overpass
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- Jun 7, 2007
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2012 edit: There were a couple of small errors in the data. Post 37 contains corrected results.
With or Without Mario Lemieux
The "With or Without You" method of player evaluation is simple. It looks at a team's record with a player and without a player, and estimates the player's impact based on the difference. The method has one main problem; it requires the player to have missed a number of games in multiple seasons to get a good estimate. The With or Without You method was developed for baseball by Tom Tango, and applied to hockey by Gabriel Desjardins in this article.
Mario Lemieux is a prime candidate for this method. He had a famously injury-plagued career. Despite being perhaps the most talented hockey player ever, his NHL accomplishments were limited by his injuries. Lemieux’s fragility was a great loss for hockey fans. However, it does allow the “With or Without You” method of player evaluation to be used.
Lemieux missed 10 or more games in 12 seasons. I used all of those seasons, with the exception of 1995/96. In this season, Lemieux was not missing games randomly. Instead the games he missed were the second half of back-to-backs, in order to rest his body. Since the games he missed were games in which the team could be expected to perform poorly, I left this season out of the calculation.
First, what is Lemieux’s estimated impact over his whole career?
Estimated impact: Mario Lemieux (career)
+0.120 Win% (or 20 standings points over an 82 game season)
+0.56 GF/G (or 46 goals added over an 82 game season)
-0.05 GA/G (or 4 goals prevented over an 82 game season)
Lemieux had a significant impact on winning percentage and goals scored. The impact on goals scored is large, but not as large as one might imagine.
Oddly enough, Lemieux’s impact on wins was larger than his impact on goals for and against. His impact on Pythagorean winning percentage (an estimated winning percentage based on goals for and against) was only +0.082, considerably lower than the actual winning percentage increase of 0.120. This suggests that Lemieux was a clutch player, stepping up his play in close games (or slacking off in blowouts).
While Mario's impact wasn't as large as we might have thought, we know that much of Mario’s career was spent playing hurt. Also, his last few seasons, while not bad, were hardly “Mario Lemieux” seasons. The next step will be to calculate Mario’s impact when he was in his prime and healthy. The seasons selected will be: 1986-87, 1989-90, 1991-92, 1992-93, and 2000-01. 1990-91 and 1993-94 were seasons in which every game he played was a struggle, and he wasn't able to perform at close to his peak level of play in the regular season. I determined this not by the results of this statistical exercise, but by scanning through old game recaps from the seasons in question.
Estimated impact: Mario Lemieux (prime)
+0.203 Win% (or 33 standings points over an 82 game season)
+1.16 GF/G (or 95 goals added over an 82 game season)
-0.01 GA/G (or 1 goal prevented over an 82 game season)
Lemieux's offensive impact is far greater now that his prime seasons are isolated. While this is expected, another interesting point is that his defensive impact appears to be neutral. This shows that he wasn't hurting his team defensively by focusing on scoring.
Again, Lemieux appears to have a clutch element to his game. The estimated increase in Pythagorean winning percentage, based on goals for and against, was only 0.157.
Finally, while Lemieux was arguably in his prime during the seasons in the previous sample, he was still at less than full speed in some of them. The final step is to select three seasons where, while he missed games, he was still at peak effectiveness, or as close as he ever got. These seasons are 1989-90, 1991-92, and 1992-93.
Estimated impact: Mario Lemieux (peak)
+0.256 Win% (or 42 standings points over an 82 game season)
+1.40 GF/G (or 115 goals added over an 82 game season)
-0.04 GA/G (or 3 goals prevented over an 82 game season)
These numbers are absolutely remarkable. The sample is only based on three seasons, so these estimates have a higher variance than the earlier ones, but Mario Lemieux’s impact on his team when he was playing was incredible. He added almost a goal and a half per game, and his team won at a far improved rate while he was on the ice.
Finally, here are the raw numbers for each one of the seasons in question.
