Let’s talk about “Clutch… in the NHL Playoffs
This 2014 NHL playoffs and Stanley Cup final have probably never had as much narrative devoted to the term ‘clutch’. The all-encompassing term that gives fans a reason to cheer and appreciate a player who succeeds at the most important time of the game. Isn’t that what clutch means?
With the narrative in overdrive surrounding one player, Justin Williams, perhaps it’s worth taking a look at what being ‘clutch’ really is. The word itself has a few meanings. As a verb it means to grab and hold tight As a noun it can be a device in machinery that helps gears and engines engage or disengage from a shaft or a simple small purse easily held
As an adjective (the form used frequently with sports) it can mean dependable in crucial moments.
If you want more definitions you know what to do, Google is your friend.
I think for the purpose of sports narratives, more particularly hockey, the definition for the mechanical clutch is the most important one to consider. Why? Simply because of the word ‘engage’. First though, let’s look at some funny grammar speak when it comes to hockey a sport long on clichés and tradition.
One of the most often used clichés in hockey for teams and players is ‘holding the sticks to tight’ i.e. being ‘clutch’. So is a player good because he holds the stick tight or because he is ‘clutch’? They are one in the same so this is why I prefer the term ‘engage’.
The other thing that needs to be considered within the narrative of clutch is the last definion of ‘dependable in crucial situations’ and how that is applied to the reputation and myth of players like Justin Williams. So for all those players who did not score are they no longer dependable? The same for the other team who lost the game?
Take the concept out of the OT game-winning goal and apply it to any game where the time available to win or change the outcome is less than favourable, say 3 minutes left on the clock in a 4-3 game. If a player ties the game is he or she ‘clutch’ and the others not? What if the converse, of a what most consider ‘clutch’ in sports to be, happens, the leading team has a player that scores and makes it 5-3 is he or she clutch too?
Back we come to the term and ‘engage’. It’s what a clutch does and it is probably better at describing what a player or team does to earn the ‘clutch’ label. For those unfamiliar with a clutch in it’s most practical terms as a part of machinery it allows gears to move in and out of engagement with a shaft that then transfers energy to other parts of a machine.
In your car if you have one with a standard transmission try starting from a full stop in 3rd gear it’s not a great feeling. The car shudders, moves slowly if not stalling as there is not enough energy being transferred to power the car in that gear. The clutch made the gear engage but it didn’t make it drive well.
So what does this really mean for performance in sports and the concept of a player being ‘clutch’? Perhaps it’s a simple explanation no more than a level of engagement in and within the game for any particular player. Take Williams for example, his point totals the last 13 seasons have seen him eclipse the 60 mark twice and excluding those two seasons he’s hit the 40 point mark or higher 5 times. Is this a guy you seek out now at age 33 to give another 4 years too when his current contract expires?
Some GM will throw mad money at him but remember, he’s got to play a season before you get to (hopefully) realize what you bought. That same GM has to also hope his team is built in a way that it makes the post season and succeeds to some extent. A ‘clutch’ player needs a situation to exhibit his ‘clutchiness’ in right?
Twitter is a great place for help and direction (or not) but in this case Matt Pfeffer of Hockey Prospectus sent me this link which I had read back in March. Winnipeg Jets fans will love some of this- especially a quote from Setoguchi. I’m no statistician like Yost or Cordell or others here and around the interwebs but I like to look at numbers. I took Justin Williams ‘clutch’ 8 goals scored this post season as a percent of all goals scored by Kings and compared it to his regular season stats.
Playoffs: 8 goals out of 76 for 10.5% Regular: 19 goals out of 198 for 9.5%
So Williams boosted his contribution by 1% which is fairly significant when you consider the number of goals scored. How did he do that? He doubled his shooting percentage from a regular season low of 7.9% (1.3% lower than career average) to 15.7%!!!! He’s done this before as well but not to such a huge degree. Last season he went from 7.8% to 10.5% but in 2012, the year the Kings won the Cup, he went from 9.1% in regular season to 6.1%.
2011-12 Regular season he had 11.7% of Kings goals 2011-12 Playoffs he had 7% of Kings goals 2012-13 Regular season he had 8.3% of Kings goals 2012-13 Playoffs he had 16.2% of Kings goals
Nothing above really proves anything other than success, or lack of it, varies for all sorts of reasons at any given period.
Last night on Twitter Robert Cleave sent me this link in a discussion about clutch. Take that list’s top 25 as seen below in the first column compared to Pfeffer’s first. Datsyuk Crosby Williams Ovechkin Zetterberg Paveklski Toews Perry Elias Kessel Franzen JVR Sedin Toews Zajac Steen Jagr Kunitz Samuelsson Sharp Bergeron O’Reilly Parise Benn Sharp Oshie Sedin-H Marleau Langenbrunner Pominville Cleary Johansen Hossa Parise Kane Vanek Kopitar Filppula Zubrus Kopitar Kunitz Ladd Burrows Iginla Thornton Giroux Ponikarovsky Nielson Moss Pacioretty
The two lists are an interesting cross-reference of players; one list showing Corsi % over a 7 year stretch and the other is based on the Win Probability assigned to a player. Some names appear on both lists- cool.
When you factor in shooting percentage in this look at ‘clutch’ play(ers) the waters get even muddier when trying to make sense of it all. Taking a look at the 7 year average shooting percentage top 25 adds more names and repeats some from the above two lists and leads to no conclusive evidence.
So where does this all lead? Nowhere, except ‘engagement’. Some times players and teams are simply better engaged in the game and even the simple ‘watch the games’ test can tell you that. When it comes to the mechanics of a clutch as it relates to a game sometimes you feel it better than at other times. A player, just like a driver, might put himself or herself in a scenario when they hit the gears at just the right time, perfectly engaged. That might simply be related in shooting percentage or luck or nothing at all.
Nonetheless the aspects of luck, timing and engagement all come together and we call it clutch. For Justin Williams he may be great at knowing when to engage but he’s only one part of the machine, the clutch. Much has to happen before anyone can engage that critical gear at the right moment, and that comes back to the player having the right situation to be ‘clutch’. Of Corsi it does. Just as Ian McLaren said last night on Twitter “Is Justin Williams the new best player in the NHL? Of Corsi is.…