Top Forwards by WAR 2007-2020

[NYR94]

How much of an effect on WAR do faceoffs have?

 

[McDavidCrushedLarkin]

Top 10 this season:

	GP	TOI		Shooting	Passing	DGS	Total FO Goals	PD Goals	Replacement Goals		WAR
LEON.DRAISAITL (EDM)	71	1605.4		16.8	24.5	-3.1	0.3	1.7	13.7		7.2
ARTEMI.PANARIN (NYR)	69	1421.7		10.5	26	0.6	0	1.7	12.1		6.8
DAVID.PASTRNAK (BOS)	70	1327.3		25.9	11.9	0.3	-0.1	1	11.3		6.7
NATHAN.MACKINNON (COL)	69	1464.4		13	20.8	0.6	-1.4	2.7	12.5		6.4
BRAD.MARCHAND (BOS)	70	1361.7		8.2	23.4	3.6	-0.1	0.9	11.6		6.4
AUSTON.MATTHEWS (TOR)	70	1467.9		25.9	2.3	1.9	1.1	1.1	12.5		6
NIKITA.KUCHEROV (T.B)	68	1282.7		15	17.7	0.4	0	0	10.9		5.9
CONNOR.MCDAVID (EDM)	64	1399.4		12.6	21.5	-4.5	-0.3	1.6	11.9		5.7
MAX.PACIORETTY (VGK)	71	1271		16	8.1	3.7	0.1	-0.5	10.8		5.1
EVGENI.MALKIN (PIT)	55	1073.7		8.3	21.7	0.4	0	-1.5	9.1		5.1

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Pacioretty surprised me, but the rest are pretty much as you'd expect. What a signing Panarin was

Draisaitl hey? Thought he sucked according to HF trolls.

 

[NHL WAR]

How much of an effect on WAR do faceoffs have?

Fairly low. Each faceoff won over expectation is worth 0.013 goals. A guy like O'Reilly might gain 0.5 WAR a season from faceoffs.

 

[KidLine93]

LEON eh

Best 2nd Line Lw in history

 

[Midnight Judges]

Good contribution. How about you dedicate your free time working on a statistic to try and help people understand a sport they love, then have someone tell you it’s worthless and useless.

While your emotional reaction is understandable, and the OP is worthy of empathy regarding all the time he has wasted on this, there simply is not a one size fits all Hockey WAR like there is for baseball no matter how much we desire for things to be that simple.

 

[nowhereman]

Good contribution. How about you dedicate your free time working on a statistic to try and help people understand a sport they love, then have someone tell you it’s worthless and useless.

He did. It was called the "Crosby is Overrated" system and it ranks 5-vs-5 goals, PP goals, empty net goals, hits, shot attempts, style points and the ability to speak Russian over puck possession, assists and defensive awareness.

 

[SirloinUB]

Datsyuk at 15th overall and 4th per 82 games and this list excludes 3 of his 6 most productive seasons. Similar thing with Crosby having his best and 5th most productive seasons excluded. Curious to see if they would be 1 and 2 Per 82 games if the list was expanded to included their entire peak years.

 

[authentic]

Datsyuk at 15th overall and 4th per 82 games and this list excludes 3 of his 6 most productive seasons. Similar thing with Crosby having his best and 5th most productive seasons excluded. Curious to see if they would be 1 and 2 Per 82 games if the list was expanded to included their entire peak years.

More than likely. They are the two best all around forwards of the past 15 years.

What I'm wondering though, is how defensive goals saved are calculated here? Seems to me that however it's done is pretty accurate seeing as how Bergeron and Datsyuk standout massively from the rest as well as being extremely close to one another. However, Crosby's is in the - which seems strange, but then again he didn't really start playing above average defense until the latter half of this time frame.

 

[Merrrlin]

Another stat showing Gaudreau is one of the leagues best.... weird. I’m actually shocked that one of the most productive forwards since he entered the league is considered one of the most valuable

*was

 

[NHL WAR]

More than likely. They are the two best all around forwards of the past 15 years.

What I'm wondering though, is how defensive goals saved are calculated here? Seems to me that however it's done is pretty accurate seeing as how Bergeron and Datsyuk standout massively from the rest as well as being extremely close to one another. However, Crosby's is in the - which seems strange, but then again he didn't really start playing above average defense until the latter half of this time frame.

At its root, defensive goals saved is just expected goals against, corsi against, takeaways and blocked shots. Then some neccessary context is added.

It isn't at the point where the results should be taken as gospel, but for the most part they make sense.

