A Farewell to Arms, Skates and Pucks

1) JR

On August 6, the NHL officially lost another all-time great with the retirement of JR, Jeremy Roenick. Like Joe Sakic before him, Roenick came to the conclusion that he was simply no longer able to play the way he used to as a younger player. His stats bear witness to that sentiment as well. Roenick has not topped 70 games played in a season since 2002-03. Furthermore, when he had been able to lace up in recent seasons, he has not produced at nearly the level he had once been accustomed to. It may be that Roenick is an example of how the strike harmed many NHL careers. In the last season before the work stoppage (2003-04), Roenick played in 62 games and compiled 47 points. Not a world beater, but a still healthy 0.76 points per game, very much in line with his output in 2002-03. In the four years since the lockout, JR topped out at 0.48 points-per-game and bottomed out last year at a career worst 0.31 points-per-game.

Originally brought into the NHL as part of the storied draft class of 1988, Roenick was the highest drafted player (9th overall) to not come from the CHL, having been scouted by the Blackhawks at Thayer Academy in Braintree, Massachusetts, where he starred alongside Tony Amonte. Roenick is one of six players from that draft to exceed 1000 NHL points, in addition to Mike Modano (1st overall, Minnesota North Stars), Rod Brind’Amour (9th overall to the Blues), Teemu Selanne (10th overall to the Winnipeg Jets), Mark Recchi (lasted until the 4th round, 67th overall to Pittsburgh) and Alexander Mogilny (taken in the 5th round, 89th overall by the Sabres). While he never took home any individual or team hardware, Roenick represented the Stars and Stripes at two Olympic tournaments (’98 and ’02) and played in 9 All-Star Games.
Roenick finishes his career ranking in the all-time top 50 in games played, goals, assists, points, power play goals, shorthanded goals and game winning goals. His 1216 career points, which puts him tied for 39th all-time with Larry Murphy, will likely not be passed by more than two players (draft-mates Selanee and Brind`Amour) by the time he is eligible for the NHL Hall of Fame in three years. When compared with other recently retired greats (as discussed here) Roenick`s career GVT score of 259.1 places him 61st all-time, right between Doug Gilmour and Adam Oates, two players he is sure to be compared to as 2nd tier hockey stars. It may be, however, more apt to compare JR to Mark Messier, for in addition to his role as leading point-producer and pivot man, Roenick was never shy when it came to the rougher side of the beautiful game, amassing 1463 penalty minutes in his long career, including 40 career fighting majors.
For all the power he brought to his game on the ice, JR often displayed even more bravado away from the rink. Just in the short time between his last game as an active NHLer and his retirement announcement a few weeks ago, Roenick made sure the hockey media knew what he thought about his former teammate and future Hall of Famer, Chris Chelios. During the Stanley Cup playoffs, Roenick let it be known that Chelios had not been suiting up for the steamrolling Wings as their head coach was simply not fond of American-born players, stating “The coach just doesn't like him for some ungodly known reason, I think he's got a grudge against American players, but he does not like Cheli at all.” A few weeks later, after Chelios was informed by the Red Wings that he would not be brought back to the club in 2009-10, Roenick made sure we all knew where Chelios wanted to go next, saying that the 47-year-old “wants to play in New York, for the Rangers and Glen Sather.” His willingness to speak not just when spoken to often put him at odds with some media members, a fact that some think will eventually keep him out of the Hall of Fame. It is true that his numbers would not look out of place on either side of the in/out line, but his intangibles deflate his accomplishments, as JR was never able to get his name engraved on the Stanley Cup, only reaching the Finals once, in 1991-92, when his Blackhawks were swept by Mario Lemieux’s Penguins. The feeling may be that, outside of his quotes, Roenick was always playing second fiddle, even in retirement, being overshadowed by Joe Sakic this offseason. The NHL will bid farewell to dozens and dozens of players this season, but few will be missed like JR.

