Henrik Sedin – McKeen's Hockey

2015 NHL Playoffs: Vancouver Canucks vs. Calgary Flames

McKeen's Hockey — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 15:25:50 +0000

Vancouver Canucks vs. Calgary Flames

These are two teams that at the start of the season not many people would have predicted would be playoff teams come April and yet here they are. Canucks GM Jim Benning has done an excellent job refreshing not only the Canucks roster but their prospects as well. The addition of free agents Radim Vrbata and Ryan Miller continues to pay dividends and Nick Bonino has proven to be a more than capable second line centre. The 100 point seasons and even 80 point seasons may be history for the Sedin twins, but they still lead the offense in Vancouver. Vrbata was able to keep pace with the Sedins but there is a drop off after the top three. Bonino, Chris Higgins, Alex Burrows and Jannik Hansen provide some secondary scoring while Bo Horvat and Shawn Matthias provide some depth. Zack Kassian who is sidelined with a back injury is a player who has the ability to be a difference maker with his physical play and offensive power game, he will be missed. The Canucks defense is led by Alex Edler who has rebounded from a disastrous season to regain his forum. Veteran defenders Kevin Bieksa and Dan Hamhuis provide stability while youngsters Chris Tanev, Yannick Weber and Luca Sbisa have all taken on big roles on the blueline and not looked out of place. The big question for the Canucks is in goal. Ryan Miller missed significant time with a knee injury before playing the final regular season game but was “rusty”. Miller is 34 and was unable to deliver the performance in the playoffs last year that the St. Louis Blues were looking for but he is still their best option. Should the Canucks turn to Eddie Lack instead he has proven to be a capable player who also gives his team confidence.

The Calgary Flames have had an impressive season and continue to defy the odds and nay sayers. Not expected to be a competitive team while they continue to rebuild, Coach Bob Hartley has this team playing hard every night and they just never take a night off. Even after Mark Giordano went down for the season and everyone thought the bubble had finally burst, they still kept winning. Up front the Flames are a score by committee team that lacks a super-star presence but rookie sensation Johnny Gaudreau is trending in that direction. Sean Monahan and Jiri Hudler complete the top line, after that the offense drops off significantly as Lance Bouma, David Jones and Joe Colborne provide the secondary scoring. After the top line, most of Calgary’s offence is generated from their defence despite the loss of their best defender Mark Giordano. Kris Russell, Denis Wideman and T.J. Brodie are all good mobile defenders who transition the puck so efficiently into the offensive zone for the Flames. Jonas Hiller can expect to be the go to goalie for the Flames and he should expect to see a lot of shots this series as the Flames struggle both in puck possession and on faceoffs. The Flames have been a team with purpose and a destiny, and since neither team was expected to be in the playoffs at the start of the season, they are both playing with house money and really have nothing to lose. While the advanced stats suggest the Flames poor possession numbers will eventually cost them, it may not happen until the second round.

Top Ten Vancouver Canucks

Henrik Sedin – While he may not win another scoring title, he can still provide first line offensive numbers
Daniel Sedin – Like his brother, he has his name on a scoring title and can still provide big time points
Radim Vrbata – The next best option in Vancouver drives the offense on the second line
Nick Bonino – Replaced Ryan Kesler as second line centre and can match his regular season performance, but the Canucks will really miss Kesler in the playoffs
Chris Higgins – Finally had a healthy season and found some consistent scoring
Alex Burrows – Agitator supreme who when playing with the Sedins can provide offense too
Alex Edler – Had a disastrous season under Coach John Tortorella and has rebounded nicely
Bo. Horvat – Impressive rookie season, looks to be a potential future Ryan Kesler
Ryan Miller – Even if he is healthy can he deliver in the playoffs?
Jannik Hansen – Speedy Dane provides solid two-way play