A couple factors at play for Crosby:

1) -7.6 "goals" over 13 years isn't significant enough to conclusively consider him below average defensively
2) As you said, the beginning of the time frame dragged him down in this regard. He was -7.1 from 2007-12.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

ES G= 1 A1=0.88 A2=0.69
PP G=0.7 A1=0.61 A2=0.44

I'm not sure if you've posted this before, but how did you get the values for A1 and A2 at ES (0.88 and 0.69)? Those are very close to the values that I've calculated (you value A1's slightly less than I do, and A2's slightly more - but well within any reasonable margin of error).

If we both calculated those values independently (I did my research in April 2019), and got similar results, that's a good sign.

 

[NHL WAR]

I'm not sure if you've posted this before, but how did you get the values for A1 and A2 at ES (0.88 and 0.69)? Those are very close to the values that I've calculated (you value A1's slightly less than I do, and A2's slightly more - but well within any reasonable margin of error).

If we both calculated those values independently (I did my research in April 2019), and got similar results, that's a good sign.

Comforting to hear you got similar results.

I calculated the WAR of each forward from 2015-19 (without the final step of assigning a value to each stat.) Then I grouped it by team, so that I had Anaheim Ducks ES goals above average, ES A1 above average, etc.
I set each of these stats against the teams GF in that time span, which confirmed my belief that ES goals are the most influential. I made them my baseline of 1 and compared slopes to get the other values.

 

[Bertuzzzi44]

These are all the 7+ WAR seasons:

PLAYER	SEASON	GP	TOI		Shooting	Passing	DGS	Total FO Goals	PD Goals	Replacement Goals		WAR
ALEX.OVECHKIN	07/08	82	1894.2		39.8	4.5	0.6	-0.1	5.8	16.5		9
EVGENI.MALKIN	11/12	75	1575.1		26.9	23.9	0.6	-0.9	2.4	13.5		8.8
ALEX.OVECHKIN	09/10	72	1569.4		30.1	18.7	2.1	0	-0.4	13.6		8.5
NIKITA.KUCHEROV	18/19	82	1628.2		15.5	37	-2.3	0	-0.8	13.8		8.4
HENRIK.SEDIN	09/10	82	1614.6		5.2	42.3	0.5	-0.2	-0.2	14		8.2
PAVEL.DATSYUK	07/08	82	1751.8		6.8	24.9	6.5	0.9	5.9	15.3		8
SIDNEY.CROSBY	09/10	81	1778.3		24.3	18.4	-1.1	2.1	-0.5	15.4		7.8
CONNOR.MCDAVID	16/17	82	1728.4		8.8	28.2	0.2	-1.4	7	14.8		7.7
HENRIK.ZETTERBERG	07/08	75	1653.2		21.6	11.7	4.4	1.5	3.6	14.4		7.6
CONNOR.MCDAVID	17/18	82	1767.2		18.6	23.9	-3.5	-2	4.6	15		7.6
SIDNEY.CROSBY	18/19	79	1658.4		10.3	26.2	1.9	2.4	1.7	14.1		7.5
CONNOR.MCDAVID	18/19	78	1780.6		12.5	27.6	-3.5	-0.8	4.3	15.1		7.4
ZACH.PARISE	08/09	82	1538.1		23.1	10.8	4.8	-0.2	2.9	13.2		7.3
PAVEL.DATSYUK	08/09	81	1537.1		9.6	22.8	4.1	1.6	2.9	13.2		7.2
DANIEL.SEDIN	10/11	82	1521.4		17.3	22.1	2.1	-0.1	-0.3	13		7.2
LEON.DRAISAITL	19/20	71	1605.4		16.8	24.5	-3.1	0.3	1.7	13.7		7.2
PATRICK.KANE	15/16	82	1672.9		19.8	20.7	-1.8	-0.4	1.1	14.3		7.2
NICKLAS.BACKSTROM	09/10	82	1676.6		8.4	29.1	2.8	-0.3	-1.1	14.5		7.1
SIDNEY.CROSBY	13/14	80	1757.8		10.7	23.9	0.4	0.9	1.6	15.1		7
JAROME.IGINLA	07/08	82	1732.7		24.4	7.9	1.7	0.4	2.9	15.1		7
ALEX.OVECHKIN	08/09	79	1817.4		31.6	6.7	-1.6	-0.2	0.4	15.6		7

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Draisaitl stacks up pretty well, especially considering GP differences.
Crosby's injuries held him back. From 2010-13 he was on a 10+ WAR over 82 games pace.

Peak Ovechkin was a Monster.