Popular Posts
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Speculating on Whether Regehr Should be Traded by the Flames
Based on a few comments on the Illegal Curve radio show, I put up a post on Matchsticks & Gasoline yesterday about the Flames potential to trade Regehr and why it’s time to do so.
The article is posted here.
Below is an excerpt from the article.
“Now before everyone gets their guard up and says Regehr is [...]
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Posted on HP: NHL Team Architecture
Here is a study that I did for Hockey Prospectus on NHL Team Architecture. Obviously since I posted it on HP, I believe they have a great site, so definitely take a look at some of the material from their other great writers too.
Front Office Focus – NHL Team Architecture
What is the best way to [...]
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Jay Bouwmeester: Disappointment or Not Used Properly?
This is a story I posted on Matchsticks & Gasoline as part of our player preview series. Come take a look at some of the other articles if you’re interested.
Sometimes things just don’t work out like we thought. Items bought on eBay looked better in the picture than when they arrive in the mail, your [...]
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Fireman Ed Should Pour a Stiff Drink
Rex Ryan may be the king of the F-bombs, but he better use as many as he can during the regular season. The Jets won’t be making the playoffs.
The Jets used up all their luck last year. There are no playoff-bound cakewalk games at the end of this season’s schedule. Opposing kickers are all out [...]
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What is Darrelle Revis Worth to the Jets?
Revis Island can be a lonely place for receivers. At the moment it’s also a lonely place for a Darrelle Revis. The man who was hands-down the best defensive player in the league last year is not practicing or spending time with his teammates, and it HAS to be a frustrating way to follow up [...]
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by Ryan Popilchak
My take on the season’s free agents who have most outperformed or underperformed their historical levels. I posted it over at Hockey Prospectus this weekend. For those who follow the Flames, it should be especially interesting.
The article is here.
A quick excerpt is below:
“Lydman is playing drastically different ice time than Jordan Leopold though. He is facing the hardest competition among the Ducks d-men (1.778 Corsi Rel QoC) and the worst zone starts (42.0%) as well. Despite being thrown to the bottom of the canyon at the start of every shift, Lydman has been a much better possession player than his teammates (9.4 Corsi Rel) and his results on the ice have been much better as well (Relative Plus-Minus of 2.38). If he keeps this up, Lydman could be the king of the HLI for defensemen this season.”
by Ryan Popilchak
 Contrary to what it may seem like here on S-O, I have still been writing the last 3 weeks. I just forgot to link to some of the material here.
Over at Hockey Prospectus, I managed to take the L.A. Kings to task for the Jack Johnson contract and also used my Heavy Lifter Index to evaluate the NHL’s best matchup defensemen.
At Matchsticks and Gasoline, we’ve been busy discussing everything from the Flames need to reinvigorate the roster to the recent winning streak.
The two pieces I contributed were a post about the Flames lack of a matchup line and contributed my views to the Flames potential rebuild.
by Ryan Popilchak
 I’ve spent the last month or so working on a new way to measure hockey players. I call it the Heavy Lifter Index (HLI). I didn’t invent the term heavy lifter for hockey players, I just added the index part. I’m pretty sure my contribution to the name is much more important than the rest.
For those that don’t read a lot of hockey stat blogs, I’ll elaborate. A Heavy Lifter is a player who not only faces the opposition’s best players, but frequently has to start shifts in the defensive zone. Yet he stilll outplays everyone he faces.
HLI measures the difficulty of the player’s icetime by defining the level of competition and starting shift position the using existing stats QualComp, Corsi Rel QoC, and Zone Start percentage. The only difference is we compare the players rating, to the league rating to see what the magnitude of difficulty of their icetime is.
As for outplaying the competition, HLI uses three stats again. I measure how much they outscore their competition, how much they outshoot their competition and whether they draw more penalties than they take. Again these stats are all readily available on BehindTheNet.ca but I use a method to measure magnitude compared to the league.
My work is posted on Hockey Prospectus. My first post explaining the inner workings of HLI can be found here, while the evaluation of every forward in the NHL over the last 3 seasons can be found here.
by Ryan Popilchak
 With the news that Mikael Backlund was being sent to the Abbotsford Heat of the AHL, here was my review of his rookie performance so far this season.
The article is posted on Matchsticks & Gasoline here.
Below is an excerpt.
