How Did Bucci Do? Revisiting John Buccigross’s Alex Ovechkin Goals Projection

May 13, 2015May 14, 2015Benjamin Wendorf For Fun, NHL Topical Analysis, Theory Tags: Alex Ovechkin, ESPN, Goal-Scoring, John Buccigross, NHL All-Time Goal Scoring Record, NHL Projections, Washington Capitals, Wayne Gretzky Leave a comment

Photo by “Photonerd23” via Wikimedia Commons

In February of the 2009-10 season, John Buccigross of ESPN was spurred by a mailbag question to do a quick thought experiment: does he think Ovechkin could set the all-time goals mark? Gabe Desjardins voiced skepticism of Bucci’s optimistic projection but didn’t offer a counter-projection, presumably because, as he wrote:

Basically, careers are incredibly unpredictable – nobody plays 82 games a year from age 20 to age 40. And players who play at a very high level at a young age tend to not sustain that level of play until they’re 40…So, to answer the reader’s question: I believe that there is presently no significant likelihood that Alex Ovechkin finishes his career with 894 goals. He needs to display an uncommon level of durability for the next decade, and not just lead the league in goal-scoring, but do so by such a wide margin that he scores as much as Gretzky, Hull or Lemieux did in an era with vastly higher offensive levels.

That said, I thought it would be fun, with five full years gone, to see how Bucci did, and try to build a prediction model with the same data he had available. Continue reading →

The Greatest Tank Battle: Penguins vs. Devils, 1983-84

April 6, 2015April 6, 2015Benjamin Wendorf NHL League-Wide Analysis, NHL Topical Analysis Tags: Arizona Coyotes, Buffalo Sabres, Chico Resch, Chris Terreri, Craig Billington, Denis Herron, Doug Shedden, Eddie Johnston, Edmonton Oilers, John MacLean, Ken Daneyko, Kirk McLean, Kirk Muller, Lou Angotti, Mario Lemieux, Martin Brodeur, Michel Dion, Mike Bullard, Mike Dunham, New Jersey Devils, NHL Draft, NHL History, Pat Verbeek, Pittsburgh Penguins, Randy Carlyle, Rick Kehoe, Roberto Romano, Ron Low, Sean Burke, Sidney Crosby, Toronto Maple Leafs, Vincent Tremblay, Wayne Gretzky 1 Comment

Mario Lemieux with Laval of the QMJHL in 1984; photo by http://www.lhjmq.qc.ca/ via Wikimedia Commons

What do you do when a 6’4″ QMJHL forward who scored 184 points in 66 games in his last underage season scores at a 282-point pace in his draft year? You tank — you tank as hard as you can. In the latter half of the 1983-84 season, the Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils were in an unspoken, pitched battle for the bottom of the league and everybody knew it. While the Penguins would ultimately win out, sputtering to a 16-58-6 record (“good” for 38 points in the standings) to New Jersey’s 17-56-7 (41 points), the two teams were coming from distinctly different franchise backgrounds.

Using information from our new interactive charts, we can see what set these teams apart, and led them to take different paths in what turned out to be a pretty wild race to the cellar of the NHL.

Continue reading →

Friday Quick Graph: Player Career Charting by Percentage of Team Shots, 1967-68 to 2012-13

March 6, 2015March 20, 2015Benjamin Wendorf Career Chart, Friday Quick Graphs, NHL League-Wide Analysis Tags: %TSh, Aging, Aging Curve, Bobby Orr, Mario Lemieux, NHL, NHL Defensemen, NHL Forwards, NHL History, Percentage of Team Shots, Player Development, Sidney Crosby, Wayne Gretzky Leave a comment

Embedding interactive graphs into blog posts, especially blogs with a narrow runner like ours, is frequently an awkward process. Just about the time things look good, you tinker with it and it looks bad. Nevertheless, I had a bunch of old data I put together, once upon a time, and I wanted to get it out there in a form that you could tinker with. Basically, in the past I have used the percentage of team shots in the games a player participated (%TSh; explanation here) as a way to capture a player’s contribution to the shot load; I also think it strongly implies a player’s involvement and contribution to team offense overall.

In the case of today’s graph, I took %TSh and looked at aging curves with a multitude of players from 1967-68 through 2012-13 (like I said, the data is a little old). I prepared this with a selected group of players available for the filter, the majority of whom are stronger, more familiar players of the years covered. I also included some players that struggled by the metric, for the sake of comparison. To filter, click on the “Name” bar, click on “Filter,” and let your imaginations run wild. Feel free to download if you wish.

Note: I believe I set the cut-off at 20 GP before I would record the point of data. It’s old. I’m old. We’re all getting older.

Gordie Howe vs. Bobby Orr vs. Wayne Gretzky vs. Sidney Crosby: Not Your Typical WOWY

September 29, 2014March 5, 2015Benjamin Wendorf NHL League-Wide Analysis Tags: 2pS%, Bobby Orr, Boston Bruins, Chicago Blackhawks, Corsi, Detroit Red Wings, Edmonton Oilers, Gordie Howe, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, NHL History, Possession, Shooting Percentage, Shooting Talent, Sidney Crosby, Wayne Gretzky, WOWY 6 Comments

Photo by “Djcz”, via Wikimedia Commons

With or Without You analysis, often referred to as WOWY, frequently involves either comparing the performance of a team or particular players when a single player is and isn’t playing. While the approach is a risky one (sample size is a pretty big issue), it can actually be quite telling when you collect enough data.

