They Are Who We Thought They Were, Statistically Speaking
by Mike @ MHH on Oct 9, 2009 10:00 AM MDT
in NHL News
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PrintClicking around the intrawebs yesterday revealed that Alan Ryder's look at the 2008-2009 season was complete and up for public consumption. Some of you may be familiar with his work, others may find this both new and interesting, and still others won't understand any of it. Anyway, I thought I'd strip mine the 64-page document for all the good and bad from last season's team and give it to the MHH faithful in nice, easy-to-digest quotes.
Lucky and Unlucky Teams
Wins are about 94% predicted by goals for and against (or by marginal goals totals). When a team wins in spite of a low marginal goal performance it is either very skilled at winning close games or it is lucky. Historical analysis suggests that this is mostly luck. I would not completely rule out some intangible, but nobody has found it yet. Lucky teams tend to regress the following season (and vice versa). But these teams may also be systemically able to win tight games....Colorado (2.84) rounded out the bottom five in skating time winning efficiency.
The Avs' offense regressed from 2007-1008, something we were afraid would happen and then were terrified to watch.
The Avalanche also fell off the offensive cliff with 40 fewer goals from offense.
Alan's analysis basically says that the Avs had AHL-level goaltending for the bulk of last season. He supports my personal contention that even Jose Theodore wouldn't have fared better behind the Avs and our new love-child Mr. Anderson gives us hope for the future. He even warns Canuck fans of the perils of Raycroft.
Goaltending
A marginal goals analysis compares performance to a threshold. The threshold is based on my estimate of zero-value performance. You can see from the table above that Colorado barely cleared that threshold. There was also an unimpressive goaltending contribution in Atlanta.
Colorado (-34) suffered a white out in net. I suppose the writing was on the wall when they signed Toronto cast-off Andrew Raycroft. He played better in 2009, but his save percentage of .892 was still quite marginal. The former Calder Trophy winter has moved on to Vancouver for the coming season and Canuck fans should pray for a healthy Roberto Luongo. That Raycroft got 1,722 minutes of playing time says that Peter Budaj was a disappointment as well. His save percentage in 2008 (.903) should not have inspired much hope and he delivered more-or-less as expected in 2009 (.899). The loss of Jose Theodore’s 2008 performance (.910 save percentage) turned out to be quite painful (but note that he only delivered a .900 save percentage in Washington). For 2010 Craig Anderson has been acquired to lead the Avalanche out of the blizzard. I think there is considerable upside potential there.
Florida was +21 on the basis of a weaker defense and an improvement in team save percentage.... Craig Anderson still contributed materially to the overall team improvement. The Panthers have lost his contribution for the 2010 season to the Avalanche.
Shootout were a plus for the team, and Alan's analysis bears that out:
Colorado had a league best .512 shooting percentage, winning 9 of 13, followed by the Devils (.480).
And a little something for all the Hobbit Haters out there (you know who you are). Scott Hannan was dismal in his first season as a member of the Colorado Avalanche, but according to Alan, he's back in his San Jose form as of last season:
Two years ago Scott Hannan was a teammate of Vlasic and I had him ranked as the second best defensive defenseman in the NHL. In 2008 he moved on to Colorado (for a $4.5 million a year contract) and slipped to 65th in the defensive rankings. But, this season, he is back – ranked 5th overall.
Some more personal accolades from Alan. Two Avs made the defensive 2nd teams. Nope, not Salei and Clark, but two-way juggernaughts The Duke and the Baron:
Each of San Jose (#1 ranked NHL defense), Columbus (3), Detroit (4) and Colorado (6) placed two players on this team.
Anyway, lots of stuff we knew and a couple of surprises (Hannan, getting what we expected out of Budaj). I hope you take the time to read through Alan's work. It's fascinating from a stats-junkie standpoint and I personally enjoy his contributions to the larger NHL statistical world. For even more stats-related fun, make sure you check out one of the newest SBN members, Gabe over at Behind the Net. Head on over and give him a shout-out from MHH.
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The Avs’ offense regressed from 2007-1008
2007-1008? That is indeed quite the bit of regression!
by c0nquistad0rian on Oct 9, 2009 11:04 AM MDT reply actions
MHH: A Colorado Avalanche Fan Community
Defending Big D: A Dallas Stars blog on SBN: easy to use, free to join.
i really don’t get these cross-sports references. all there is in this world is hockey. don’t you know that yet?
The 2009-2010 Colorado Avalanche: Anything is possible.
"To all the cynics, I'm sorry for you, ... I'm sorry you can't believe in miracles."
-Lance Armstrong
by BeachNSnowGirl on Oct 10, 2009 3:57 PM MDT up reply actions
Pretty sure that this data is what was compiled for last season (2008-9) and in comparison to the season before (2007-8), not the two games that have been played so far this 2009-10 season.
by c0nquistad0rian on Oct 9, 2009 3:09 PM MDT up reply actions
Colorado apparently had the 6th best defensive unit last year and the 7th best improvement from 2007-08.
Insofar as The Duke and Baron getting a hat-tip by Ryder:
One caveat in all of this is that not all forwards receive uniformly difficult defensive assignments. Top offensive forwards frequently skate against checkers and vice versa. This tendency may cause the defense of top offensive forwards to be over rated (and the defense of checkers to be underrated).
I looked at the figures and I don’t think he took into account the quality of competition (QoC) along with the quality of teammates (QoT) somehow – this would somewhat prevent offensive stars from appearing on the list.
I would suggest that the difference between relative quality of teammates and quality of competition is a good sniff test as to whether the player is being sent out on a scoring line (higher QoT) and whether this is against another scoring line (higher QoC) – e.g. Marleau’s difference between QoC and QoT is -.315 whereas McClement’s difference is .359, yet according to Ryder’s measure they are of a similar quality of defensive forward.
Not his fault, especially when making calculations with regard to last year’s Avs.
The infinitely large negative QoT coefficients necessary to accurately depict the presence of Arnasoft, Tucker and Clark, among others would have resulted in unusable data.
2009-2010 Colorado Avalanche - "Hey Brother, can you spare a Left Winger?"
The infinitely large negative QoT coefficients necessary to accurately depict the presence of Arnasoft, Tucker and Clark, among others would have resulted in unusable data.
I doubt the data would have been unusable but clearly there’s got to be some consideration of the ‘Arnason-effect’ – ’cause if you put anyone with a terrible player then it reasonable to expect that their quality of play will decrease. However, some players will still do better than others and those that get good (or better results) with them could be a better player than someone who is sent out with other talented defensive players on his team.
On that note – partitioning quality of teammates and competition into defensive and offensive measures would be useful – although this would be likely to be impossible to do with accuracy.
Hobbit's looked good with Quincy this season too
Maybe we’re finally getting at least one line of defense worth paying for.
In my opinion, Hannan has earned his paycheck for the majority of last season and all of this season (so far). Quincey has been a bargain. Just imagine what the forward corp. could look like if the other 4 stiffs (I’m including Liles in this. He hasn’t done diddly since the first game and has had some pretty questionable plays in his own end) on the blueline were being paid what they were worth.
"I know everyone has their own opinion, but your opinion is wrong. "
Imagine what Duchene would look like if he had some linemates that could play with him:P
by c0nquistad0rian on Oct 11, 2009 10:42 PM MDT up reply actions
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