Shoot or pass?

This is not - repeat not - a Crosby vs Ovechkin blog, whatever inference you might want to draw from the subject matter.

So, Crosby vs Ovechkin then...
I'm definitely not claiming this as an original thought, but it never really seems fair to award as many points for an assist as for a goal, especially when two assists can be awarded for each goal. Is a secondary assist (often not a huge part in creating the goal) really as worthy as the act of actually putting the puck between the posts?

My motivation for looking at this? Although goalscorers do get their own trophy to chase now, I still think players who score a higher than average proportion of goals in their points tally are underappreciated to a degree. To risk one Ovechkin reference (not the best example of an underappreciated player, I know), I think his current (lower) points tally is much more impressive than Malkin's or Crosby's since he has so many more goals.

There are numbers, of course...
A simplistic way of adjusting points totals is to give a higher weighting to goals compared to assists. Rather than a subjective choice of, say, 2pts per goal and 1pt per assist, I've based my figures on a goal being worth 1.75 times an assist.

The reason? This season, there have been approximately 1.75 times as many assists awarded as total goals scored. No real reason to suspect this number has varied too much over time. This weighting only really allows for the fact that multiple assists are awarded instead of saying goals are intrinsically "worth" that much more than assists, but it's simple and fairly objective.

Putting it to use
I thought it would be interesting to see how the scoring races in years past (since Gretzky's first season in 1979/80) would've ended up if this theoretical weighting was applied. Yeah, basically I wanted to steal Joe Thornton's 2005/06 scoring title from him, but indulge me.

So, the chart below shows the actual Art Ross winner on the left, with the revised "winner" on the right, where a change would've occurred:

AdjP = adjusted points (goals + (assists/1.75))



Observations

• As expected, Joe Thornton misses out
• Forsberg and Crosby lose their only scoring titles but Lecavalier, Naslund, Bure, Fedorov, Hull and Yzerman all join the club
• The Great One is hit hardest, losing a whole 30% of his scoring titles (the guy was clearly waaay overrated)
• The 80s and early 90s probably aren't the best years to illustrate this, given Gretzky and Lemieux's dominance in many of those years
  

What you can't see since I haven't put the boring detail up here

• Even where the Art Ross winner loses out, they still finish second in every year except for Forsberg in 2002/03, who drops to fifth (though, strangely, that Forsberg season was the most point efficient in the last 10 years using the highly-accredited WPEF method seen in my blog HERE)
• None of the new "winners" come from any lower than third in the actual scoring race
• Ovechkin would be leading the scoring race this season using the adjustment

Thanks, Tom

Renney relieved of coaching duties

So, not at all surprising news I read when I checked in today. Just goes to show how embarrassing it is to lose to Toronto (first Therrien, now this) - just kidding, Leafs fans, before you jump all over me...

I don't particularly want to analyse in much detail how and where things have unraveled for the Rangers over recent months and who is really to blame. I fully understand that the coach usually carries the can in these circumstances and anyone could see this coming (and Renney is far from blameless), but I'd rather concentrate on paying tribute to the job Renney has done in the last five years.

Three playoff appearances and two series wins won't sound like much at all to fans of many teams. Should the Rangers settle for that as a mark of excellence? No, not at all. But placed in the context of the complete disaster that was the barren seven-year period prior to the lockout, just getting to the playoffs and having a team that could play with some sort of structure for the last few years has been a much-needed pleasant change.

Yes, much of the (relative) success can be attributed to the contributions of players like Jagr, Straka and Shanahan (all, coincidentally, no longer around) and the unexpected emergence of Lundqvist as a Vezina-calibre goalie. But I don't think Tom Renney's input can be underestimated. As recently as a few months ago, I flat out disagreed with what appeared to be a pretty strong anti-Renney feeling among Rangers fans (only the vocal minority?) that was seemingly never behind Renney from the start. Has the team's swift decline proven those fans right? Maybe so.

The unwillingness to bench underperforming veteran players and the unfair treatment of Petr Prucha, I don't have an excuse for. However, I still place far more blame on those veteran players and the appalling management from above, but as I said, this was coming and I'm now far more accepting of the change, if disappointed it has come to this.

Above all, in a profession often populated by one-eyed screamers and antagonists, Renney stood out for his professional demeanour and good grace in a market that is not slow to denigrate a person's achievements. Unfortunately, these traits have likely contributed to his downfall, since the team has clearly stopped responding to the "player's coach" and he can certainly be accused of not wanting to show up his boss by calling out or benching the high-priced failures in front of him.

