A Little Give And Take
by GoPens! on Jul 9, 2010 1:02 AM EDT
in Statistics
41 comments
I've been taking a look at how our boys from this past season measured up in certain areas of play. This time, I'm going to look at how the players stacked up in the giveaway and takeaway departments. The data below is for all on-ice situations (ES, PP, SH) because NHL.com only reports total numbers on the season.
How do we look at who's the most effective in terms of giveaways and takeaways? I think the first place to start is to develop a rate statistic, so that we're looking at giveaways and takeaways per 60 minutes of play. This will control for differences in ice time and allow us analyze all players on the same level. The next step should be to subtract giveaways/60 from takeaways/60. The reasoning is that getting a lot of takeaways means nothing if you're also giving the puck away a lot. The most effective players will minimize giveaways and maximize takeaways. Here are the totals for this past regular season:
I'm very upset because the case for Alex Goligoski as the most underrated Penguin this year takes a massive blow with this chart. While he did a lot of things right that he didn't get credit for, these numbers reinforce what we already knew: Gogo gave the puck away way too much. Guerin and Eaton also continue to do poorly when their numbers are broken down.
It's not surprising to see Crosby, Gonchar or Letang toward the bottom because those that possess the puck the most will always have the most giveaways. However, Letang and Crosby will need to get that differential up in the future because you can't have core players making key mistakes. This becomes even more true when you factor in the reality that shots off of giveaways are almost always more dangerous than comparable shots not off of giveaways.
In better news, Craig Adams and Pascal Dupuis don't get enough credit for how responsible they are with the puck. This is an underrated talent, and it's nice to see from the grinders. Staal is also near the top, which isn't surprising, but seeing that Malkin and Feds are in the positive is really shocking to me. Given the down year Malkin had and the horrible campaign Fedetenko put together, I was expecting both of them to occupy the bottom two positions. Malkin's TK/60 is first on the team, and it's safe to say that he has a real talent for stealing the puck, but he'd make me even more happy if he brought down his GV/60.
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Quick stat - 28 out of 30 teams had negative giveaway/takeaway margins
Once again, excellent work GoPens! This is very thorough analysis, so please don’t take what I am about to say as a statement on your work.
How reliable are these stats? Is there a general feeling that whoever is tracking these numbers is doing a good job? The totals just seem kind of low. Are there really only 2 guys in the league that average more than 1 takeaway per game?
How important are these stats? It seems like the low frequency of these events, especially when we’re drilling down to the player level, makes me think that this doesn’t carry much weight. Do we really think it’s a big deal if Sid turns the puck over less than 1 time per game?
Also, my note above – nearly every team in the league has more giveaways than takeaways. Buffalo was even and one team had a +1 rating.
With that in mind, should we really be “very upset” with Goligoski, playing in his first full season, because he turned the puck over on average twice every three games?
At a team level, the Pens were -46. I would like to see them improve in that area, particularly considering that the 1 team with +1 takeaways to giveaways just happened to be the Stanley Cup Champs. On the other hand, the Pens were -68 in this stat in 08-09 when they won the Cup. So, again, I ask how much importance we would really place on these numbers, assuming they are reliable to begin with.
For example, the league leader in takeaways was Pavel Datsyuk with 132, 49 more than 2nd place Ryan Kessler. That kind of makes sense, right? Great defensive forward and all. But isn’t it also possible that whoever is tracking these numbers sees a play, there’s a turnover and because it is Datsyuk in the neighborhood, and because of his rep, he gets credited for a takeaway where somebody else might not? I’m just wondering.
Again, though, very nice work GP, you continue to provide very thought provoking material.
by PensAreYourDaddy on Jul 9, 2010 2:07 AM EDT reply actions
I’m not really a stats kinda person so I end up judging players on the limited games i get to see from my timezone…
To me, Gogo didn’t really passed the eye test. As far as we saw he never was very frugal with the puck because most of the games I remember, he was coughing up the puck. But if anything, I’d expect his TOs to reduce with time. It’s a very slow learning curve for D-Men, especially puck moving D-Men so I’m a lot more tolerant (i hope) of guys like them. I’m not too upset.