“With 4 goals and 4 assists in 32 games, Backlund hasn’t exactly been lighting up the traditional NHL stat line, but has been +4 on the season. Obviously Brent Sutter and interim GM Jay Feaster felt he wasn’t bringing enough to the Flames squad and are backed up in that assertion by the Flames recent winning streak with Backlund in street clothes.
But as we all know here at M&G, the traditional stat line doesn’t tell the whole story. In fact, the Flames appear to be making a huge mistake by sending Backlund down to the Heat. Not only are they wasting a year of his entry level contract, but he’s actually holding his own as a third line player at an age when NHL forwards typically develop the fastest. Denying him time in the NHL is likely hurting his development.”
by Ryan Popilchak
Here’s a article I wrote on the merits and detriments of the contracts handed out to the Blues David Backes and the Flyers Jeff Carter for Hockey Prospectus.
I also have a post coming up on HP soon where I unveil the Heavy Lifter Index to profile some of the NHL’s best players against the other team’s top lines.
Here is an excerpt from the Backes-Carter column:
“In the case of these two contract extensions, the teams are trying to lock up young, talented forwards to reasonable long term contracts. While they may have taken different approaches to how they’ve managed the cap, it’s very important to understand which team got better value for their money.
Carter, at age 25, already has a 46 goal season under his belt and is considered an elite offensive talent. Backes, at age 26, is a big winger with a solid scoring touch, but hasn’t racked up points the way Carter has.
Carter 398 games 153 goals 139 assists 11.0% shooting percentage
Backes 297 games 74 goals 89 assists 11.8% shooting percentage
On the surface, Jeff Carter has the better offensive numbers and his contract extension was more lucrative, earning him roughly $750,000 per season more than Backes. But given the difference in goal scoring skill, shouldn’t Carter be making a lot more than Backes? If the only thing that mattered in the NHL were goals and assists, then the answer would be yes, but we all know that there is a lot more to the game than that.”
by Ryan Popilchak
Based on a few comments on the Illegal Curve radio show, I put up a post on Matchsticks & Gasoline yesterday about the Flames potential to trade Regehr and why it’s time to do so.
The article is posted here.
Below is an excerpt from the article.
“Now before everyone gets their guard up and says Regehr is indispensable, let’s take stock of the Flames season so far. The Flames are 14th in the Western Conference and have to compete with teams like LA and San Jose who are also trying to make the leap into a playoff spot.
According to this article in the Toronto Star, 77.5% of teams in a playoff spot by American Thanksgiving make the playoffs. This encompasses every season since 1993 so it’s at least taken over a fairly long timeframe.
While the Flames could still make the playoffs, let’s be realistic and say that it’s unlikely. And unfortunately, they currently have more cap space committed to next season than any other team in the NHL. It’s time to start thinking about improving the team for the long term, not for a playoff push. If that’s the case, it may be time to move some established veterans for valuable, young, cost-efficient assets.”
by Ryan Popilchak
There are two new articles up at Matchsticks & Gasoline.
The first, is my analysis of Mark Giordano’s new contract with the Flames. Definitely go read and comment if you get the chance. In the meantime, here is an excerpt of the article.
“Potential. It’s the buzz-word that gets every fan pumped about their favorite player and gives GMs nightmares. The problem is, how do we value potential? Every sport is littered with players who vastly outperform their contracts and those who signed mega-deals and didn’t live up to them.
Mark Giordano has loads of potential. He’s an upside supernova. Putting together a highlight package of hits, pinpoint passes and jaw-dropping goals from his last 2 seasons is a piece of cake. Just watching a video like that would make most fans think he’ll be battling Drew Doughty for the Norris over the next 5 years.
The problem, however, is that Giordano is 27 years old and is likely very close to his peak as an NHL defenseman. So that potential we all see may be more due to some flashes of brilliance, but not something he can sustain through 82 games a season. On the bright side, at age 27, he can probably play at his current level of performance for the entire life of his brand new 5-year contract. Giordano is easily a Top-4 defenseman on any team in the NHL, and likely top pairing for at least half the teams in the league.”
Also, my weekly Combustions & Calculators column is up, exploring the Flames’ late game collapses, the top line’s performance and who the Flames worst penalty taker is.
by Ryan Popilchak
I had to give myself some time before I commented on the big fan interaction problem infecting the NHL right now. I’m not talking about the whole “Rick Rypien fan-grab” controversy, mainly because it’s not a controversy. Let me break it down for you:
Dude is fired up from a hockey fight. Fan says something to dude, even if it’s not THAT offensive. Dude gets mad at fan and makes a move towards him.