The value of modern WOWY is that you can definitely get data from precisely the seconds a player played apart from the seconds they weren’t on the ice. Historical WOWY, on the other hand, cannot do much better than taking data from games a player played versus games they didn’t. To this end, then, I wanted to see if historical WOWY can tell us much of anything, and the best way to do that is to focus on players that are undisputed in their value. In this case, I went for WOWYs of the big guns, four of the best players across the eras of NHL history: Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Sidney Crosby.
Continue reading →

Wayne Gretzky vs. Bobby Clarke, December 1981: A Micro-Analysis

February 17, 2014September 30, 2014Benjamin Wendorf NHL Topical Analysis, Theory Tags: 2-Period Shot Percentage, 2pS%, Bobby Clarke, Dave Semenko, Edmonton Oilers, Glen Sather, NHL History, Philadelphia Flyers, Possession, Wayne Gretzky 8 Comments

Left image by “Centpacrr“, Right image by “Hakandahlstrom” via Wikimedia Commons, both altered by author

On December 30th, 1981, Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers and Bobby Clarke’s Philadelphia Flyers met in a Wednesday night tilt rich with symbolism. Clarke, 32, was a couple of years away from retirement; two of his three remaining teammates from the Cup years, Reggie Leach and Bill Barber (defenseman Jimmy Watson was the third), were themselves out of the league in two years (Leach due to talent drop-off, Barber due to injury). Ironically, there was little indication in 1981 that this was going to happen – all were around 30, all were near point-per-game scorers playing all minutes. Whatever the case, they were the last of the Broad Street Bullies, and were now mentoring a new generation of “Bullies” like Ken Linseman, Tim Kerr, and Brian Propp, who seemed at times more annoying than dangerous. Though in transition, Philadelphia was still a great possession team (4th in the league in 2pS%, an historical possession metric), but fought the percentages all year to squeak into the playoffs. Edmonton, on the other hand, was romping through the league at record pace, and by December 30th held a comfortable lead over 2nd place Minnesota in the old Campbell Conference. Gretzky, of course, was at the heart of this surge, and by game 39 he had 45 goals.

The 1980s Oilers were the next step in NHL offense, really a Canadian version of the 1970s Soviet style of hockey. They didn’t need to bully their way to victories – they let the other team take the penalties, and skated all over them. I should say, that’s what Edmonton would eventually do; on this night they lined Gretzky up with Dave Lumley and Dave Semenko, as they had done most of the year. More on that later.

As I said before, though, the Flyers were a great possession team, as they always had been when Clarke and Barber were in their prime (they averaged, averaged, 55% 2pS% in the years 1973-74 through 1981-82, placing them consistently among the top 5 in the NHL). They were fast and calculating with their puck movement; the grit was just extra work – and who knows, maybe it contributed to Clarke, Barber, and Leach’s early retirement. The Bully when met with the Oilers, though, learned that the box was the bigger enemy.

Continue reading →

Friday Quick Graph: Season Stories Using % of Team Shots, Gretzky, Lemieux, Sheppard, and Simpson in 1987-88

January 31, 2014January 31, 2014Benjamin Wendorf Friday Quick Graphs, NHL Topical Analysis Tags: %TSh, Buffalo Sabres, Craig Simpson, Edmonton Oilers, Friday Quick Graph, Mario Lemieux, NHL History, Pittsburgh Penguins, Ray Sheppard, Wayne Gretzky Leave a comment

Part of the reason I like doing graph work is because a good graph (with a little bit of contextual knowledge) can tell a really interesting story. In the past, I’ve been a proponent of digging deeper into the historical data, and noted that even though we have less data of the pre-BTN era it doesn’t mean we can’t make some intriguing graphs. %TSh, or % of team shots (in the games a player participated), provides a great opportunity to do just that, not just in a player’s career (as I’ve done before) but also over the course of a season. In the graph above, I took two well-known players, Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky, and matched them to two (to the younger readers) lesser-known players from 1987-88, Ray Sheppard and Craig Simpson; I expressed their %TSh cumulatively, game-by-game. Craig Simpson, at the tender age of 20, was having the best year of his career (56 goals on an incredible 31.6% shooting percentage), but a trade to the Oilers mid-season would alter his offensive role for that season and into the future. Ray Sheppard, like Simpson very young (21), over the course of the season earned Ted Sator’s trust and responded with a 38-goal rookie season. Sheppard would go on to be a very good offensive player for about a decade.

Yet their lines relative to Gretzky and Lemieux also remind us that, for as good as they were, neither were driving the boat to the level of those legends (and probably wouldn’t). So you do get some perspective on what some of the best-of-the-best were doing. Lemieux, who was entering his prime, was literally carrying a middling Penguins team on his shoulders, and his ability to do that would bring him, in 1988-89, to convince people that Dan Quinn and Rob Brown were really good.

For frame of reference, in the BTN Era (2007-08 to present) only Ovechkin has been able to come close to the kind of shot volume Lemieux was demonstrating in 1987-88.

Hockey Graphs

Visualizing and analyzing hockey and statistics

Wayne Gretzky