Meet Craig Anderson

On March 2, Craig Anderson accomplished a major feat: he stopped all 53 shots he saw in the 1-0 win in New York. The previous high shot shutout in the last 3 or 4 seasons was 46 shots performed by Johnson in a 1-0 win against Ottawa.

This got me wondering, how many greater than 40 shot shutouts there are in a regular season?

Since I've been collecting data there's been less than 10. What's interesting is the goalies who have done it aren't what most would consider the top 10 goalies in the NHL (Anderson is just a backup).

2003 - 2004
Aubin: 4-0 W vs. Dallas [45 Shots]
Luongo: 1-0 W vs. Columbus [42 shots]
2005 - 2006
Johnson: 1-0 W vs. Ottawa [46 shots]
Luongo: 5-0 W vs. Washington [44 Shots]
Thomas: 5-0 W vs. Ottawa [44 Shots]
2006 - 2007
Thomas: 3-0 W vs. Toronto [44 Shots]
Norrena: 3-0 W vs. Colorado [42 Shots]
Mason: 1-0 W vs. Colorado [42 Shots]
2007 - 2008
Anderson [53 Shots]

Anderson stopped 53 shots in a 1-0 victory over the Islanders on Sunday, the most in a shutout since shots on goal started being kept in the 1955-56 season.

Since 1989-90, it's the most saves in consecutive shutouts; current Wing Dominik Hasek made 75 saves for Buffalo in December 1997, according to STATS LLC.

- freep.com -

Anderson was drafted in the third round and not expected to be much more than a backup. However, in his short stint in the NHL [73 games]. His .894 is decent for such a young goalie. And it's worth noting that in his bad year with Chicago (29 games: 0.886 Save%) he wasn't as bad as his statistics suggest as Chicago isn't exactly the most defensively responsible team.

Anderson has now stopped 133 of last 134 shots he's faced in the last three games.

Stuart and Bergeron

Stuart was traded for two RFA's (1st round pick Kobasew and 6th round Ferrence) last season. LA practically gave him away for a third round draft pick from Detroit this season. I have a strange feeling Stuart wont be coming back to LA in the summer...

Last season, Bergeron was shipped along with a third round pick for the first round pick Grebeshkov. This season he was stolen from the Islanders for a Third round pick (Essentially the Islanders got two third round draft picks for Grebeshkov and the services of Bergeron for a year).


As an aside, I recently wrote an article about Stuart's winning percentage. Now Stuart has a real good team to play on and a chance to improve his winning percentage, but don't count on it. Detroit should be able to better protect him and use him less compared to his past teams (Stuart will probably rank 4th on Detroit's depth chart when the team is healthy) and this should help him improve his game.

Western Domination of the Eastern Conference.

The Record (W-L-T)

There always seems to be a few stories about how good the West is compared to the East in the few cross conference games we see each season. Since the new schedule of change , there have been fewer than 400 cross-conference game. Below I have the data I consider important about these games. The first table show the record for the western teams vs. the eastern conferences split into two groups home (H) and away (A). I've included the west vs. west figures for one season in the row below for comparison.

Some people have suggested the domination is a result of the eastern teams playing in a different time zones and traveling farther than normal, but as you can see from the table above the western teams do only 3% better at home and 9% on the road compared to the normal home-away advantage. Also worth noting, the home-away advantage is smaller for the inter conference games than the west vs. east games.

The statistics

The statistic that best correlates with winning is goal differential, but there are several ways to get to the same goal differential. Below is a table that presents what I consider the most important statistics in hockey for these west vs. east games. Like above, the table is split into home/away games.

[S = Shots, G = Goals, EG = Expected goals (based on shots on goals), SQN = shot quality neutral save percentage]

The most interesting portion of this table is the fact that the east is actually significantly better at getting short handed goals, but these goals seem to costing them power play goals against. It would appear that the east is encouraging offense at the cost of the powerplay goals against. It's hard to measure if this strategy is paying off though.

At home the west is getting 27% more expected goals against the east (15% more shots)

Some people have mentioned that goaltending is better in the west. This does not appear to be the case either as on average the east actually has better save percentage numbers.

