Living in a country with healthy looking cows, juicy green grass, tidy roads, a pitoresque landscape and a great life-quality in general... I still feel like living in a desert, I’m hungry and thirsty. I’m a hockey-man and compared to living in other hockey-countries I feel like a beggar in terms of hockey-stats. I can follow Swedish and other junior-league-games online and get informed by the minute about all the ongoing stats including plus/minus of all junior-players....hmm.... in Switzerland?
So I turn my head to North America and find my huge steak with a splendid smell of a great barbecue with a tasty and cosy glass of red-wine. I start to analyse the real stats what really helps me to discuss the real player performances.
In the NHL I did find my favourite stats. They tell us how much time a player needs to score a point. It more or less takes away the argument of not having enough ice-time and shows a relatively fair mirror of player-productivity.
Here we go: Who were the real best players in terms of point-production in the season 2009/2010:
1. Alex OVECHKIN, WAS / he in average did need just 14.2 minutes on the ice to score a point.
2. Daniel SEDIN, VAN / also 14.2
3. Henrik SEDIN, VAN / 14.4
4. Nicklas BACKSTROM, WAS / 16.4
5. Alexander SEMIN, WAS / 16.6
6. Sidney CROSBY, PIT / 16.9
7. Steven STAMKOS, TB / 17.7
8. Patrick KANE, CHI / 17.9
9. Brad RICHARDS, DAL / 18.3
10. Marian GABORIK, NYR / 18.5
In terms of goalie-performance I did find this interesting, stats-based ranking of the season 2009/2010:
1. Ryan MILLER, BUF / Save-Percentage 92.9% / 53 hot games, 10 ok games, 6 bad games (ratio 8-1-1), 4 steals, 5 shutouts and a shootout-percentage of 64.5%.
2. Evgeni NABOKOV, SJ / Save-Percentage 92.2% / 46 hot games, 10 ok games, 11 bad games (ratio 6-2-2), 7 steals, 3 shutouts and a shootout-percentage of 74.0%.
3. Tomas VOKOUN, FLA / Save-Percentage 92.5% / 44 hot games, 13 ok games, 11 bad games (ratio 7-2-1), 6 steals, 7 shutouts and a shootout-percentage of 61.2%.
4. Henrik LUNDQVIST, NYR / Save-Percentage 92.1% / 50 hot games, 12 ok games, 11 bad games (ratio 7-2-2), 4 steals, 3 shutouts and a shootout-percentage of 68.2%.
5. Miikka KIPRUSOFF, CGY / Save-Percentage 92.0% / 51 hot games, 13 ok games, 9 bad games (ratio 7-2-1), 8 steals, 4 shutouts and a shootout-percentage of 44.4%.
Explanation:
A hot game is a game with a save-percentage of 90% or more.
An ok game is a game with a save-percentage of 85-89.9%.
A bad game is a game with a save-percentage of < 85%.
A steal is a win in a game with at least 90% save-percentage and the team is outshot by the opponent by 10 shots or more.
Would be great to have hockey-discussions based on such analyses in my country, Switzerland. How long I do have to wait for this?
Thomas Roost, Central Scouting Europe, NHL
Dear TSR,
ReplyDeleteI have been following the Swiss Icehockey more than 20 years and written innumerable emails to the resposible persons at Swiss Ice Hockey in this "stats-desert-regard" - all in vain.I haven't even received an answer.
If you take a quick look at the games online at Swiss Ice Hockey's NLA games, not even the right goalie on the ice is "underlined" at the game reports and thousand of hockey lovers follow the games online as well.And this on a professional level!
Forget interesting disscussions about stats, all remains assumpions. But this "stats-desert" has an impact even to the NHL draft every year.
Especially for the goalies.Why does so few Swiss goalies get drafted in NHL? I dare to say that B.Conz can compeate with the other European goalies which got draftet this years (Petterson-Wentzel,Grubauer,Aittokallio, Gustafsson, Iilahti).But he does not have (even if he made a good WJC)what those 5 have: proper long term stats online.No GM buys a pig in a poke.
Yes, the Swiss players are just not visible enough, in statstical terms. Swiss Ice Hockey and the NLA clubs seems not to have a clue what it means to market their own products: PLAYERS.They treat them like we do with the swiss wines. Better to drink them at home, instead of exporting them and letting them get wolrdwide famous :-)
You as a wellknown scout in CH hockey might have more success if you approch the desicion-makers at the CH association with right arguments?!