2) Dozens and Dozens of Players
Rarely does a professional hockey player (or any professional athlete for that matter) get to decide when he has had enough. Beyond JR, and the previously ballyhooed exit of Burnaby Joe Sakic, 20-year pro Teppo Numminen called it a career taking his 159.6 lifetime GVT (172nd all-time – who knew?!?) to the Finnish National team, where he will help as a scout in the run-up to the Games in Vancouver. Numminen almost had the decision taken out of his hands two years ago, undergoing open heart surgery in September 2007. His return from that procedure to play 58 more games at the sport’s highest level is almost as amazing as being able to play in 1314 games prior to the surgery.
Most other, less celebrated, players have their careers taken from them through the cruel process of natural selection. NHL talent evaluators simply deem them insufficiently skilled to play a further role going forward. The strongest proof of that can be seen through a few simple numbers. In the 2007-08 NHL season, 851 non-goalies played in at least one NHL game. 155 of them were not so privileged one year later. That means that over 18% of all skaters were not able to return to the game. Some, like Erik Johnson of the St. Louis Blues, will be back, having missed last season sue to injury. Others, like Jaromir Jagr, Ray Emery and Alexander Radulov preferred the lucre offered by the KHL and delivered their services to their new, Russian paymasters. A large number of the non-returning were players with little NHL experience (44 had only played in 1 or 2 NHL seasons), and spent all of the 2008-09 season in the minor leagues, trying to get back. There were journeymen like Mark Hartigan and Joe DiPenta, who had paid their AHL dues already, and unable to find a contract to their liking, plied their wares in Europe. DiPenta, after a season spent with Swedish powerhouse Frölunda HC, will be returning to the promised land of the NHL, having signed a one-year contract with the Buffalo Sabres (after all, someone has to replace Numminen).
A few of last year’s more celebrated departees, like Dominik Hasek, Trevor Linden and Glen Wesley were lucky enough to take the high road and formally announce their retirement. They can be directly contrasted to seasoned vets including Martin Gelinas (20 year NHL career) and Jim Dowd (17 years) who simply could not find work last year.
As with many changes in the recent NHL landscape the jobs that Gelinas and Dowd may have been searching for are now going to younger, hungrier players who would be willing to play for substantially less money, and to sign with less of a guarantee of available NHL playing time, players made more attractive to decision makers in the salary cap era. Gelinas earned $1.25 million to contribute 20 points over 57 games with the Nashville Predators. With Gelinas removed from the lineup, the Predators were able to call up youngster Joel Ward, who contributed 35 points in 79 games, and for only $500,000.
The decisions faced last year by Dowd, Gelinas and many, many others is now begin faced by a new group of players. While the top tier (and 2nd and 3rd tier, as well) free agents all having already signed contracts for the 2009-10 season, there are still others who don’t know what country their next employers will be stationed in, much less the colors of their next uniform. Is there a job to be found for Kevin Weekes? ( apparently, yes ) Manny Fernandez? Kyle Calder? Last year, Calder contributed 2.7 GVT to the young Kings, while pocketing a very symmetrical $2.7 million for his efforts. With less than 1 month to go before training camps open, there are few teams that even have $2.7 of space left under the salary cap. If a player like Calder, or the similarly available and previously overly remunerated Christian Backman want to return to the NHL this year, they will need to accept the fact that their services will not pay them as handsomely as they had been used to. And if they accept that, they will have to win a spot the hard way – through NHL training camp. In the cases of Calder and Backman, that task proved too daunting.
While some younger and unsigned players may feel free to explore life overseas, there are also a good number of players who could contribute in the right situation, but are not pressured by their predicament to do anything drastic, having already left a lasting mark on the game, and/or not wanting to uproot their families. One such player is long-time Canadiens defenseman, Patrice Brisebois. Having not yet received any serious interest from NHL teams, Brisebois, a veteran of over 1000 NHL games and a Stanley Cup winner, does not know what his future holds, and was not in any rush to make a decision , as he felt that he was “not at the point where I've got to play hockey.” Another player slow to make up his mind is recent Cup winner Philippe Boucher. With two children and many battle scars earned, Boucher felt physically ready to play again, but was ambivalent regarding where he would be willing to go to do so. Boucher recently discussed his quandary , admitting that retirement is an option and that his family will play a key role in any decision. “It is more difficult for my family,” he conveyed. “Either we stay in Pittsburgh, we come to Quebec or that we are moving to another city so I can continue to play hockey.” For these two (who eventually decided to hang up their skates, and many others, we may not receive answers until the start of the NHL slate. In the case of Dominic Moore , and maybe Marc-Andre Bergeron as well, we had to wait until after the season had already started. But we can look at them now, and at other free agents, and find part of the human side to the questions we grapple with at Puck Prospectus in quantifying replacement threshold values. There are only so many jobs in the NHL and the competition is fierce. Very few survive. Fewer survive for long.