None of the data can really clarify whether the west is better because of it's offense or it's defense, but it's worth noting the if the west played the east every game they'd have 9% more goals and if the east played the west every game they'd have 9% fewer goals! So if they split the season evenly the east would be down by about 5% and the west up by about 5%.

Note: The data is a couple weeks old.

Stillman for Corvo...

First off, this trade appears to be started by the Carolina Hurricanes. If you take a look through all the NHL teams at this time, Carolina’s top defenseman has the fewest points for a team’s top D-man (12). In fact Commodore is 1 of 4 defenseman with 12 points. The next worse team’s top D-man has 17 points and most teams have 1 defenseman who has at least 24 points. Carolina was in desperate need for a offensive defenseman. The problem for Carolina, not many teams give up their offensive defenseman very quickly. If Carolina wants to have a good chance to make the playoffs they need a decent offensive defenseman. Carolina asked for Corvo, Ottawa then asked for Stillman. The rest of the deal is simply making up for lost players (Ottawa needed to replace a defenseman and Carolina needed to replace a forward). Neither player is really a critical part of the team.

A lot of people like to point to one team and say they won in this trade, but in this situations both teams got what they needed without giving up something they really needed to keep. Carolina needed Corvo and Stillman was ranked 4th on the team in points, he isn't the most important part of Carolina's offense. Corvo, also has more points for Ottawa than the top two Carolina defenseman combined, but Ottawa still has Redden's offense and Meszaros isn't too far behind Corvo.

Either way it was a good deal for both teams. Like most trades should do, it made both teams better off.

Features added to website

Like last year I have my trade page up and running again.
I have also added a new feature that shows what players played in which games in a simple graphic format that makes it easy to see who got injured when and how long they were out for. It gives you an idea how many injuries a team has had. You can find it here.

South East Division Race

The race to win this competitive division is the challenging 86 point mark. No one team has taken the reigns of the lucrative position that takes the team from 9th place to 3rd. On the surface the race appears to be Washington vs. Carolina and it would appear that is Washington's to lose as Carolina is -20 in the last two month, in the same time Washington is a decent (for the South East) +7. I almost though Florida would join Washington with, but they were only able to get two regulation wins in January, which soured their chances substantially. If anyone thinks Atlanta will make the playoffs, then they're wrong. If Tampa Bay gets a real goaltender they might have a chance, but don't count on it.

So in conclusion, this race is Washington's to lose, but it's still close and any team could get the spot, by just being average.

Wester Conference race - 2008

Who's in:
Detroit, San Jose

Who is likely to be in:
Wild, Stars, Canucks, Flames, Ducks

This of course leaves room for the one extra Central team, either: Nashville, Columbus or St. Louis. My gut tells me it will be Columbus, due to their goaltending.

This leaves the teams below as unlikely candidates:
Avalanche, Coyotes.

Who's out
Blackhawks, Oilers, Kings.

Eastern Playoff race - 2008

We're at the point in the season where winners and losers become clear and the playoff teams and non-playoff teams become quite obvious. Before I start, I should note that these are expected results, if any one team goes on a great run or on a long losing streak results can be quite different.

Due to the nature of the eastern beast, I have decided not to include the South East division in the first part of the discussion, simply because they're special.

So for starters who's in:
Senators, Flyers, Canadiens, Devils, Penguins.

These teams have been playing well so far and now only need a 40% winning percentage (plus the free OT points) to make the playoffs

Bubble - Race
Bruins, Islanders, Sabres, Rangers. Two of these teams should make it in (the remaining Playoff team will come from the South East).

Why they'd make it:
Bruins: Bruins don't score many goals, so they're where they are because of goaltending and defense. (Chara, Wideman)
Islanders: DiPietro
Sabres: Balanced team, nothing stands out
Rangers: Lundqvist

Why they wont:
Bruins: -8 since the begining of December. And they should be a little more careful (injuries)
Islanders: Struggled recently, not sure if they'll get going any time soon.
Sabres: Things are looking quite bad for the Sabres. January they only have received two wins.
Rangers: Once they can score I might be able to say a ittle more.