Year | Team | GP | W | L | T | GF | GA | W% | GF/G | GA/G
1986-87 | WithMario | 63 | 28 | 28 | 7 | 246 | 230 | 0.500 | 3.90 | 3.65
1986-87 | WithoutMario | 17 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 51 | 60 | 0.265 | 3.00 | 3.53
1989-90 | WithMario | 59 | 27 | 27 | 5 | 248 | 264 | 0.500 | 4.20 | 4.47
1989-90 | WithoutMario | 21 | 5 | 13 | 3 | 70 | 95 | 0.310 | 3.33 | 4.52
1990-91 | WithMario | 26 | 14 | 9 | 3 | 112 | 100 | 0.596 | 4.31 | 3.85
1990-91 | WithoutMario | 54 | 27 | 24 | 3 | 230 | 205 | 0.528 | 4.26 | 3.80
1991-92 | WithMario | 64 | 35 | 22 | 7 | 291 | 234 | 0.602 | 4.55 | 3.66
1991-92 | WithoutMario | 16 | 4 | 10 | 2 | 48 | 68 | 0.313 | 3.00 | 4.25
1992-93 | WithMario | 60 | 45 | 10 | 5 | 292 | 195 | 0.792 | 4.87 | 3.25
1992-93 | WithoutMario | 24 | 11 | 11 | 2 | 75 | 73 | 0.500 | 3.13 | 3.04
1993-94 | WithMario | 22 | 11 | 9 | 2 | 74 | 79 | 0.545 | 3.36 | 3.59
1993-94 | WithoutMario | 62 | 33 | 18 | 11 | 225 | 206 | 0.621 | 3.63 | 3.32
1995-96 | WithMario | 70 | 44 | 24 | 2 | 331 | 257 | 0.643 | 4.73 | 3.67
1995-96 | WithoutMario | 12 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 31 | 27 | 0.500 | 2.58 | 2.25
2000-01 | WithMario | 43 | 26 | 14 | 3 | 168 | 134 | 0.640 | 3.91 | 3.12
2000-01 | WithoutMario | 39 | 16 | 17 | 6 | 113 | 122 | 0.487 | 2.90 | 3.13
2001-02 | WithMario | 24 | 10 | 12 | 2 | 63 | 66 | 0.458 | 2.63 | 2.75
2001-02 | WithoutMario | 58 | 18 | 34 | 6 | 135 | 183 | 0.362 | 2.32 | 3.16
2002-03 | WithMario | 67 | 22 | 40 | 5 | 160 | 215 | 0.366 | 2.38 | 3.21
2002-03 | WithoutMario | 15 | 5 | 9 | 1 | 29 | 40 | 0.367 | 1.93 | 2.67
2003-04 | WithMario | 10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 20 | 29 | 0.450 | 2.00 | 2.90
2003-04 | WithoutMario | 72 | 20 | 47 | 5 | 170 | 274 | 0.313 | 2.36 | 3.81
2005-06 | WithMario | 26 | 6 | 13 | 6 | 65 | 93 | 0.346 | 2.50 | 3.58
2005-06 | WithoutMario | 56 | 16 | 33 | 8 | 179 | 220 | 0.357 | 3.20 | 3.93
With or Without Mario Lemieux
The "With or Without You" method of player evaluation is simple. It looks at a team's record with a player and without a player, and estimates the player's impact based on the difference. The method has one main problem; it requires the player to have missed a number of games in multiple seasons to get a good estimate. The With or Without You method was developed for baseball by Tom Tango, and applied to hockey by Gabriel Desjardins in this article.
Mario Lemieux is a prime candidate for this method. He had a famously injury-plagued career. Despite being perhaps the most talented hockey player ever, his NHL accomplishments were limited by his injuries. Lemieux’s fragility was a great loss for hockey fans. However, it does allow the “With or Without You” method of player evaluation to be used.
Lemieux missed 10 or more games in 12 seasons. I used all of those seasons, with the exception of 1995/96. In this season, Lemieux was not missing games randomly. Instead the games he missed were the second half of back-to-backs, in order to rest his body. Since the games he missed were games in which the team could be expected to perform poorly, I left this season out of the calculation.
First, what is Lemieux’s estimated impact over his whole career?
Estimated impact: Mario Lemieux (career)
+0.120 Win% (or 20 standings points over an 82 game season)
+0.56 GF/G (or 46 goals added over an 82 game season)
-0.05 GA/G (or 4 goals prevented over an 82 game season)
Lemieux had a significant impact on winning percentage and goals scored. The impact on goals scored is large, but not as large as one might imagine.
Oddly enough, Lemieux’s impact on wins was larger than his impact on goals for and against. His impact on Pythagorean winning percentage (an estimated winning percentage based on goals for and against) was only +0.082, considerably lower than the actual winning percentage increase of 0.120. This suggests that Lemieux was a clutch player, stepping up his play in close games (or slacking off in blowouts).
While Mario's impact wasn't as large as we might have thought, we know that much of Mario’s career was spent playing hurt. Also, his last few seasons, while not bad, were hardly “Mario Lemieux” seasons. The next step will be to calculate Mario’s impact when he was in his prime and healthy. The seasons selected will be: 1986-87, 1989-90, 1991-92, 1992-93, and 2000-01. 1990-91 and 1993-94 were seasons in which every game he played was a struggle, and he wasn't able to perform at close to his peak level of play in the regular season. I determined this not by the results of this statistical exercise, but by scanning through old game recaps from the seasons in question.