Top Ten Calgary Flames

Jiri Hudler – Quietly finished the season among the top ten scorers in the league
Johnny Gaudreau – Johnny Hockey never slowed down coming into the NHL from College, in fact he only got better and better. Can he find another level?
Sean Monahan – Boring Sean Monahan improved drastically on his impressive rookie season
Dennis Wideman – in the absence of Giordano, he has stepped up as the number one defenseman
T.J. Brodie – smooth skating defenseman is Flames best puck-moving rearguard
Lance Bouma – The hardest working man in hockey, Bouma may not have elite skill but the Flames love his compete and physicality
Kris Russell – Bounced from Columbus to Blues before finding a home in Calgary, he was a steal
Joe Colborne – The Leafs lost Colborne to waivers instead of Colton Orr and he has fit in nicely with Monahan, another steal!
Jonas Hiller – Lost the starting job in Anaheim in last years playoffs, has a chance at redemption
Mikael Backlund – Lost two months to injury but still had a solid season

Sedins Explained – Introduction to Player Usage Charts

Rob Vollman — Sat, 09 Aug 2014 21:09:41 +0000

Understanding Context with Player Usage Charts

When studying hockey statistics, context is everything. It's common knowledge how a player's stats can be greatly influenced by his playing conditions. Factors such as their line mates, opponents, and goaltenders, not to mention the manpower situation and the score, can all skew a player's stats one way or the other. Player Usage Charts put a great deal of that information into simple graphical form.

For example, if you've ever wondered how Henrik and Daniel Sedin could go from below the point-a-game rate in their mid-20s, all the way up to sudden Art Ross, Hart Memorial, and Ted Lindsay award winners in their older age, and then right back down after Vigneault's departure, then look no further than Player Usage Charts.

Years ago these charts reveal Vigneault's tendency towards a style of aggressive zone-matching that results in players like Manny Malhotra getting all the shifts that start in the defensive zone and Ryan Kesler taking on all the top lines, thus leaving the Sedins to start their shifts primarily in the offensive zone and against fairly average competition. Their offensively potent seasons were as predictable then as Mats Zuccarello's are now.

Even though Player Usage Charts can eloquently show how a team's players are being deployed, there's a lot of complexity under the hood. A lot of raw data is mined from the NHL's official game files, and organized into each concise picture.

Ideally the end result is easy to understand with very minimal explanation. The horizontal axis features the player's offensive zone start percentage, which is the percentage of all non-neutral shifts started in the offensive zone (not counting on-the-fly line changes).

A common misconception is that it represents the percentage of all shifts started in the offensive zone, but it actually ignores those in the neutral zone, and is therefore perhaps poorly named (like most hockey statistics). Think of it more as a representation of whether a player is used primarily for his offensive or defensive talents.

Getting a lot of offensive zone starts will result in more favorable scoring totals, and for very obvious reasons. Starting in the offensive zone means that a faceoff victory can lead directly to scoring opportunity, whereas winning in the defensive zone still required someone carry it out and down into the offensive zone before a shot could even be attempted. It's therefore no surprise that each extra offensive zone start has been calculated to be worth an extra 0.8 shots in a player's shot-based plus/minus.

On the vertical axis, you'll find the player's Quality of Competition. This can be measured in a variety of ways, such as using the average ice time of one's opponents, but he results are normally the same. Here it is being calculated based on the average plus/minus of one's opponents over 60 minutes, except that it is based on attempted shots instead of goals. Doing that filters out the effect of goaltending, and all that extra data serves to reduce the impact of a few bad bounces.

Regardless of which measurement is used, those who face the top lines are always at the top of the chart, and those who face mostly depth lines are at the bottom. Of course, bear in mind that these charts reflect the entire 82-game schedule, whereas line matching is only realistically possible on home ice where the coach has the final change.

Finally, there are the big shaded circles around each player's name. These names sometimes include asterisks, incidentally. A prefix means the player spent the first part of the season somewhere else, and a postfix means the player finished the season somewhere else. Given how some teams, like Los Angeles, start a lot more shifts in the offensive zone than others, like Toronto, it's important to take note of which players stats might have been steered one way or another.

As for those circles around the names, they are shaded and sized based on the player's attempted shot-based plus/minus, with two important adjustments. First, it is calculated relative to how the team did without him, so that players on weak teams don't get penalized, and players on great teams have to prove they're not just riding someone's coat tails. Secondly, the size of the bubbles are calculated over 60 minutes in order to neutralize the advantage of those who get more ice time. And remember that all this data is in five-on-five situations only.