By the way, GP, I love you stat monkeys… You, diomedes, Justin… You guys crunch the numbers so we don’t have to. Thank God…
Is it October yet?
Just so I never have to answer this again. I'm from Singapore so whenever you see me online, I'm either sleep deprived or just waking up.
the jpeg man strikes again… where do you get these? LOL
Is it October yet?
Just so I never have to answer this again. I'm from Singapore so whenever you see me online, I'm either sleep deprived or just waking up.
It’s somewhere out on the interwebs.
by PensAreYourDaddy on Jul 9, 2010 2:15 PM EDT up reply actions
Thanks for the compliment PAYD. I also appreciate all of your photos and analysis. I don’t think Pensburgh would be the same without your photomonkey self, lol.
How reliable are these stats? Is there a general feeling that whoever is tracking these numbers is doing a good job? The totals just seem kind of low. Are there really only 2 guys in the league that average more than 1 takeaway per game?
Not reliable when comparing players from different teams. John Fischer already found that the 30 scorers in the league have very different definitions for giveaways and takeaways. However, comparing the players from one team among themselves is a reliable way to evaluate them because they all saw the same scorers the same number of times. Scorer bias only exists among teams, not within them.
How important are these stats? It seems like the low frequency of these events, especially when we’re drilling down to the player level, makes me think that this doesn’t carry much weight. Do we really think it’s a big deal if Sid turns the puck over less than 1 time per game?
I don’t put a ton of stock into these stats (I just made the post because there’s not a whole lot going on in hockey right now). But I do think they can show important trends, especially toward the extremes. Adams and Staal were very responsible with the puck while Gogo and Guerin were not.
With that in mind, should we really be "very upset" with Goligoski, playing in his first full season, because he turned the puck over on average twice every three games?
Even though he turned the puck over only two times every three games, I’m upset because he did it at a much greater rate than his teammates. But I know he’s young, so I’d bet that that metric gets better in the future.
And I also think you’re spot on with your Datsyuk example.
Did I answer all of your questions/points?
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
Yeah, I think you hit everything, and thanks for the props. Definitely don’t get me wrong, this subject was very worthy of discussion regardless of what else is going on in the hockey world. I was just trying to caution other readers against using this as more fuel to the anti-GoGo fire, particularly given that we would probably have a hard time as a group agreeing to what exactly constitutes a takeaway or giveaway.
by PensAreYourDaddy on Jul 9, 2010 2:34 PM EDT up reply actions
If someone thinks gogo had a terrible season, I’ll point them to my other articles that demonstrate how effective he really was. He definitely was underrated this year, and if he was more responsible with the puck, he’d get my vote as most underrated player this season.
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
who does get your vote, then?
i like the pens, sidney crosby, jordan staal, and typing in capital letters.
I thought of that as soon as I posted that sentence…it’s tough to say, but I think it’s a toss up between Letang and Gogo. They got a lot of heat during the season, but they did really well on a lot of the stats. And when you factor in their salaries, they look even better.
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
Your last statement regarding Malkin having the highest GV/60 on the team is not correct according to the chart, as Sid actually has the highest. Considering that the 2 best players on the team have the highest value there leads me to believe that since they have the puck on their sticks so much of the time, it’s only logical that they give it away more often than everyone else. Especially with Malkin’s habit of trying to beat all the players on the other team by himself(can’t really blame him too much for trying this, considering the wingers he played with didn’t help out that often).
Jordan Staal, Geno Malkin, Kris Letang
It would seem that in most cases players who handle the puck often have higher numbers of giveaways with one glaring exception, Jordan Staal. It ought to be obvious to see the way he can protect the puck with his power skating, long reach and big body. He just does not give up the puck and does not make too many risky passes. On the takeaway side, Malkin is a master of back checking and stealing the puck. Letang leads defensemen in takeaways reflecting his attacking rather than passive defense and his skating ability. Clearly takeaways and giveaways depend upon official judgments and are thus skewed just like hits. I believe that Orpik said that in some barns you need only be close enough to breath on the opponent to get a hit and in others no hits are awarded unless they carry the opponent off on a stretcher. Fun chart, thanks.