It's hard to pick any two of the above teams, just because they're all struggling and if they keep that up there will be room for a second South East team.

Out
Sadly, there is only one team outside the South East who is out of the playoff picture already, for those who don't know: Maple Leafs

South East Division

Below is a table that shows the odds that a given team will be in a certain position in the NHL. The chart is built using all the point rules (tie breakers) and also with the divisional champion rules (as you can see by the funny gap at the 3rd spot, due to the terrible South East). The table is coded to be darker for higher probabilities and thus it is extremely readable. It is sorted by expected points.

T 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 OTT 74% 19% 0% 4% 1% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% N.J 13% 37% 1% 16% 15% 9% 4% 3% 1% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% PHI 5% 19% 1% 18% 20% 13% 10% 6% 5% 2% 1% 1% 1% 0% 0% PIT 5% 17% 0% 18% 19% 16% 10% 7% 4% 2% 1% 1% 1% 0% 0% MTL 3% 2% 0% 30% 19% 17% 11% 9% 5% 2% 2% 0% 1% 0% 0% BOS 0% 1% 0% 7% 11% 14% 20% 13% 12% 8% 6% 4% 3% 1% 1% NYI 0% 2% 0% 3% 6% 10% 12% 14% 13% 12% 8% 8% 6% 4% 3% BUF 0% 1% 0% 3% 5% 8% 15% 16% 12% 11% 9% 9% 7% 3% 3% CAR 0% 1% 44% 0% 0% 1% 2% 5% 9% 9% 8% 9% 6% 5% 2% NYR 0% 1% 0% 2% 4% 8% 9% 12% 15% 14% 11% 10% 8% 5% 2% WSH 0% 0% 19% 0% 0% 0% 2% 4% 7% 10% 11% 13% 13% 12% 8% ATL 0% 0% 16% 0% 0% 1% 2% 4% 6% 10% 13% 14% 14% 12% 7% FLA 0% 0% 16% 0% 0% 1% 2% 5% 7% 9% 14% 12% 11% 12% 10% TOR 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 1% 1% 2% 4% 6% 7% 9% 16% 25% 30% T.B 0% 0% 4% 0% 0% 0% 0% 1% 2% 5% 8% 11% 14% 21% 35%

What is interesting, is that the entire South East division is predicted to have too few points to be in the top 8 spots, but due to the divisional champion have secured at least one playoff spot. There will likely only be 1 team from the South East and it is possible that the team who makes it doesn't have enough points to make the playoffs (they will still make the playoffs due to the divisional champion rules).

How bad is the South East?
Currently every team is -10 or worse in terms of overall goal differential and the entire division is a -85. Carolina, the current divisional leader, has struggled since mid November and likely wont be able to maintain the nice #1 spot. It looks as though Washington is the one team able to keep its head above water since their lack luster start and could in fact make the playoffs.

A lot will be determined in March (another divisional game month) when these team will play eachother a bunch of times. It's hard to say what will happen.

Either way 6th spot may just be the best place to be in the upcoming Eastern playoff race as a team who would normally qualify for 8th or 9th slides into the 3rd spot to play that lucky 6th place team. Of course this 3rd place South East divisional winner has had quite a bit of success in the past (Carolina and Tampa Bay cup winners). It just seems strange to give such terrible teams that advantage.

Ovechkin Deal

There's been a lot of talk about the deal. I'd like to highlight one major point $124M/13 seasons is equivalent to $7.3M/season (in todays dollars) not $9.5M/season, due to escalating costs of salaries (assuming 4% growth). That $7.3M figure is the one the GM of Washington is looking at, of course he still has to deal with that wonderful $9.5M cap hit when the contract starts.

What I find interesting, is that Ovechkin has done nothing to improve Washington. Here's a guy 250 points in 206 games and -11. That's a lot of goals for, but also a lot of goals against [Ranked 4th worst in 06-07 total even strength minuses.]. Ovechkin is up there again this season, on pace for another dazzling -70 goals against at even strength. What sort of value does he really provide?