Ultimately, a big shaded bubble represents someone whose team attempts a lot more shots than their opponents while he's on the ice and a big white bubble is someone whose team is usually getting badly out-shot. This is important given the correlation between attempted shots and concepts such as zone time and puck possession.

Always remember that the whole point is to establish context, not to claim that one player is better than another. Players are used however they are for a variety of reasons, many of which can be outside their control. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that anyone playing tough minutes in their own zone against top lines should have their white bubbles excused, while we shouldn't necessarily be too impressed by big shaded bubbles if it's for someone who is enjoying easy minutes in the offensive zone and against depth lines.

So what's the bottom line? Players on the left side of the chart are defensive-minded players while those on the right are focused on scoring. Those at the top of the chart are up against the top six, while those at the bottom play against depth lines. These key pieces of information can help put everyone's scoring totals in the proper context, and help predict the season to come.

This being the first season that Player Usage Charts have been included, we have included a brief analysis to help interpret each one. Be especially on the look-out for any player whose scoring may be dependent on favorable playing conditions that are unlikely to continue, or those who blossomed despite a tough assignment.

NHL: Top 30 Scorers Fenwick/Corsi by Game

Gus Katsaros — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 21:44:28 +0000

It’s been written that a picture is worth 1000 words.

If that’s true, then this is going to be a 30,000 word blog post .. if there ever was one. This is actually going to be around 30,500, but hey, who’s counting.

Before presenting the following, a little explanation is in order.

The hockey world (fuelled by bloggers and math nerdlingers) is breaking new ground with the ability to analyze players and using technology to better capture the nuances missed in game to game situations.

Websites like Gabe Desjardins Behind the Net and David Johnson Hockey Analysis have become valuable resources to decipher the numbers and put meaning to the way player’s performance is analyzed.

Two of the measures act as a proxy for a team’s possession of the puck, providing estimates of player’s time with the puck. A good primer for advanced stats is here (and I will delve more into using analytics in this space here on McKeen’s)

Corsi (a stat named after Buffalo Sabres goaltending coach Jim Corsi) is a ratio measuring shots on goal, blocked shots and missed shots fired at the opposition net, over the same criteria fired upon the players own net. JP at Japers Rink has a good introduction to the statistic and Broad Street Hockey advances the discussion with a comprehensive look at Advanced stats over a series of posts.

The logic dictates that the team that has greater possession of the puck will likely be firing upon the opposition’s goal rather than a player’s own goal is a signal to indicate that team has puck possession.

Fenwick is a similar measure, however it removes the blocked shots, while still providing a ratio of shots on goal and missed shots. The measure is defined here from Raw Charge – a Tampa Bay Lightning blog on SB Nation:

Fenwick: Measure of shots for and missed shots for as a percentage of all shots taken. Used more for teams than players. Often divided into game situation : Score-tied, 1-up, 1-down, 2-up, 2-down, 3-up, 3-down. This is because teams that are behind tend to shoot more than teams that are ahead, and the further behind they are the more pronounced this "score effect" is. It's so pronounced after falling 3 behind that everything goes out the window and there's no real point in separating it out any further.

Fenwick is also occasionally divided by period, as shooting tendencies change the further into a game one gets.

Fenwick measures tend to be more predictive of win-loss records for a season than Corsi measures, but Corsi is better for short-term analysis of puck possession, as it includes more events and so accounts for outliers (randomness) better. Just remember Fenwick = teams, long-term; Corsi = players and teams, shorter-term.

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These measures are more indicative of trends and apply for better use over greater sample sizes, but I was curious to see the game-to-game effects of both Corsi and Fenwick measures.

To do that, I was able to get all the game data from timeonice.com measuring each game’s corsi and fenwick events broken down by each individual components. An example is here, using the Leafs and Sabres game from March 21, 2013

After compiling all the data for each individual game, I was able to put together a game-by-game look at the differences of each measure, by team and then by player.

This is where the 30,000 words come into play. The following is a visual representation of the top-30 scorers in the NHL (as of Mar 22, 2013) based on their individual Corsi and Fenwick measures on a game-to-game basis. Note the numbers across the horizontal axis are the game numbers assigned by the NHL.

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