Basically, we just described a similar situation to what happens at the bar between men in their 20’s every night of the week. The only difference here is that one guy is a pro athlete who is paid to be aggressive towards other men. Yes, he’s paid to be aggressive.
I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying it’s not that shocking. I don’t condone what Rypien did, but I’m not sure I would have done better. Without knowing for sure what the fan said, we can judge Rypien only with half the information. He was clearly provoked to some degree, but he’s responsible for his own actions.
Continue reading What’s worse, Fan-beaters or Cheerleaders?
by Ryan Popilchak
My latest weekly column on Matchsticks and Gasoline included the regular Flames stat roundup as well as some interesting insight into Shot Quality.
Here’s an excerpt, the whole article can be found here.
“Much was made of the Avalanche’s “luck” last season, as evidenced by high PDO for many players and a solid record despite negative Corsi rates. As teams like Chicago and Detroit have proven, dominating the possession game can be a very solid foundation for winning.
However, Corsi doesn’t account for shot quality. While shot quality has been debated fairly heavily, there is enough evidence to say that it has a definite effect on winning, if not as high a correlation as the possession stats. In the Hockey Prospectus 2010, Tom Awad breaks down Shot Quality in an excellent summary. Shot distance and angle both factor into shot quality. So what does this have to do with the Avalanche?
The Colorado Avalanche had the shortest Average Shot Distance in the NHL last season according to Tom Awad.
And in Ken Krzywicki’s latest Shot Quality paper on Hockey Analytics, the Avalanche had an expected Shooting % of 9.5%, best in the league. Their expected Save Percentage was 91.4%, 5th best in the league.
The short version is that Colorado gets high quality shots and gives up low quality shots, so they’re more dangerous than most of us give them credit for.”
by Ryan Popilchak
Here is a study that I did for Hockey Prospectus on NHL Team Architecture. Obviously since I posted it on HP, I believe they have a great site, so definitely take a look at some of the material from their other great writers too.
Front Office Focus – NHL Team Architecture
What is the best way to build a winning NHL team? There probably isn’t just one method, but every team in the league would love to know who to spend their money on, how to find bargains that outperform their salaries and which positions seem to matter most to points in the standings. Continue reading Posted on HP: NHL Team Architecture
by Ryan Popilchak
In case some of my readers don’t regularly frequent Matchsticks & Gasoline, I thought I’d link a few new articles I wrote over there.
The first is a response article to the issue of having either a clear cut #1 goalie or two decent goalies and which situation is better.
You can find that article here.
The second one is my new weekly column at M&G called Combustion & Calculators. It will be a deeper statistical look at the Calgary Flames players and squad performance with a few extras thrown in as well.
That article can be found here.
Hopefully you enjoy them.
by Ryan Popilchak
While many teams have wrapped up prospect camps and have started into training camps, there was an interesting contract handed out this week that got lost in the mix. The New York Rangers locked up their young shut-down defenseman, Marc Staal, in a 5-year deal worth just under $4 million per year.
Much like we did with the Plekanec and Kovalchuk deals, let’s take a look at how Staal’s contract stacks up with some other defensemen that signed as free agents this summer.
Continue reading Locking up a Young Star: The Marc Staal Contract
by Ryan Popilchak
This is a story I posted on Matchsticks & Gasoline as part of our player preview series. Come take a look at some of the other articles if you’re interested.
Sometimes things just don’t work out like we thought. Items bought on eBay looked better in the picture than when they arrive in the mail, your late-night bar hook-up wasn’t as good-looking as you remembered or your favorite team’s free agent signing just didn’t live up to the hype.
I think that’s how a lot of Flames’ fans felt about Jay Bouwmeester last year.
Darryl Sutter appeared to have worked free agent magic, by acquiring J-Bo’s rights a few days before free agency and securing his #1 target for the summer. Bouwmeester thought he had hit the lottery by signing a big-money deal and returning to the province he grew up in. Calgary fans rejoiced in having one of the most talented young defensive pairs in the league with Bouwmeester and Dion Phaneuf in the fold.
Last season, in more ways than one, just didn’t live up to the hype. Continue reading Jay Bouwmeester: Disappointment or Not Used Properly?
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With all the deals that went on in the last month, we’ve been debating it a lot over at Hockey Prospect. Below are a few links to some articles I wrote and a few by others.
