MRKL on Ice: October Part 1

This is the first of what will be a regular 2-part retrospective on each month. Part 1 is some sort of statistical analysis, which I have relied on to create a power ranking, while part 2 is a handful of awards and one “dishonor”.  MRKL stands for Month in Review for the Keeper League and should be pronounced “miracle” to imbue the league with the awe and wonder it deserves and to prevent confusion that the German Chancellor is playing hockey. 

Here is a snap shot of the standings as of the morning of Oct 30th:

Looking back at October is fun because the small sample size to kick off the season always means that some guys are out of the gate way ahead of their pace, while others still have their toes in the blocks. If we look at last year, however, we are reminded that certain trajectories are simply unsustainable, especially where significant puck luck can be attributed (see Claude Giroux’s face on one side of the coin and Mikhail Grabovski’s ass on the other side).

I’d guess at least half of you guys are familiar with PDO in some way or another. And most who aren’t probably aren’t reading this post, but alas, here’s a brief description. Apparently it doesn’t stand for anything, even though I really wish it were “public display of offence”. That’d actually be misleading, though, as it is a sum of a team’s shooting percentage plus its save percentage. Accordingly, the same metric for an individual player is his team’s shooting percentage when he’s on the ice plus his goalies’ save percentage when he’s on the ice. PDO is thus a statistic that advanced stat gurus point to as the best indicator of luck, given that on average, close to 1 of every 10 shots goes in (it’s actually more like 9 out of 100). Consequently, a player whose PDO is over 1 appears to have had more good luck than bad.

For our purposes, though, why should we care about a player’s PDO? The answer is you shouldn’t entirely. The KL is a points-based league, and so who the hell cares whether you should expect a player’s goalie to save more shots when he’s on the ice or not—unless of course you want to read into how that might affect his ice time, but c’mon. The only component of PDO that matters at all for us is “On-Ice Shooting %” or what I call “OISH%”; it provides some insight into whether a player is benefiting or suffering from how his teammates are shooting the puck and how the opposing team’s goalie is stopping the puck when he’s on the ice—things he has very little control over.

I lead things off with a table, which shows your team’s average OISH% as of Oct 30, 2014 (remember, low bodes better than high as far as your future is concerned).

With that laid out, I have somewhat arbitrarily set the “normal” range for OISH% from 5-13%. I have focused my attention on players outside of that range, who will in all probability come within that range as the season continues. What follows is my assessment of which 2 players on each of your teams can be expected to respectively regress and progress the most. 

1. Mackhawks

Joe Thornton: 14.49, will crank it… let me finish… down a notch

Marian Hossa: 4.84; expect significant improvement

The Mackhawks have a couple more slow-starters in Ennis and Doan, who should shore up his depth. This could be the year that they finally strike gold, or zinc or copper, or whatever it is that GM MacKenzie does.

2. Joshfrey Krupuls

Henrik Zetterberg: 13.64; don’t expect any betterberg

Tyson Barrie: 5.77; capable of even more

Pretty damn similar outlook for this squad as for the Mackhawks. They are neatly put together, and still always looking to self-improve.

3. Dicklas Lidstroms

Corey Perry: 15.87; his own shooting % is even higher, so a little reality should hit

Patrick Kane: 3.28; this is off the charts low, so look out

Kane isn’t the only guy slow to produce for the Lidstroms. Not only is Gaborik injured, but even in the line-up things weren’t bouncing in. You could add Voynov to the mentionable list as well, but his low OISH% is offset by his high SOP% (sig-oth punching percentage). In all truth, I fear this GM and the looming move he is about to make.

4. G-Phil’s Flyers

Alex Ovechkin: 16.9; what?! Guy should have 15 pts based on that number…

Erik Karlsson: 4.88; yep, and as if a 71 pt projection was not enough

There are a couple of other high flyers on the G-Phil’s, but overall, I don’t expect anything drastic to happen. Everyone in the league will continue to cheer ruthlessly against this stocky asshole, and I truly believe it’s going to be nip and tuck at the end of the season (with emphasis on the word nip, am I right, Greg?) between him and the three GMs I’ve listed above him.

5. Patrik Stefans

Jeff Carter: 17.39; obviously I don’t expect JC to whittle away a 100 pt season

Patrick Wiercioch: 3.13; so he should probably have 1 or maybe even 2 points

It takes a big man to make certain concessions, but I may be in for a rude awakening. Not only will Carter come back down to earth, but Forsberg, Nelson, and Seguin are also outliers according to my model. Of course, I have scrutinized the numbers a lot more for this gang, and I advise that while there should be some decline from the top producers, there will be insurance that emerges from unforeseen places (reference to iPhone conundrum, which some of you know about).

6. Winter Claassens

Tanner Pearson: 16.13; “that 70s projection” is all Hollywood

Gabriel Landeskog: 4.29; GL will start to find some good fortune

There’s actually a lot of unrealized upside on this squad, so contrary to popular thought, this GM’s best days may not be behind him.

7. Schizzarks

Rick Nash: 19.67; to no surprise, the real Nick Rash will start to flare up

Aaron Ekblad: 4.76; yeah, but… Florida, so don’t get too excited

It’s easy to shit all over the Skidmarks, but other than Nash, this team’s core is producing, and not at an unsustainable rate. So, even if his future seems inevitably filled with gloom, this GM will land nicely on his feet and stay in the playoff mix for most of the season.

