EXPECTED POINTS EACH LINE AND POSITION
I am going to illustrate how many points and goals a “good”, “average”, and “poor” player will score in a season, for each of the top 9 forwards. To illustrate this I will take an average of what the 5th and 6th, 15th and 16th, and 25th and 26th player have scored in that position in the last 3 years to determine what a good, average, and poor player can be expected to score (and the same for 2nd and 3rd liners).
I’ll keep this general (ie not necessarily about the Leafs) as this is just a post on ‘misconception
· Only top end first line C’s are above 80 points. If you have a winger that can crack 70 points you have an elite winger.
· If you have a winger who scores 60 points that’s an average first line winger
· A player who scores 30+ goals is top end production for his position and high 20s is average first line production.
· Typical 2nd line winger is only scoring about 37 points (remember this takes into account injuries)
· A good 2nd line winger is getting 45ish points
· A good 2nd line centre scores just over 50 points
· If running a 1a/1b C system I would aim to get 120 points out of the pair (that is the same output as the 70 points from a 1C and 50 points from a 2C)
DEFINING TOP SIX FORWARDS
The fate of a team arguably rests most significantly in the hands of their top-6 forwards.
ecause they’re given the most ice-time, used in the toughest situations and expected to generate the most offense, top-6 forwards are among the most important and high-profile skaters on most any given team.
Top-6 forwards come in many different types. For example, you can categorize them as playmakers, or goal scorers. You also have power forwards, power play specialists, and tough two-way skaters who could either be hot new rookies or grizzled veterans.
Regardless of the exact sub-type, the one thing that almost all top-6 forwards have in common is that they score at least 1.7 even-strength points per 60 minutes.
We all understand the significance of someone scoring at a point-a-game pace, or topping 100 points, but studying players on the basis of even-strength points per 60 minutes isn’t common enough for us to understand the significance of 1.7.
In truth, there’s nothing particularly magical about 1.7, through observation it’s simply the level of scoring that the vast majority of players assigned to the two lines with the most ice-time generate, and the level at which most of the remaining players don’t.
Summarizing the post briefly:
· 3.3+ Rare
· 2.7 Elite, like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marian Gaborik and Ilya Kovalchuk
· 2.1 Standard, like Jason Arnott, Marc Savard, Ales Hemsky and Scott Gomez
· 1.7 Supporting Cast, like Niklas Hagman, Raffi Torres, Trent Hunter and Stephen Weiss
Forwards who score more than 1.7 even-strength points per 60 minutes are generally the players getting the bulk of the ice-time on the top two lines, and are often called top-6 forwards. The best players in the game can sometimes score twice as much as that, but anyone who scores less is in danger of losing their NHL job, unless they can transition into a checking role.
WHAT IS A GOOD PLAYER
(Intro even though written after)
1st and 2nd tier players are roughly equal in puck possession (Corsi) and shot quality, and though they therefore are expected to have the same plus-minus, the most interesting finding is that they do not! 1st tier players enjoy far better results than 2nd tier players.
A big part of the explanation is the higher on-ice shooting percentage enjoyed by 1st-tier players
Another interesting finding is the validation that forwards appear to have very little to do with goal prevention. Both PDO and Goals Against tend to be roughly the same for top-tier players as bottom-tier—partly because higher-tier players not only get higher-tier linemates, but also higher-tier opponents.
the real gem is the discoveries of puck possession, shot quality, shooting percentage and finishing—a topic that certainly warrants more study
Part 1
what skills do good players bring to the table that make them valuable?
GPs do indeed manage better shots on average than their opponents, but the effect is minor.
Where does the rest come from?
Shooting percentage.
The on-ice shooting percentage while GPs were on the ice was 9.1%, a whole percentage point more than the 8.1% achieved by their opponents.
When looking at individual players over the course of a single season, luck is often, correctly, invoked as the biggest reason for high or low shooting percentages. But over multiple seasons, a players' shooting percentage converges on his true talent.
1st Line = 9.1%
2nd Line = 8.3%
3rd Line = 7.7%
4th Line = 6.8%
good players will manage to sustain slightly above-average shooting percentages year-after-year;
Shot Quality only represents a small fraction of this advantage; outshooting and outfinishing are the largest contributors to good players’ +/-.
One last thing we see is that GPs show no ability to reduce their opponents’ shooting percentages. This is not very surprising, given how you would expect opponents’ shooting percentages to be driven especially by the opponents’ shooting ability and your own goaltender.
Part 2
players who received the most ice time (Good Players, aka GPs) tended to outplay their opponents in shot volume, shot quality and shooting percentage.
Players who start exclusively in the defensive zone will tend to have poor Corsi and Delta ratings and, inevitably, poor +/- as well. This is not because they suck; it’s because their job is difficult.
Looking at difficulty of Opponents (DeltaDO), we see that power vs. power is indeed the preferred matchup method in the NHL: GPs played against the strongest opposition of the four groups, facing adversaries who had +103 Delta overall, while 4th tier players were trusted with the weaklings.
By the same token, GPs had the best teammates
opponents’ shooting percentage was highest against 1st tier players and slowly crept down by group. This is not because GPs allow more dangerous shots than their teammates: it’s because they play against better players!
Good Players got favorable Starts, better Opponents and better Teammates, while weaker players got the reverse.
Power-play and penalty-killing use could not be more different. We see a clear correlation between even-strength ice time and power-play ice time:
There was, in effect, no correlation between penalty-killing ice time and even-strength ice time
What explains this discrepancy? First, distribution of skills. Many offense-first players do fit the stereotype of the scoring forward who can’t or won’t backcheck, while others simply lack the required defensive skill.
Secondly, opportunity cost. 1st tier players are so valuable, and their skills so much better employed with offensive opportunities, that it makes sense to reserve them for even-strength and power-play situations and let others handle the load of penalty killing,
A simple way of putting it: every first line forward has the offensive skill. But not every first line forward has the defensive skill.
Part 3
the distinguishing feature of top-6 forwards is that they score at least 1.7 points per 60 minutes of even-strength time
2nd tier players averaged 1.8 Pts/60 both last season and the season before, while 1st tier players averaged 2.1.
We also see that there is no aggregate difference between the quality of shots that 1st and 3rd tier players take, and only a small difference with 4th tier players
but there is a heck of a difference between their shooting abilities: GPs sank 10.3% of their shots, far more than expected, while 4th tier players sank only 7.3% of theirs
you can judge a player better by the on-ice shooting percentages he drives than by the fraction of the points he is involved with.
Conclusions
To summarize the conclusions of this study:
· Ice time obviously correlates positively with player skill.
· Good players have above average skill in puck possession, shot quality and finishing ability. The shot quality skill is minor, while the shot volume and finishing skills are major. Ergo, good players on average will have positive Corsi, Delta and +/- and above-average on-ice shooting percentages and PDO.
· Good players show no ability to reduce the shooting percentage of their opponents.
· Good players start slightly more often in the offensive zone than the defensive zone, play against above-average opponents and with above-average teammates.
· Good players play significantly more on the power-play, and achieve better results than their peers. They do not play significantly more on the penalty-kill, but do achieve slightly better results when they do.
· Good players will average 2.1 Pts / 60 min of Even-Strength ice time, and will score points on a slightly above-average fraction of their team’s goals while they are on the ice.
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