Estimated impact: Mario Lemieux (prime)
+0.203 Win% (or 33 standings points over an 82 game season)
+1.16 GF/G (or 95 goals added over an 82 game season)
-0.01 GA/G (or 1 goal prevented over an 82 game season)
Lemieux's offensive impact is far greater now that his prime seasons are isolated. While this is expected, another interesting point is that his defensive impact appears to be neutral. This shows that he wasn't hurting his team defensively by focusing on scoring.
Again, Lemieux appears to have a clutch element to his game. The estimated increase in Pythagorean winning percentage, based on goals for and against, was only 0.157.
Finally, while Lemieux was arguably in his prime during the seasons in the previous sample, he was still at less than full speed in some of them. The final step is to select three seasons where, while he missed games, he was still at peak effectiveness, or as close as he ever got. These seasons are 1989-90, 1991-92, and 1992-93.
Estimated impact: Mario Lemieux (peak)
+0.256 Win% (or 42 standings points over an 82 game season)
+1.40 GF/G (or 115 goals added over an 82 game season)
-0.04 GA/G (or 3 goals prevented over an 82 game season)
These numbers are absolutely remarkable. The sample is only based on three seasons, so these estimates have a higher variance than the earlier ones, but Mario Lemieux’s impact on his team when he was playing was incredible. He added almost a goal and a half per game, and his team won at a far improved rate while he was on the ice.
Finally, here are the raw numbers for each one of the seasons in question.
1986-87 | WithMario | 63 | 28 | 28 | 7 | 246 | 230 | 0.500 | 3.90 | 3.65
1986-87 | WithoutMario | 17 | 2 | 10 | 5 | 51 | 60 | 0.265 | 3.00 | 3.53
1989-90 | WithMario | 59 | 27 | 27 | 5 | 248 | 264 | 0.500 | 4.20 | 4.47
1989-90 | WithoutMario | 21 | 5 | 13 | 3 | 70 | 95 | 0.310 | 3.33 | 4.52
1990-91 | WithMario | 26 | 14 | 9 | 3 | 112 | 100 | 0.596 | 4.31 | 3.85
1990-91 | WithoutMario | 54 | 27 | 24 | 3 | 230 | 205 | 0.528 | 4.26 | 3.80
1991-92 | WithMario | 64 | 35 | 22 | 7 | 291 | 234 | 0.602 | 4.55 | 3.66
1991-92 | WithoutMario | 16 | 4 | 10 | 2 | 48 | 68 | 0.313 | 3.00 | 4.25
1992-93 | WithMario | 60 | 45 | 10 | 5 | 292 | 195 | 0.792 | 4.87 | 3.25
1992-93 | WithoutMario | 24 | 11 | 11 | 2 | 75 | 73 | 0.500 | 3.13 | 3.04
1993-94 | WithMario | 22 | 11 | 9 | 2 | 74 | 79 | 0.545 | 3.36 | 3.59
1993-94 | WithoutMario | 62 | 33 | 18 | 11 | 225 | 206 | 0.621 | 3.63 | 3.32
1995-96 | WithMario | 70 | 44 | 24 | 2 | 331 | 257 | 0.643 | 4.73 | 3.67
1995-96 | WithoutMario | 12 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 31 | 27 | 0.500 | 2.58 | 2.25
2000-01 | WithMario | 43 | 26 | 14 | 3 | 168 | 134 | 0.640 | 3.91 | 3.12
2000-01 | WithoutMario | 39 | 16 | 17 | 6 | 113 | 122 | 0.487 | 2.90 | 3.13
2001-02 | WithMario | 24 | 10 | 12 | 2 | 63 | 66 | 0.458 | 2.63 | 2.75
2001-02 | WithoutMario | 58 | 18 | 34 | 6 | 135 | 183 | 0.362 | 2.32 | 3.16
2002-03 | WithMario | 67 | 22 | 40 | 5 | 160 | 215 | 0.366 | 2.38 | 3.21
2002-03 | WithoutMario | 15 | 5 | 9 | 1 | 29 | 40 | 0.367 | 1.93 | 2.67
2003-04 | WithMario | 10 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 20 | 29 | 0.450 | 2.00 | 2.90
2003-04 | WithoutMario | 72 | 20 | 47 | 5 | 170 | 274 | 0.313 | 2.36 | 3.81
2005-06 | WithMario | 26 | 6 | 13 | 6 | 65 | 93 | 0.346 | 2.50 | 3.58
2005-06 | WithoutMario | 56 | 16 | 33 | 8 | 179 | 220 | 0.357 | 3.20 | 3.93
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