8. Magnus Faajarvis

Joe Pavelski: 17.11; little Joe’s projected totals are going to shrink

Sam Gagner: 4.92; finally, an explanation

There are actually a lot of guys doing a lot of weird things on this squad. Based on the numbers, it’s arguable that this team could have 12 fwds at the end of the season with 50-65 pts, and 5 defenders who could put up 30-35 pts. Point is, there will be a lot of mediocrity on this squad when they look back on the season, and if they make the playoffs, it’ll be because of Weber and their goalie… well, and the +/- 37 other moves this GM will make.

9. Powder Rangers

Patrick Hornqvist: 14.29; as great as Sid is, this honeymoon will end at some point

Anze Kopitar: 4.92; don’t feel too antsy about his early lack of production

Expect a little less from Leddy and Burakovsky too, but more from Pietrangelo. On the whole, I am surprised not to see higher OISH% numbers here, given that the blueprint for building this team could be called the “line-mate approach”. Side q: can I start referring to Laurel as your linemate?

10. Los Amjawors Kings

Vladimir Tarasenko: 13.79; whatever

Ales Hemsky: 4.17; has not been a wonderland of puck luck in big D

This squad should be labeled the most honest or truthful. There is pretty much no posturing, as all but 4 players fall within my “normal” range of 5-13%, and no player is over that Tarasenko mark. At the end of this season, this GM will be tall, handsome, and fighting for his playoff life.

11. Milan Micahleks

Nikita Kucherov: 15.38; screen-cap that, Carmody

Sami Vatanen; 2.44; see below for a limitation of my model

Comment: I actually think that the Micahleks are headed South, and I don’t just mean moving to Marpole. Getzlaf, Benn, and Spurgeon are all sploogin’ prematurely, and I don’t think a Tomas Jurco resurgence will help mop things up.  I stand by an early prediction that sees this squad miss the playoffs for the first time.

12. Moilers

Adam Henrique: 16.67: prepare Schizz and his giant enrique-tion for some blue balls

Mika Zibanejad: 3.13: at least a partial response to Moira’s question last week “Wasn’t he supposed to be good?”

Wasn’t this team supposed to be good? Maybe once upon a time, but I can only assume that Brent Burns has taken the Moilers GM’s attention away from where it ought to be. The first table shows that the Moilers have the most to gain of any team in terms of puck luck, but I prefer the mismanagement viz. Brent Burns infatuation as an explanation.

13. WBS Parkers

Frans Nielsen: 14.29; guy will start playing more like Leslie Nielsen eventually

Nathan MacKinnon: 2.94; don’t call it a sophomore slump yet

Some of you might think that the Parkers would be the laughing stock of the league if it weren’t for the Rordiques, but I actually think they are far more poised to compete for 12^th place than you think, a position no team should ever be ashamed of finishing.

14. Teeyotes

Matt Niskanen; 13.57; but how could he be any worse?

Dustin Brown: 2.08; unlike his face, this number will become less ugly over time

I chose Niskanen over Johnson (his only other player over 13%) because I really want to highlight how shitty Niskanen is. I say there’s no way he puts up 25 pts this season, now that he’s removed from the friendly surroundings of Sid and Geno. It’s ok, though, cause Holden and Hjalmarsson are guys close to the territory of Brown’s absurdly low OISH%, so the Teeyotes can join the Parkers and Moilers in the battle for 12^th.

15. Vanrooser Canicks

Tyler Toffoli: 17.74: more like Tyler Too Phony

Jonathan Huberdeau: 5.66: I reluctantly predict a morsel more

I wish I had a wonderfully warm forecast for this hard luck clan, but seriously, there’s nothing here to suggest they can get any more mileage out of their banged and bruised line-up. I want to like this team’s future, but I can only expect more horrible things to continue to happen. Your 15^th placed team, everybody.

16. Quebec Rordiques

Josh Bailey: 18.18; not that anyone cares, but he’s got some cooling off to do

Jonathan Toews; 3.17; if a volcano erupts and no-one is around to hear it, does it…

Ohhhh, omg, so this is why the Quebec Rord… oh, nevermind.

Limitations of the Analysis

I made a note beside Sami Vatanen which I will follow-up on here. Vatanen is off to a great start, and yet his OISH% of 2.13 would indicate that we should expect even more. One problem is that the percentages presented here are 5on5 only, and ignore PP performance entirely; for some reason, sites like behindthenet.ca don’t provide cumulative stats for all situations, and I beg your pardon for not manually combining these situations myself. In any case, if a player spends significant time on the ice with the man advantage, it might be a worthwhile endeavor to see how his 5on4 OISH% compares to his 5on5 figure.

Finally, we wouldn’t expect that over an infinite number of games, all players’ shooting percentages would converge at around 9%. Some guys are simply better shooters of the puck, so it isn’t fair to attribute all the variation that is seen across the league to luck. Similarly, we can’t call all variation in OISH% luck either, because an important component is simply a player’s own shooting percentage, and well, he might just be a great shooter. He might also be a great passer and frequently set up his line-mates for tap-ins on the doorstep, which a goalie wouldn’t be expected to stop 91% of the time. Nonetheless, OISH% distributions from past seasons show far less variation than shooting percentage, because of course it pools shooting percentages of multiple players together. So despite the limitations just mentioned, it is as good an indicator of offensive luck as there currently is.