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 12th 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 12th.
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 15th
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.
Runners up: Another
GM who brought a flurry of activity pre-draft was Mackhawks GM Mr. MacKenzie. There were a lot of head-scratchers who
questioned his decision to basically unload his entire slough of 2014 draft
picks to the Faajarvis for Jarome Iginla and Brent Burns. And then he decided
he didn’t want his 2nd rounder in 2015 either, so he dumped that
too, but in return he got the 6th highest scorer of all-time, soon
to be 5th. And as if to prove his indifference about draft position,
his final 5 picks have outperformed his first 6 picks!! He’s backed all this up
by finding himself in second place at October’s end. 
PREYDE-KIRSHENBLAT
There were a few other hasty add/drops which don’t look like
they are going to pan out, such as the insurance Ryder purchased by the Powder
Rangers, but I think that TWO moves by the GM
of the Quebec Rordiques deserve a collective call-out. He basically handed
over Holtby and Ladd to his two former
UVic Law classmates, who both came knocking on his door in mild
desperation. In return, The Rordiques
have netted themselves two 2nd round picks next year, but have given
up—let’s call it what it is—the first pick in each of the 4th and 5th
rounds. Maybe Rory actually thinks he can be done drafting before the 4th
round starts, and so those picks won’t matter? In any case, I’m a bit
bewildered. Rory was wildly regarded as one of the smartest kids in my high
school, especially in physics, but he has shown no understanding of leverage
here. Rory also continues to be regarded as one of the nicest guys you’ll ever
meet, so at least he has upheld that aspect of his reputation.