Return

After a lengthy hiatus moonlighting as a writer with www.puckprospectus.com (see my articles here: http://www.puckprospectus.com/news/index.php?author=16), I am now free to return to my blogging roots.
More to come.

Just How Special are the Leafs' Special Teams?

I have been tracking power play and penalty kill success for the Maple Leafs throughout the season and breaking things down into ten game increments.

I have noted power play goals scored, time spent on the power play (in the case of a full two minutes of five on three hockey, I would count that as 4 minutes of power play, as one goal gets only one guy back on the ice), power play goals allowed and time spent killing penalites - all for each game - the breakdowns are to get ten game averages as I thought that amount of time would account for the vagaries of good and bad games and give me a visual of how stable this tracking is. I also noted all major personnel changes. This was easy for the Leafs as there has been little change in this regards throughout the season thus far. I have noted injuries to key players, though (Van Ryn, Kaberle, Schenn, Stajan and Hagman). I have also noted the opponent and the home/road factor, but have not calculated for those elements.

Here are my results:

Power Play Success

Games 1-10: 11 goals scored in 84:33 - 1 goal every 7:41

Games 11-20: 10 goals scored in 74:39 - 1 goal every 7:28

Games 21-30: 6 goals scored in 72:53 - 1 goal every 12:09 (this period saw the trade of Colaiacovo and Steen for Stempniak as well as significant missed time by Schenn, Hagman and Van Ryn)

Games 31-40: 9 goals scored in 68:02 - 1 goal every 7:34

Games 41-50: 7 goals scored in 52:49 - 1 goal every 7:33

Games 51-60 - still ongoing - the pace is down, but Tomas Kaberle (the QB of the power play has been out)

Conclusion - without having looked at other teams yet, I can't say how their power play stacks up relatively speaking. But I can draw some inferences. As Pierre LeBrun pointed out in a recent ESPN chat (http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=25109), scoring is a gift - a skill that not everyone has. Seeing as how the Leafs have consistenly scored one goal in every 7.5 minutes of power play time (not counting that one ten-game blip), that is simply their skill level. The Leafs brain trust (John Ferguson Jr. --> Cliff Fletcher --> Brian Burke) has created a team with a set skill level.

Ability to Kill Penalties

Games 1-10: 9 goals allowed in 71:41 - 1 goal every 7:57

Games 11-20: 12 goals allowed in 52:03 - 1 goal every 4:20

Games 21-30: 4 goals allowed in 58:10 - 1 goal every 14:32 (this period saw the trade of Colaiacovo and Steen for Stempniak as well as significant missed time by Schenn, Hagman and Van Ryn)

Games 31-40: 14 goals allowed in 52:33 - 1 goal every 3:45

Games 41-50: 10 goals allowed in 62:04 - 1 goal every 6:12

Games 51-60 - still ongoing - results seem similar to games 41-50 at first glance


Conclusion - to get back to Mr. LeBrun, while goal scoring is a skill, smart, defensive hockey can be worked at. Maybe the Leafs are simply not working at hard, or smart, enough. In some stretches, the Leafs are allowing power play goals at nearly double the rate they are scoring them, opportunities notwithstanding. It is probably a very good thing that the Leafs simply don't take too many penalties. going with the traditional way of tracking team power play and penalty kill success, the Leafs are converting 19.9% of their power play opportunities, 13th in the NHL (is it fair to say their skill level is 13th best in the NHL?). They kill penalties at a 73.7% clip - dead last by a full percentage point past #29. Interestingly, only 4 teams (Colorado, San Jose, Boston and Minnesota) have been shorthanded less, but only Atlanta has surrended more power play goals. They are also tied for last with 2 shorthanded goals scored. Are the Leafs the dumbest, laziest team in the NHL? I don't know how skilled or dumb the Leafs are, but I think it is safe to say, with the consistent numbers produced by the power play and the wildly varying numbers in the penalty kill, that scoring is an art and preventing goals is a science. The artist can only be as good as he is, but the scientist will not always get the same results.