Ovechkin is part of a small group of players who in fact average over 5 shots per game, and it's a big reason for his success. The quality of his shots are lacking and so his percentages are low, but with all those shots you get quite a few goals (but you also loose the puck a lot).

The fact of the matter is Washington hasn't gone anywhere with Ovechkin, so this could be a long 13 years ahead of them as they got no defense to build on.

I'm glad my team didn't sign that contract.

Upgrades

My statistics site was getting way too many columns that I found it necessary to make a few changes. The biggest change is that I grouped my statistics into two categories: one for goals and one for shots. At this time I also changed the code that is behind the scenes as it would make future changes easier. These changes made it possible to highlight the sorted column and also add/delete columns easily as I see fit. You will note these changes in the team pages as well as the forward and defense pages.

Another feature I decided to add is a items to display per page options. I have always only shown 30 items per page; now there is the option of showing more. Please only use ALL if you really need to see all the players as it can be a bit slow. I also allow users to sort by ice time per game, second assists (in the shooting statistics section).

I also added the requested column: average shot distance (only for even strength). You can also see how many shots/game each player gets (or shots/60 min)

If there are any problems with the site, please let me know.

Everything you wanted to know about the Shoot-out

Edmonton started the season going 10-1 in the shoot-out (now they are 10-2), this event brought about an interesting discussion on shootouts. I've been holding back posting anything about shoot-outs primarily due to lack of data, but after two seasons (plus a bit). It got me thinking: what led to Edmonton doing so well? Was it all luck or was skill a big part of it.

Team winning percentage

The first thing I looked at was year over year comparisons:
Looking at this without knowing any details it would appear that the shootout results are in fact perfectly random, you can sort of see some clustering in the middle, but other than that there are too many anomalies to make sense of anything. Let me however make a few key points:
1. LA: Lost Garon (80% shootout save percentage after 2005-2006)
2. Carolina: After the playoffs dumped Gerber and Ward has 1 win in three seasons
3. Florida: Lost Luongo
4. Philadelphia: switched to Niittymaki
5. Pittsburgh: started to use Fleury more often
6. San Jose: Toskala thankfully only played 1 shoot-out game in2006-2007 (0 wins in his career)

Remove the above points and you have a data set that has so much more structure. Of course I could probably think of good reasons to exclude every point on this graph, I'm simply trying to show that there are some key points that shouldn't be included because too much changed.


Since it appeared that Goalies were a big part of the shootout results. I figured I'd best compare goalie's save percentages in the shootout. Now the graph below BIG = BAD, small = GOOD. The graph below shows player's Z-scores. A Z-score of -2 means that only 2.5% of players will do better, a Z-score of -1 means that 16% of players will do better than that player. A score of 0 means that 50% of players are better, 50% are worse. A score of +1 means that 16% of players are worse and a score of +2 means that 2.5% of players are worse. [Very simplistic explanation]. These Z-scores are necessary because each goalie sees a different number of shots and it's easier to stop 100% of the shots if you only see three shots than it is to stop 100% of the shots when you see 100 shots. The main point I want to make is that having a Z-score of 2 one year suggests that you will have a Z-score of 1 the next (this is called a regression to the mean).This regression to the mean is quite small, as it is saying that half of the average goalie's save percentage results are due to luck the other half come from skill (in a given season). [Individuals could be quite different]

In translation: Garon's 90% save percentage on the shootout, should be closer to (0.9-0.66)/2+0.66 = 78%r 78% (his career save percentage is: 46/58 = 79%).

Save percentage By Round

Now there are a few things to keep in mind:

Statistics by round:
1: 616 Shots. Shooting%: 0.3669
2: 616 Shots. Shooting%: 0.3344
3: 460 Shots. Shooting%: 0.2978
4: 83 Shots. Shooting%: 0.3494
5: 40 Shots. Shooting%: 0.3500
6: 24 Shots. Shooting%: 0.2917
7: 14 Shots. Shooting%: 0.286
8: 11 Shots. Shooting%: 0.364
9: 4 Shots. Shooting%: 0.250
10: 2 Shots. Shooting%: 0
11: 2 Shots. Shooting%: 0
12: 2 Shots. Shooting%: 0
13: 2 Shots. Shooting%: 0
14: 2 Shots. Shooting%: 1
15: 2 Shots. Shooting%: 0.5
Note Round 9+ 16 shots, 25% shooting percentage.