Still, I for one appreciate the work Tom Renney has put in and hope that he is kept on in his old player-development role. If not, he deserves another chance coaching in the NHL far more than Glen Sather deserves a fifth chance to appoint another coach (or Edmonton stooge) in New York.

Update
Looks like Tortorella already then. I'd cautiously welcome that, though I'm shocked that Sather would dare appoint anyone who might actually risk making decisions that would be an implicit criticism of his own management. Not sure this wouldn't place a block on Avery's return either.

Shoot first...

...ask questions later?

My previous investigations into the numbers behind the history of the NHL shootout looked at the business end of the universally-popular tie-breaker - “clutch” attempts to either win it or keep it going.

This time around, my thoughts strayed to one of the strategic decisions made before stick touches puck: Shoot first or second?

By way of explanation, the home team has the option of shooting first or second - this has been the case every year of the NHL shootout except the first, 2005/06, when the road team always had to shoot first. I have seen arguments in favour of both strategies, for example:

• Shooting (and scoring) first puts all the pressure on the second shooter
• Shooting second means you are more likely to have the final shot to win
• Shooters are more likely to miss than score, so you should always shoot second, since missing the first shot puts you “behind”
  

Naturally, I wanted to see if the numbers supported any of these arguments.

Does scoring the first shot matter that much?
The none-too-surprising answer here is “yes”. On average, if the very first shooter scores, his team wins 72% of the time, compared to only 40% of the time if he misses. The chart (of course there's a chart) below shows the record of each team when scoring or missing the very first shot of the shootout (through 8 February):



Observations

• As you'd expect, records across the board are much better when scoring the first shot, with only a few exceptions. Most notably, Florida, Tampa Bay and Toronto have better records when missing the first shot – suggesting it would be better for them to miss the first shot on purpose...
• Florida, in particular, have done remarkably well to lose all three of the shootouts where they have scored the very first shot
• LA and Boston, on the other hand, have yet to lose when scoring the first shot
  

So, we should always go first then?
Not so fast...time for a quick lesson in conditional probability (e.g. if I start start talking about probability theory, then there is a 99.9% chance that nobody will read past this point).

The probability of the team shooting first winning can be seen as the sum of the following:

• Probability of scoring x Probability of winning having scored
• Probability of missing x Probability of winning having missed
  

The league average for scoring the very first shot is 32% (for all shots, it is slightly higher at 33%). The really intelligent among you will be able to work out that the league average for missing the very first shot is, therefore, 68%. So, we have the four numbers we need to plug into the sum above:

Probability of team shooting first winning = (0.32 x 0.72) + (0.68 x 0.4) = 0.50

So, this suggests (at a league-wide) level at least, that there is an equal chance of winning or losing if you shoot first. Meaning either everybody is wrong, everybody is right or it doesn't matter. The following chart shows the overall record of each team when shooting first and second (through 8 February):



Observations

• Rather freakishly, the overall league record is exactly even at 282-282 when shooting first as at today's date
• Naturally, there is quite a bit of variation around the 50% mark when looking at individual teams' records
• Teams that seem to do significantly better shooting first (with a decent sample size) include Atlanta, Calgary, Colorado and Ottawa (although they stink either way)
• The reverse is true for Anaheim, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Jose
• Phoenix are unbeaten (unbeatable?) when shooting first, but have only ever done so twice
  

Looking at the premise that scoring or missing puts more or less pressure on the second shooter (the first opposing shooter), the numbers similarly don't support such an argument. The second shooter scores 38% of the time when the first shooter scores and 37% of the time when the first shooter misses. (I can't think of an obvious reason why the scoring percentage is higher for the second shooter than the first – or any other shooter in the first six – though.)

Do teams have any tendencies?
Yes – whether due to any historical success, superstition or something else. The chart below shows teams' records when choosing to shoot either first or second (i.e. records of the home team since 2006/07 – through 8 February):



Observations

• Firstly, having the choice in itself does not seem to support either strategy – winning percentages are still very similar (and home teams' records are slightly below .500 since 2006/07)
• Most teams have a fairly clear policy to shoot first – indeed, seven teams have never opted to shoot second
• Conversely, only a handful of teams select to shoot second more often – New Jersey and Phoenix the only teams to do so every time (nothing in their overall records really supports this choice though)
  

Player records
Obviously, having a particularly good first shooter or good shootout goalie may justifiably lead to a tendency that the league-wide averages don't support. I'll leave any detailed player/team analysis for another decade, but FYI, the final two charts below list the best individual records when taking or facing the very first shot (minimum five attempts - through 8 February):