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I don't have anything Penguins related today unless you count the Sergei Gonchar reference below, but I did come across something that piqued my interest.
I totally agree with Alexander Ovechkin. Ovechkin had an excellent season last year putting up 51 goals but there was a large portion of people trying to suppress that achievement by trying to point out his minus 35 plus/minus rating.
If you have been reading my blogs here for the past year plus you will notice that I have never included plus/minus in any one of my player evaluations. The reason? It is useless. It should not be used for anything.
Ovechkin had some humor about his plus/minus criticism but he also understands it is meaningless, I agree.
The following passage is courtesy of
Pro Hockey Talk
“I am very happy that I didn’t become the worst in the plus/minus category,” Ovechkin told SovSport in an interview translated by Puck Daddy. “I had minus-35. Steve Ott and Alex Edler jumped ahead of me. Can you imagine scoring 51 goals and getting minus-40? I would have made history!”
The interviewer brought up Sergei Gonchar‘s past criticism about the use of plus/minus and Ovechkin took that opportunity to expand on the point.
“With the help of the plus/minus contracts can be obtained,” the 28-year-old forward said. “Once our defenseman Jeff Schultz was plus-50. He was plus-5 in the last game. And he signed a contract for four years averaging $2.75 million [Ovechkin makes big eyes]. And then his contract was bought out, and he signed for only $700,000 a year. Jeff is a good guy. But these plus/minus stats say very little about a player himself or the game as a whole.”
Ovechkin is not unlike most NHL players, there are areas in his game which could be polished up, however using plus/minus as your metric to prove that is irresponsible.
If you want to dig deeper and into more meaningful metrics Ovechkin's puny GF% of 35.8% last year it can be traced back to his on ice save percentage. The capitals goalies weren't very good when he was on the ice. The goalies were an unacceptable .905% at even strength.
Here are the last seven years of Ovechkin's on ice save percentages
Here is the last seven years of plus/minus stats for Ovie
Seems to be a positive correlation here.
I am of the belief that on-ice save percentages lean more towards the random side of things than showing a true skill of an individual player.
I honestly don't believe that Ovechkin has drastically changed his style of play over the years, yet his numbers in the charts above are both extremely high at times and extremely low.
To be fair I did find one purpose for the plus/minus stat, it can be used to in a hilarious fake political ad to get Rory Fitzpatrick voted into the all star game in 2007
That same Nicklas Lidstrom earned seven Norris Trophies throughout his Hall of Fame career. His plus/minus when he won his seventh and final Norris Trophy? Minus two. Doug Murray's plus/minus that same year? Plus five.
If there is anything to take away from this throwaway blog in the summer it is that friends don't let friends use plus/minus.
Thanks for reading!
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