I want to to run a study of another team or two after the season is over - any suggestions? full numbers are available by request.

Notes from the Quarter

The Maple Leafs have now played 22 games, over one quarter of their way into the season, have sunk below the .500 mark in terms of success and have a new general manager, the long-time-coming Brian Burke. If I was optimistic (very guardedly) about the team after ten games (with 11 points), I am decidedly less so today, having accumulated only 9 additional points in the past 12 games.

In the next 10 minutes or so, the opening puck will drop for the Leafs on home ice, hosting the Flyers of Philadelphia. In the mean time I will unburden some observations about the past dozen games and conjecture on what the next month or so may bring.

As began in my last two posts, I have been keeping track of the team's success level on special teams. After ten games, the Leafs were averaging one power play goal for every 7:41 for power play time. That rate was slightly better than their level of time killing penalties. When their opponents were on the power play, the Leafs surrendered one goal every 7:57. Scoring power play goals more frequently than they surrendered them helped the Leafs put up 11 points in 10 games.

Over the next 10 games, from their 5-2 victory over the Rangers on November 1, through to their 5-4 overtime loss to the Blackhawks on November 22, the Leafs scored 10 power play goals in 74 minutes and 39 seconds. That's 7:28 between power play goals. Slightly better than their rate over the first ten games. Yet in this span the Leafs only gained eight more points on their seasonal ledger. Why? One key component was their abject failure when attempting to kill penalties. In that 10-game stretch, the Leafs were on the penalty kill for a grand total of 52 minutes and 3 seconds (52:03). They surrendered 12 goals. That works out to one power play goal against for every 4:20 of penalty killing time. That's nearly 42% worse than their success rate while on the power play.

My first assumption was that the loss of defenseman Mike Van Ryn to injury could be attributed. He was very solid for the Leafs in his first fourteen games. Yet digging into the numbers shows that it was the first four games of the stretch in question that hurt the Leafs penalty kill number the most - while Van Ryan was still there.


Game Power Play Goals Power Play Time Penalty Kill Penalty Kill Time
11/1 vs NYR 0 goals 9:43 0 goals allowed 3:43
11/2 @ Car 0 goals 4:00 3 goals allowed 8:41
11/4 vs Car 1 goal scored 5:31 1 goal allowed 2:41
11/6 @ Bos 0 goals 6:38 2 goals allowed 4:05
11/8 vs Mon 3 goals scored 11:20 2 goals allowed 7:50
11/11 @ Cal 1 goal scored 6:47 1 goal allowed 0:48
11/13 @ Edm 3 goals scored 5:31 1 goal allowed 7:36
11/15 @ Van 1 goal scored 12:58 1 goal allowed 7:00
11/17 vs Bos 0 goals 6:48 0 goals allowed 4:15
11/22 vs Chi 1 goal scored 5:23 1 goal allowed 5:24


Van Ryn was hurt during the Boston game. In the four games of this period where Van Ryn had a chance to exert his influence on events, the Leafs surrendered 6 power play goals. In the six subsequent games, they allowed 6. Small samples of course, but it is clear that his absence has not yet demonstrably hurt the Leafs' ability to kill penalties.

It remains to be seen how those rates change over time. Also, for the upcoming ten game stretch (including the two already played out) the Leafs have made a significant change, trading bit players Carlo Colaiacovo and Alex Steen to St. Louis for Lee Stempniak. As of right now, I am confident in proclaiming Stempniak to be the best player of the three involved, with the caveat that both Colaiacovo and Steen have good pedigrees and youth and may eventually pan out as being as good, if not better than Stempniak.

Two days after the trade, the Leafs made a significant move that may not be played out directly on the ice, but will have ever expanding ramifications regarding the lineup of available players. I am of course referring to the new general manager (and president) of the club - Brian Burke. He, too, has an outstanding hockey pedigree, having led the 2007 Anaheim Ducks to the Stanley Cup Championship as well as being notable for having sent his last seven teams to the playoffs (courtesy of www.nhl.com). So how do we judge his affect on the team? What I propose to do is begin tracking player transactions under his watch. I have taken a snapshot of the team that goes into tonight's matchup against the Flyers (he was anointed to his role today and no moves have yet occurred) and will log any changes as they occur over time - at least through the end of this season and as far forward as I can take it.

