These Are The Things I Think About
Why don’t players who get a penalty get a minus if the other team scores?
This has been bothering me for a while. I understand why a defensive player on a penalty kill shouldn’t be subject to a minus because it’s not his fault, but isn’t it the fault of the guy who got the penalty in the first place? If he hadn’t committed a penalty, they wouldn’t have had the scoring opportunity. It makes more sense for that guy to get a minus as opposed to the guy who jumped on the ice two seconds before the goal was scored.
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Dave Lewis was hired as an assistant coach for the Kings a couple of days ago. My opinion of coaches is that they’re not that important in the grand scheme of things except for power play coaches, but Dave Lewis is known as a pretty good guy and he should balance Marc Crawford’s dickery. I would be a little worried if I were Lubomir Visnovsky, though; he might wake up tomorrow and find out that Lewis has annexed his house.
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I’m getting all set up for season previews, starting next week. I’m going to start with the guys who are guaranteed make the team. First up: Rob Blake. Last season was a while ago, though, so my memory is a little hazy. If you have any stories from last year about Blake, or just general impressions of his play, please leave them in the comments. Otherwise, I’m just going to write about the size of his ass for 20 minutes, and nobody wants that.
7 comments:
Why don’t players who get a penalty get a minus if the other team scores?
Actually, for the Ducks this past season I have a spreadsheet that counts minuses for players who are in the box. It's a bit imperfect, but these are the Ducks who were penalized and in the box when goals went in against Anaheim.
O'Donnell: 12 times
Pronger: 10 times
McDonald: 6 times
Getzlaf: 6 times
R. Niedermayer: 5 times
S. Niedermayer: 5 times
Marchant: 5 times
Moen: 5 times
Selanne: 4 times
Kunitz: 4 times
Dipenta: 4 times
bench: 4 times
and everyone else with less.
I don't really know what it's good for yet, but it is something I started tracking last year. It should be noted that players in the box for matching minors are also dinged here, even if the resulting goal wasn't a power play goal.
Actually, for the Ducks this past season I have a spreadsheet that counts minuses for players who are in the box.
Dude, you are a nerd.
As for the subject at hand, I dont think you could conflate the existing plus/minus with the conceptual "GA while penalized" suggested here because, well, they measure two different things. Similar, but different.
Don't get me wrong, I actually like the idea of tracking players that cost GA by being penalized, I just think you'd have to make up another species of stat to do so...
Dude, you are a nerd.
Nerdiness was what got me past the first round.
Okay, first off, plus/minus is already a terribly terribly terribly flawed stat to begin with. Frankly, it isn't good or really even properly designed for doing the kind of thing most people like to do with the stat in the first place, and this would be just more of the same mis-use of the stat.
To do what most people want to do witht he stat (answer the question of defensive liability vs offensive contribution) it would nee to be normalized for time on the ice, for the team you play on compared to the rest of the league, for what line and what role you play for the team (which I'm not even sure is possible).
They already keep a stat for what you're trying to get at here, and it's called PIMS. Total minutes already tells you how much a guy costs you by putting you on the PK. Now that just needs to weighed against the contribution a guy provides in terms of physical play and scoring and etc.
THN used to keep a stat they created called the Intimidation Factor (or something like that). It was a composite of goals, pims, fighting majors, etc. Pretty much the guys who would score consistantly high were your power forwards and scoring pests. Actually a pretty good stat in my opinion, but only for really looking at a particular kind of player.
As a Kings fan, you'd watch a guy like Lapperiere and know 100% what huge contributions he made to the team...yet vertually no way to massage the stats like +/- to show it.
But then again, I kind of consider myself a nerd, and earl blows me out of the water, so maybe he could come up with something...
Second, I kind of think you're underestimating coaching maybe a hair. I do agree that mainly it's PP, but a good coach who is right for the team you have goes a long long way. Crawford is a good coach, but last year he was not 100% the right guy for that team. The team is rapidly changing, so he's becoming more the right guy (and I totally think he is the right guy for this period of the team overall).
Just look at guys like Robinson and Murray. Clearly some teams they were not right for and others they were wonderful with.
I do think Lewis is going to bring us the kind of quality we haven't seen in the assisant position since Tippet left, so I'm really jazzed he's onboard.
I would be a little worried if I were Lubomir Visnovsky, though; he might wake up tomorrow and find out that Lewis has annexed his house.
Oh, my gosh. That's hilarious.
We should show that spreadsheet to the players...maybe they will think twice about taking stupid penalties.
Maybe the +/- will finally die as a fantasy stat...someday. It is a stat that has just run its course and really doesn't judge the true value of a player. Now, if they had a stat where it determined how many defensive zone turnovers you had....that would be not half bad. However since it sounds boring...it likely will never catch on.
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