Agreed. Yes, goals are more scarce, but the way I see it (and the way I guess the NHL does too) is that goals don’t happen without assists. For unassisted goals, well the goal scorer did most (or all) of the work to get that goal, so no one else gets assists.
Perfect scenario, PensAreYourDaddy. Playmakers, like Sid, are the ones that give us examples of this. Re: Sid beating the crap out of Spezza, but Tanger getting the goal.

I wouldn’t take the trophy away. As you point out, Sid edges out Lecavalier, and my guess is that Sid didn’t have someone as talented as St. Louis regularly skating shifts with him.

I disagree about your comment involving shorties and EN’s. Every goal counts the same regardless of the situation (though you could break this down and figure out which goals contributed more to winning games, but that’s another story). Just because Dupuis scores less goals than Crosby (meaning his goals are more scarce) doesn’t make them anymore valuable.

I know there are times when Crosby or another player makes a sick pass that really wasn’t that hard to pot, though I would speculate that these instances are rare. The sheer fact that goals are harder to come by than assists indicates to me that they’re more valuable. Sure a goal can’t happen without those passes, but those passes mean nothing if the puck never crosses the goal line. I also thought it made intuitive sense that it’s harder on average to score a goal than to get an assist.

And thanks for the props PAYD, I’m glad you keep reading!

If you want to change the system, perhaps an impartial observer should review each goal and determine which was more critical, the play made by the scorer or the passer(s)

After reading GoPens! post and just by my own observation/opinion, I think goals are more valuable than assists but, man, what you stated there brings a whole lot more of the “outsider” human element than me, and I’m sure a lot of people, are comfortable with.

I’m guessing you might say always the scorer, but if the play involves Sid beating 2 or 3 guys and making a sick pass over to a wide open Kunitz who just has to tap it in, then I have no problem saying Sid’s assist should be considered just as valuable as Kuni’s goal.

This makes me happy :)

This is an online hockey blog. If you’re looking for groundbreaking information of global importance, you might want to venture somewhere else…

Ohh while we’re off topic, anyone know how I can turn my signature into a click-able link? Do I simply put in the regular HTML?

Empty net goals, pp goals, etc. don’t create any problem for my system because we expect them to be more scarce. But that scarcity does not imply more value because the opportunities to score PP, SH, GW, or EN goals are much more rare. Of course EN goals will be more scarce: a team might only get 1 minute out of 4 or 5 games to score one. The same logic applies to the other categories.

What you’re also missing is that I’m looking at the relationship between goals and assists, not the relationship between goals. I took as given in my argument that each goal counts as one goal, and I don’t think it makes any sense to weight them differently because of the same reason above. When looking strictly through the goals vs. assists lens, it’s impossible to conclude that assists are of equal or greater value than goals. Since any player can score a goal or an assist in any game situation, there’s no bias toward certain players.

As to Heatley vs. Thornton, Thornton might be more valuable overall since he does things that Heatley doesn’t (like take faceoffs), but strictly in terms of goals and assists, Heatley looks like he did more work.

I mean if you have a great passer like Crosby or Sedin or Thornton, they can make an average player very much above average(ie: Cheechoo).

I know this is a little off topic, but if there’s ever an example of a guy who was a flash in the pan, it’s Cheechoo. In reality, though, he wasn’t even really a flash in the pan because it was really Thornton who was making him great.

or how about just remove the secondary assist? The idea of half a point wouldn’t sit very well with people… It’s too messy for all of us non-stat monkeys. I’m okay with the idea of people getting points for fluke goals or fluke passes actually…. Whether or not the secondary assist gets removed it’s part of the charm of sports…

Every sport that requires a goaltender tends to have fluke goalscorers… Guys putting the puck in their own net, goals getting waved off… it’s what makes things fun… I’d rather have the opportunity to be angry that Sid’s 51st was given to Guerin instead of everything falling in like butter…

As a whole you may have a point, but not all secondary assists are created equal. Sometimes it doesn’t have much to do with the goal, but sometimes, particularly on the PP the 2nd assist is the whole reason a goal is created (think a bing-bang pass play or drawing guys out of lanes and exploiting it).

And of course sometimes a guy might screen the goalie and help create a goal who doesn’t even get a point out of it —like Billy G did many times this past year.

There’s no easy or simple way around it I suppose. Tough to quantify this in a lot of ways. Scoring the goal is what really matters in the big scheme, to be a little bit obvious and generalize it.

He doesn’t look as suffocated as he did in suits a few years ago. Maybe he’s getting used to them.
Yes, I’m OCD too.

He is such a babe. For me, a female, he sure is. it.

Would you want a 50 goal, 34 assist player, or a 20 goal, 86 assist player to build your team around?

Well to be honest, it’s pending who is around either of those players. At first, that 50-goal, 34-assist player would be the ideal guy to build around. But as the goal-scoring edge starts to decrease over time and teams learn how to lock the guy down, he either has to learn to pass or disappear into oblivion.

With the 20-goal, 86-assist guy, he might not show his true value at first because how good are the guys he’s assisting? Can he turn a 20-goal guy into a 50-goal guy? If so, then I bank on him. The upside of an assist guy is that he can make other players around him better. A goal guy definitely has his place, but he’s making his team better, not his teammates. To be, I prefer the 20-goal, 86-assist guy.

Just my two cents.

And by the way, thanks for stopping by and jumping into the fray.

I wish they would give out an award for the assist leader.
They could call it the Lemieux.
Then again, there are people in Edmonton/LA/NY that would shit a brick if a trophy was named after Lemieux before Gretz.

Trying out the stanza style PAYD?