Normalize to possession state?
Interesting, raises a lot of questions.
Basically the puck can be “we got it”, "they got it’, “loose puck”. You’ve already noted how possession should influence the rates. Are possession stats available anywhere? Seems like it might be more meaningful to normalize to possession time than overall game time. I “Think” Adams make good decisions, but maybe that’s a hindsight bias.
Any allowance for 5-5 4-5 or 5-4? Staal sees a lot more kill time than PP. Doesn’t explain the differences between Malkin and Crosby though.
Meminisse Sed Providere
Are possession stats available anywhere?
It’s my understanding that the NHL stopped recording this data in 2002.
Any allowance for 5-5 4-5 or 5-4?
This information is buried in the game logs, and it would take a monstrous effort to dig through them and separate takeaways by man-strength situation. It’s definitely more than I’m willing to do.
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
This information is buried in the game logs, and it would take a monstrous effort to dig through them and separate takeaways by man-strength situation. It’s definitely more than I’m willing to do.
Kind of makes sense that Bill James was a night watchman when he started out, doesn’t it. ;)
Meminisse Sed Providere
The scoring bias does not allow for any comparibility between teams. For example, the Flyers best difference was 0.30 and the worst was -0.50. And I’m fairly certain that’s not a reflection of talent.
Backing Backlund for 2010-2011
The scoring bias does not allow for any comparibility between teams.
Yup. Though we’re not sure how serious the scoring bias really is.
For example, the Flyers best difference was 0.30 and the worst was -0.50. And I’m fairly certain that’s not a reflection of talent.
I’m not sure what you mean…
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
The best difference in the Flyers between takeaways/60 and giveaways/60 was 0.30, whereas Adams had 0.66. The worst difference was -0.50 whereas Goligoski was -1.46. I don’t think the Penguins worst giveaway-machine is turning the puck over 3 times as much as the worst Flyer.
Backing Backlund for 2010-2011
Ahhh I see your point. Yea, I don’t think it’s safe to compare teams yet since we don’t know how much to adjust these stats for scorer bias.
Do you do a lot of advanced stats work for BSH?
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
Yeah I should have just compared GvA and TkA between the two teams rather than the difference, that could have been more clear.
Hah, nope. I like to play around, but Geoff is usually the one posting advanced stats. This topic seemed relatively easy for a starting point as a post.
Backing Backlund for 2010-2011
Yea, I looked at a lot of the micro stats to see how the players did this year. One post per stat takes up a good bit up space when things are moving as slow as they are right now.
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
I guess that depends on whether or not your GM is making extremely questionable moves eh.
Sigh.
Backing Backlund for 2010-2011
What possibly could you be referring to?
For the record, I thought the Pronger deal was terrible initially, but he ended up being worth it in my opinion. He plays ridiculous minutes, and is literally one of 3-4 d-men who can actually have a real effect on the other 11 players on the ice. He may be dirty but he’s an awesome hockey player.
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
Pronger was absolutely worth it.
I’m only talking about this offseason, so re-signing Leighton, signing Shelley for $1.1, trading a 2nd for Mezsaros to play 3rd pair for $4 million, trying to trade Gagne, and signing Zherdev too soon putting the Flyers over the cap and in a weaker position with trading partners.
Backing Backlund for 2010-2011
Yea, Holmgren didn’t have his best showing this off-season. That Shelley move was a head-scratcher, but you guys didn’t overpay for Leighton too much…
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
It was the timing of the Leighton signing as much as anything (I also don’t want Leighton as the starter next season). It was a buyers UFA goalie market, with more keepers than positions, yet he jumped and signed a career AHL goalie the day before. Subsequently, Ellis signed for 50k less and Biron signed for half as much. \
/bangs head
Backing Backlund for 2010-2011
I’m a little surprised to see Guerin there. I know he had a bad year, but these indicate he was really lazy with the puck.
Hockey Blogger at Pensburgh.com
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