HOW MANY WINS DO INJURIES COST
Teams can expect to lose four extra games if one of their top two blueliners goes down for the season, while losing a first-line forward appears to cost just one and a half losses.
IMPACT OF INJURY TO TOP 4 DEFENSEMAN
When a top D-man is out of the lineup, both offensive and defensive shot volume and quality suffer to varying degrees, resulting in a .450 team in the aggregate. The difference between these two teams is approximately 8.66 points in the standings, or a little more than four wins.
If we look purely at the change in goals allowed due to not having one good defenseman in particular in the lineup, it accounts for approximately six goals per season.
The difference in expected save percentage between the best and worst defensive teams using a simple shot quality model translates to approximately 20-25 goals per 82 games.
It seems unlikely that much more than half of this 20-25 goal difference is due to a weak defensive corps.
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