He is inheriting a team that is exciting, if not very successful. In my terms,Burke will be deemed a success if he keeps the team exciting to watch, yet manages to improve their likelihood of winning. The ride won't be smooth, but the bumps can be thrilling. Let's enjoy the ride.

A New Way to Measure Special Team Success in Hockey

I wrote about it last season, but was unable to act and track the figures. But the new season is reasonably underway, and the Maple Leafs have already played out their first 10 scheduled regular season games.

And I have been keeping tabs on them.

I should point out straight away that they are playing a much more exciting brand of hockey than was evident at any time last season. I still believe that this isn't a playoff team and that the franchise would be much better off if they don't make the playoffs this year, but I have enjoyed watching them and look forward to the 70 games we have left.

I am writing today about a new way to track a team's success on special teams. How effective are they at killing penalties? How successful are they on the power play? Hockey box score readers are accustomed to seeing a team's power play success measured along the lines of 1/5. Meaning the team in question had 5 power play opportunities and scored one goal. Such was the case yesterday for the Pittsburgh Penguins as they lost in Phoenix to the Coyotes, by a score of 4-1.

The Penguins first went on the man advantage at 8:19 of the 2nd period as Coyote defenceman David Hale was booked for interference. 11 seconds later, Miroslav Satan scored, knotting the game at 1-1.

Still in the 2nd, at the 14:51 mark, another Coyote, Zbynek Michalek was busted on a hooking charge. The coyotes managed to kill off the penalty in its two minute entirety. Phoenix killed off another 2 minute penalty given to their bench (too many men) starting at 4:37 of the third period.

And in an interesting turn of events, the Coyotes were shortly double booked, as Daniel Carcillo was called for boarding at 8:37, and then, 6 seconds later, at 8:43, Kurt Sauer was penalized two minutes for delay of game. By the time both men stepped out of the penalty box, Pittsburgh had failed to score for 1:54 with a two man advantage, in addition to the two 6-second intervals both before and after with a one man advantage.

And that's that. The newspaper says Pittsburgh went 1 for 5 on the power play. I see it a little bit differently. Hockey, unlike baseball, is played to the clock. Based on the clock, the Penguins power play unit managed 1 goal in 8:11. For these purposes, I count the time spent with a two man advantage as two separate power plays - as, if they had scored, only one Coyote would return to the ice and the Penguins would still have more time with a man up.

Now that I have established my idea, I want to move on to what I am measuring for the Leafs. I have measured their success (or lack thereof) both on the power play and while killing penalties. I would think that a good special teams unit would require less time to score power play goals than it would take their collective opposition to break their penalty killers down. I have tracked each of the first ten games and will continue to update this in ten game increments. I want to see if these ratios are stable, and if they do fluctuate, maybe we can pinpoint changes (perhaps different players seeing special teams time) or if this is fairly random.

One other benefit is that this measurement would allow for easier comparisons of special teams success throughout the league. Special teams are now boiled down into a zero-sum game; whenever one team is on the power play, another team is killing a penalty. A power play goal scored at the midway point of a minor penalty (after 1 minute) means the offensive team needed 60 seconds to score a power play goals and the defensive team was able to kill a penalty for one minute without giving up a goal.

After ten games, the Maple Leafs have scored 11 power play goals in 84 minutes and 33 seconds of power play time. That works out to 1 power play goal scored for every 7:41 of power play time.

In that same time frame, the Leafs surrendered 9 goals while on the penalty kill in a total of 71 minutes and 41 seconds. That works out to one power play goal allowed per 7:57 of penalty killing time.

The Maple Leafs special teams currently is clicking at +16 seconds. So they broke even, but at this time, it is unknown how that ranks compared to other teams. Time permitting, I will pick a focus group to compare them with.

A Call to Arms (Starting the Hockey Statistical Revolution)

One of the challenges in creating breakthrough hockey analysis is the outdated state of hockey statistics. Even searching through www.thehockeynews.com or www.nhl.com's stats sections only gives us hockey card stats with little breakdown beyond splits for period, home/away, position, rookie.