In general later rounds are easier to stop. So if a goalie plays until the 7th or 8th round his numbers should be better than a goalie who only sees the first two shooters.

Shooters:

On the surface it would appear that shooting percentage is all luck as there is no correlation between years. That being said, the graph below could just be the result of playing different opposition.
What is a guy like Garon worth in just the shootout. Well assuming average number of shootouts (10) he wins you an additional 1-2 points (or about $0.75M - 1.0M). [Based on this image , 35% shooting percentage and 80% save percentage]. Of course if you're Edmonton and discovered a way to get to the shootout 3x as often as expected, well then Garon is even more useful.

Brad Stuart

It's hard to miss Brad Stuart. A lot of good things have, been said about him. But he seems to have been involved in a lot of bad trades recently (Stuart being the bad part).

Traded from a losing San Jose team (to a losing) Boston team for Joe Thornton. Many people might point to Thornton as the reason San Jose made the playoffs, but it appears that the loss of a key defenseman wasn't too big of a problem. (Boston ended up with 74 points)

From Boston, Stuart (along with Primeau) was traded for a 1st round draft pick, Kobasew and a solid defender: Andrew Ference. Interestingly, after the trade Calgary struggled and just squeezed themselves into a play-off spot

Stuart is now playing for a team that, as of last year, appeared to only need a goaltender: Los Angeles. Labarbera has provided the goaltending, but now the team lacks any sort of defense. Allowing over 30 shots per hour at even strength and the shots that hit the net are almost 20% more difficult to stop.

Stuart may not be the worst on the team in terms of plus-minus, but he certainly is up there with his -10 (and another -2 vs Detroit tonight).

Looking at a short window of history, Stuart may have just signed and been traded to bad teams, his record in the previous 187 games is appalling: 42% winning percentage.

"[Brad Stuart] is prone to mistakes in pressure situations, which has led him into the coach's doghouse in the past. Doesn't use his size effectively enough." - Sportsnet.ca, what more can I really say...

West continues to dominate East

West vs. East (This season)
30 Wins
24 Losses
4 OTW or SOW
2 OTL or SOL
Winning percentage = 30/54 = 56%

185 GF
163 GA
Pythagorean percentage = 185²/(185²+163²) = 56%

What's interesting is that it has stayed so consistent over the last few years.

Buy low - Sell high

I haven't said much (if anything) about Lupul, I was curious whether he would rebound or disappear. Also, I didn't know much about Lupul so it was best I kept my mouth shut. I didn't even realize that Lupul was in fact draft 7th overall.

I decided to create a short list of players who were drafted 7th and had a bad season in their early 20's.

1990: Sydor 24 - 58 GP: 12 Points
1993: Arnot 24 - 70 GP: 33 Points
1995: Doan 22 - 79 GP: 22 Points
1996: Rasmussen 23 - 67 GP: 14 Points
1997: Mara 23 - 75 GP: 24 Points
1998: Malhotra 22 - 59 GP: 10 Points
1999: Beech - 14 GP: 4 Points in 2 years
2001: Komisarek 23 - 71 GP: 6 Points
2002: Lupul 81 GP: 28 Points (-29)


Often, if you look at past players, teams will trade these players during or right after their bad seasons. However, teams are quickly disappointed as their high draft pick succeeds in their new environment. What's interesting is that Edmonton didn't like Lupul because of his bad plus minus, so the team picked up Souray (ranked second last in plus minus) and Pitkanen (ranked fourth last in plus minus).

The point I'm trying to make is that all players have bad seasons (often early in their careers) and teams view this as a good predictor of future performance, when draft position is probably a better prediction of future performance than one season. Anaheim was smart to see a player who had done better than expected one year and got a great deal for him (sell high). However Edmonton, after one bad season, dumped this 1st round draft pick (plus their captain) for Philadelphia's trash.

In conclusion, don't give up on a player after one bad season. Also, don't get too excited by one great year either.