for that. I mean I'm surprised that there's a drastic fall off at 28.

 

[henchman21]

One interesting factoid when playing with the numbers... take out the players that didn't start in the NHL until 21 (so only the players that started in their 18/19/20 year old seasons are included in the data set... and Pominville since his game game really shouldn't count when he didn't start until 22) and the averages go to:

18-42.51
19-63.3
20-60.16
21-64.11
22-69.04
23-75.03
24-75.65
25-73.7
26-73.49
27-73.62
28-70.26
29-71.87
30-69.48

NHL experience has to have something to do with where the peak falls, and the wear and tear that goes along with playing in the NHL early.

Same thing with just the start being the 18/19 year old seasons:

18-42.51
19-63.3
20-67.43
21-68.54
22-74.17
23-79.67
24-79.34
25-73.46
26-75.64
27-76.76
28-69.62
29-67.89
30-67.96

Start being 21 or earlier:

18-42.51
19-63.3
20-60.15
21-61.34
22-67.92
23-73.28
24-74.21
25-72.37
26-71.36
27-72.75
28-67.85
29-69.77
30-68.81

Start being 22 or earlier (only takes out Alfie, Datsyuk, St. Louis, and Backes... the first 3 have a dramatic impact):
18-42.51
19-63.3
20-60.15
21-61.34
22-67.07
23-71.33
24-73.3
25-72.43
26-71.56
27-73.24
28-68.22
29-70.51
30-69.32

 

[Bender]

One interesting factoid when playing with the numbers... take out the players that didn't start in the NHL until 21 (so only the players that started in their 18/19/20 year old seasons are included in the data set... and Pominville since his game game really shouldn't count when he didn't start until 22) and the averages go to:

18-42.51
19-63.3
20-60.16
21-64.11
22-69.04
23-75.03
24-75.65
25-73.7
26-73.49
27-73.62
28-70.26
29-71.87
30-69.48

NHL experience has to have something to do with where the peak falls, and the wear and tear that goes along with playing in the NHL early.

Same thing with just the start being the 18/19 year old seasons:

18-42.51
19-63.3
20-67.43
21-68.54
22-74.17
23-79.67
24-79.34
25-73.46
26-75.64
27-76.76
28-69.62
29-67.89
30-67.96

Start being 21 or earlier:

18-42.51
19-63.3
20-60.15
21-61.34
22-67.92
23-73.28
24-74.21
25-72.37
26-71.36
27-72.75
28-67.85
29-69.77
30-68.81

Start being 22 or earlier (only takes out Alfie, Datsyuk, St. Louis, and Backes... the first 3 have a dramatic impact):
18-42.51
19-63.3
20-60.15
21-61.34
22-67.07
23-71.33
24-73.3
25-72.43
26-71.56
27-73.24
28-68.22
29-70.51
30-69.32

Interesting...so it wouldn't be so much AGE as much as ..."after x years of NHL play" we can determine certain trends/patterns.

If I have time, I'll try and see if contract years impact the stats...though that might take a while to do.

 

[henchman21]

Interesting...so it wouldn't be so much AGE as much as ..."after x years of NHL play" we can determine certain trends/patterns.

If I have time, I'll try and see if contract years impact the stats...though that might take a while to do.

Yeah... it seems like that has at least some impact. I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense from a wear and tear/experience standpoint.

From this, it seems clear that the prime is between 23 and 27 with a peak that varies between somewhere. So that experience could from the 3rd-5th year to 8th-10th year.

 

[AllAboutAvs]

Although I believe like others that the impact of playing in the NHL can have an effect on when the drop-off occurs, it seems to me that when the first big contract is signed might influence the drop-off even more. In the case of 18/19 yr old kids they tend to sign their first big contract at around 24 so maybe it is just the case human nature: you work so hard for so long for something that when you finally get the reward you unconsciously relax a little to take a breather. This could explain why the number tends to go back up a little later on as the player realizes he still has to perform really well to get another big contract. I'm not saying a player intentionally slacks off, just human nature. Something to consider I guess.

 

[Tweaky]

Is there any adjustment for NHL scoring trends? The difference in average scoring from 2003 to 2005 is almost 6 points per player per season if awarded to each of the 18 skaters on a team evenly (which would be wrong...top players would get more, 4th liners less). So a player that born in 1980 would have his peak year numbers boosted by having those years be in the relatively high scoring years league wide, and his youngster years in the DPE. And someone like Jagr had HUGE seasons pre-DPE, and while he still was a league leader later on, his numbers declining were not just due to age. He turned 26 in 97-98, which is the first full year of the DPE.

I think you tried to account for this some by doing the exclusion of retired players, but that brings down the sample size to a level that the statistical universe may be too small to be a reliable forecast model. But adding the league average adjustment to each player would be a ton of work (simple for one player for one season to multiply by an adjustment factor for a given age year, but each player/year would have to be adjusted by hand).

Say 2015 is the standard, then 2005 has an AF of 0.857, so Crosby would have an adjusted P/82 of 88.46. His 22y season adjusts to 104.12 P/82, and last season was his 28y at 87.13. For Crosby, the 22-25 years are still the highest (and marred by injury shortened seasons), but not by as much when adjusted for league average scoring. Given the age ranges of many of the players, I am not sure how much of a difference in conclusion we would come to with the adjustments, as I doubt the peak range changes much, but it may smooth out the magnitude of differences, at least until we get into the 30s. Not worth the effort though, IMO.

 

[Bender]

Is there any adjustment for NHL scoring trends? The difference in average scoring from 2003 to 2005 is almost 6 points per player per season if awarded to each of the 18 skaters on a team evenly (which would be wrong...top players would get more, 4th liners less). So a player that born in 1980 would have his peak year numbers boosted by having those years be in the relatively high scoring years league wide, and his youngster years in the DPE. And someone like Jagr had HUGE seasons pre-DPE, and while he still was a league leader later on, his numbers declining were not just due to age. He turned 26 in 97-98, which is the first full year of the DPE.

I think you tried to account for this some by doing the exclusion of retired players, but that brings down the sample size to a level that the statistical universe may be too small to be a reliable forecast model. But adding the league average adjustment to each player would be a ton of work (simple for one player for one season to multiply by an adjustment factor for a given age year, but each player/year would have to be adjusted by hand).

Say 2015 is the standard, then 2005 has an AF of 0.857, so Crosby would have an adjusted P/82 of 88.46. His 22y season adjusts to 104.12 P/82, and last season was his 28y at 87.13. For Crosby, the 22-25 years are still the highest (and marred by injury shortened seasons), but not by as much when adjusted for league average scoring. Given the age ranges of many of the players, I am not sure how much of a difference in conclusion we would come to with the adjustments, as I doubt the peak range changes much, but it may smooth out the magnitude of differences, at least until we get into the 30s. Not worth the effort though, IMO.

Yeah I got no more time to spend on this for the moment. Just got 2 new contracts on top of my regular job...

 

[Pokecheque]

Good stuff--I've always joked that Joe Sakic completely threw off my expectations when it comes to age and decline of NHL players. He had his best season at age 31, then continued to be a productive top line pivot even as he was approaching 40, and this is counting his two injury-riddled final years. When I saw both Lecavalier and Richards retiring at 36 (and really, they had been done for a while before that) my first thought was "Wow, that seems kinda young."

Another anomaly is Joe Thornton, who is still an elite player at age 37. Ironically, the thing the B's looked down upon might very well be the reason for his longevity. His game is not predicated on speed nor is it based on overtly physical play.