A typical boxscore provides you with points info, ice time (maybe including special teams ice time), penalty minutes and shots, faceoffs and that's pretty much it.

A major part of any hockey prospectus project would have to be to come up with the questions that need answering - what we should be looking for to be able to prospect hockey success - what attributes lend themselves well to continued success or invoke flameout potential. We would need to find a way to divide success between the players and the coaches/system and the individual player/linemate.

I think one major element that can be tackled right away is in addressing the true cost of penalty minutes in hockey. In a manner even more blatant and transgressive than RBIs or saves in baseball, penalty minutes are still overly glorified as a measurement of "toughness", or "character" in hockey.

Yet, any watching of a typical hockey game with even a modicum sport-savvy, will point out that there are good penalties and bad (stupid) penalties. There are teams that are efficient in killing penalties and there are teams that are not.

To address the issue, I have been calling for a re-measurement of team success/failure on special teams. Currently, a team would get a grade represented fractionally as a measurement of special teams quality (i.e. the Red Wings were 2/5 on the power play and 4/4 on the penalty kill). The problem with looking at special teams in this manner is it makes each opportunity equal.

Let's simplify this experiment. If each power play opportunity the Wings had in this one game were a maximum of two minutes, that gave them 10 total minutes to score a goal with the man advantage. For simplicity's sake, we'll assume that in their failed opportunities, they played the full 2 minutes a man up.In one of the opportunities where they scored, the goal came 25 seconds into the power play. In the second goal, the goal came 1:45 into the penalty.

Knowing this, we can see that the Wings had 5 power play opportunities, but they were only playing with a man advantage for a total of 8:10, during which they scored 2 goals.
Going back to our 2/5 success rate, we can know say they scored 2 goals in 8:10, or 1 goal for every 4:05 with the man advantage. Over one game, that might not tell us that much, but over the course of a season, we can start to see how well different teams truly are on the power play or on the penalty kill. And we can do all of this without counting new things that aren't already readily available in a game box score.

I have other ideas of things that should be measured to give us a better understanding of player contributions to team success, but, unfortunately, I am unaware of the statistics for these things being currently kept - not that they would impossible to keep, but that extra manpower would be required to log this information - things like pass %, turnover +/- (how many forced, how many committed), shooting % based on shot type, player success over coaching changes and much, much more.

Hockey has the potential to be a much richer game, but we must first enrich our perspective on the minutiae of the game to reach that potential.

Building an Organization

Between a series of articles over on www.hardballtimes.com by Paul Nyman (Beyond Moneyball), the recent amateur drafts of both baseball and hockey, and last week's canning of half of the Blue Jays major league coaching staff, I have been giving alot of thought towards what goes into successful professional sports organization building.

And maybe some of my conclusions help point to reasons as to why our two Toronto franchises in the aforementioned sports have not been very successful during their current, and recent past managerial structures.

Some of my current lines of thought include:
Talent over mechanics. If a guy can hit - let him hit. If he can pitch, then pitch away. Mechanics are individualistic and should not be tampered with unless results are not happening. That seems to have been what was happening with the Jays hitters for most of the season. The whole don't swing at the first pitch axiom - why the hell not? If it's a hittable pitch, be aggressive and try to nail it. The axiom is useful for young players who are getting themselves out, but not helpful for talented hitters. Take away aggression and you take away instinct. Take away instinct, and you are taking away skill. Bad choice.

Organizational coaches should be focused on teaching hitting/throwing skills to kids who have talent but can't get results. The rest of their task is to monitor the top ones to ensure they retain consistency. The more consistent a young player becomes, the better he will retain his skills against more advanced competition.

With pitchers, that should also hold true for the avoidance of injuries. More consistency, more muscle memory, less sudden stresses and strains.

How does this affect JP Ricciardi and the Blue Jays directive heads? As this is the third time he has fired his managers mid-season, he is creating a massive disruption in the consistency and fluidity of the organization. The disruption may have positive effects at the top level (see our last two games) but may hurt the organization in the long run.

That, and his big mouth - the Dunn debacle is not the first time he has shot off his mouth to his own detriment. I have not been in town for his whole reign, but I do remember a number of baseless whines about payroll. The Yanks and The Red Sox win alot because they have great leadership, not because they have great wallets.