I have been tinkering with a spreadsheet since the beginning of the season tracking Canes “on ice scoring stats.” In simple form I have a short log of who is on the ice for goals for and goals against in different situations (power play, even strength and penalty kill) and have done some fairly simple math to convert to a per ice time number. You can find similar stuff elsewhere, but I am keeping my own for now, so I can more easily manipulate things and do some different things with the data. But that’s for later.
A couple notes and disclaimers:
--I am counting extra attacker stats as power play/penalty kill ice time since that is pretty much what it is. So counting Detroit’s extra attacker goal in game 1 as a score against Canes penalty kill (6v5) will make these stats a bit different than standard ones.
--I need to make manual adjustments for extra attacker ice time against which will make the last-minute scramble defenders goals against slightly better with more ice time not just the official PK.
--I am only halfway through manually checking enough things for typos/errors, so if you see something wrong, let me know. I should catch/clean up any errors myself by the next iteration.
For each Canes player, I calculated an “if on the ice for a normal 60-minute” game score calculation. It basically takes their goals for and goals against (not just scored but on ice for) at even strength, penalty kill and power play and adjusts them to a per minute basis. Then I took a normal game of 46 minutes even strength, 7 minutes penalty kill and 7 minutes power play to create an average 60-minute score for each player. This works reasonably well for players who get a decent helping of both power play and penalty kill ice time, but not so much for players who do not play 1 of the special teams. For them, you are limited to doing just scoring or giving up stats or focusing on even strength stuff. Most of what the stats say are nothing that an every game Canes watcher would have already guessed, but there are a few interesting tidbits.
In this blog, I will take a look only at the forwards. If I can make the time, I will post a similar blog on the defensemen either tonight or tomorrow, otherwise I will get to it this weekend.
--Tlusty/EStaal/Semin. This line’s numbers are not surprisingly bad through 9 games. Everyone knows that the line is off to a slow start scoring-wise, but what jumps out at me is how bad the EStaal and Semin have been at being on the ice for goals against. EStaal’s has been on the ice for a whopping 5.25 goals against per mixed (PP, PK EV) 60 minutes per game and Semin has been on the ice for 4.01 goals against per mixed 60 minutes per game. The only player who comes in worse is Ruutu who more than anything probably suffers from a real small sample size of only a couple games. But looking at what is driving the number is interesting. EStaal and Semin are negative at even strength but only by a tiny bit. What is killing them is the volume of penalty kill (+ extra attacker) goals against that they have been on the ice for relative to only a modest helping of penalty kill ice time. EStaal has been on the ice for 4 man disadvantage goals against in only a little more than 9 minutes of ice time. Semin has been on the ice for 2 man disadvantage goals against in only about 7 minutes of ice time.
--Gerbe/JStaal/Dwyer. Dwyer’s numbers look about exactly how one would expect. His 60-minute mixed goals against is a pretty solid 2.24, but his similar goals for number is only 0.37 having been on the ice for only 1 goal for. Note that his number is a bit deflated because he does not get power play time which is where a decent chunk of scoring comes from for many players. Gerbe has the highest 60-minute mixed game net of any forward not from the Skinner/Nash/Dvorak line clocking in at a net 0.80 goals per game. His 1.44 goals against per 60 minute mixed game is also very impressive when you consider the level of competition he has seen as part of JStaal’s primary defensive line. His goals for stat of only 2.24 per game seemed lower than I would have guessed, but I guess it makes sense when you consider how few goals his even strength line mates (JStaal=1, Dwyer=0) have scored which leaves him carrying the load himself for his totals. JStaal’s numbers are interesting. He has been on the ice for 3 even strength (remember adjustment for extra attacker) goals for and also 3 even strength goals against. His 60-minute number of goals against is below average at 3.07 and pulls him to a net negative 0.88 over a mixed 60 minutes because he has been on the ice for a team-leading 6 goals against with the man disadvantage. (Note that he has logged the most penalty kill ice time and generally takes the toughest assignments.) Dwyer’s numbers with the man disadvantage are slightly better but not incredibly so.
I digress a bit here, but 1 of the most interesting finds is how well all of the 2nd tier penalty kill players have performed relative to the top-tier players. I already highlighted Semin and EStaal as being worst in terms of goals allowed per ice time. JStaal and Dwyer are better but not great. Then you get to the rest. None of Jiri Tlusty (6:09 SH TOI), Nathan Gerbe (11:01 SH TOI), Riley Nash (10:49 SH TOI), Radek Dvorak (8:07 SH TOI) or Brett Sutter (3:58 SH TOI) have been on the ice for a penalty kill goal against. Each and every one of the shorthanded goals allowed have occurred with some combination of JStaal (on ice 6 against), EStaal (on ice 4 against), Dwyer (on ice 4 against) and Semin (on ice 2 against) on the ice. Ruutu is the only other forward to be on the ice for a man disadvantage goal against. Part of it is the volume of penalty kill ice time and the difficulty of the assignments that they get, but it is still striking how much better the theoretically 2nd tier penalty killers have been.
--Skinner/Nash/Dvorak. It is no surprise that this line has been statistically dominant and the team’s best. Skinner leads the team with a lofty 4.83 goals for per 60 minutes of mixed ice time. His meager 0.78 goals against per mixed 60 is a bit of a ‘can’t compute’ since he does not play PK, but even if you adjust for that the team would be winning by 2-3 goals per game with Skinner on the ice. Even more impressive defensively are Nash’s 0.91 goals against per mixed 60 and Dvorak’s 1.37 goals against per 60 because they have actually played a decent amount of penalty kill to earn their 0.00 goals against per game on PK. When you look across the entire team, there are actually more negatives (albeit many by a small amount) than positives which shows how much this line has carried the team both offensively and in terms of goal differentials through 9 games.
--Bowman/Sutter/Lindholm. Bowman’s numbers are about what one might expect. He has been on the ice for only 1 goal for at even strength and 2 against, so he is a net negative but by a margin you can live with. Despite playing on a mix of lines and missing time, Lindholm had the exact same 1 goal for and 2 goals against at even strength. A minor surprise was Sutter’s numbers. As noted above, he has been perfect thus far in limited PK duties which is a positive, but at even strength he has somehow managed to be on the ice for 4 goals against (and 0 goals for) despite limited ice time which pushes his 60 minute mixed ice time goals against average to a fairly high 3.68.
--Westgarth has not been on the ice for a goal for or against in his limited ice time. And Ruutu’s numbers are bad thus far by virtue of a couple goals against and a very small sample size, so I will skip dissecting it.
Past the obvious stuff like how good the Skinner/Nash/Dvorak line has been and that the Tlusty/EStaal/Semin line has struggled to get going, I think the biggest takeaway for me is the penalty kill stuff. The Canes best players have not been the team’s best penalty killers thus far. They have actually struggled a bit, while the 2nd tier players have thrived. I would not go so far as to make rash decisions in terms of personnel, but if I was Kirk Muller I would continue to dole out a little bit of extra PK time to the players who stats have been flawless and keep tabs on the results. Part of the challenge is that he does need to get either of the Staal’s out there for most of the defensive zone draws, but I would continue to get guys like Nash, Tlusty, Gerbe and Dvorak on the ice a bit more to see if they can keep it up.
As noted above, I will post a similar write up (and hopefully not any significant corrections on the forward stats as I invest some time checking things) on the defensemen when I find the time either before or after the next slate of 2 games.
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