February 23 2015

Dobber

2015-02-23

My thoughts on NHL’s enhanced stats; Darling vs. Raanta; Sid and Gino awaken; more…

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Those of you who dislike advanced stats, some to the point of resenting them, please excuse the next several paragraphs. Because if there is ever a time in which I devote a chunk of ramblings space to them, it’s today. As you know, the NHL launched their advanced stats section this weekend. And I guarantee you that fantasy leagues will now start using these as categories. It may take several years before the transition is complete, but this will happen with a couple of these stats.

The plus/minus statistic is dying. Soon to be dead. And it will be replaced by SAT (formerly known as Corsi). That’s probably the big one, though when chip technology is used to record skater speeds and collisions, the “hits” category will be considered unbiased and much more accurate. At that point hits will almost completely replace PIM in fantasy because there goes the No.1 argument against it.

But mostly, this is huge for fantasy hockey research. Not because the data is suddenly available – it’s been around for years. But because it’s now mainstream. So your competitors are going to look at it, if they weren’t doing that already.

You can find the NHL’s “enhanced stats” page here. The first section is “Skater Shooting”, which breaks down SAT (which was Corsi) and USAT (which was Fenwick). The second section is “Skater Percentages” which takes a look at situational SAT and USAT based on the scoreboard. The third section is “Skater Shooting/Time on Ice” which breaks the SAT and USAT down based on a standardized per 20 minutes, or per 60 minutes of ice time. The final section is “Skater Scoring”, which gives you SPSV% (which was PDO) and ZS% (Zone Starts), as well as first assist vs. second assist data. These numbers give you a nice picture of how the coach uses the players and in which situations, as well as how much ‘luck’ is involved in the stats.

Anyway, I’m not going to get into that stuff here, just make you aware of it. I’ve defined the terms plenty of times in my Fantasy Guides. The NHL does a great job of defining the terms here.

Our own Sheng Peng, who covers the Kings for us over at DobberProspects, had this interview with Chris Foster, who is in charge of digital business development, as well as Gary Bettman. Bettman was his usual “we know everything and have always done everything right” self, so interviewing him is pointless. Foster struck me as someone who is just the face of the project, and really didn’t have much to do with it at all (he claimed that Zone Starts was a new concept? Um…).

And then HockeyAnalysis.com’s David Johnson had this to say about the movement. I think Johnson was a little hard on the NHL, but was mostly bang on in his general thinking. The people who were doing the real work on the NHL’s enhanced stats page were well aware of Zone Starts being an old concept, but Foster (who was just the “face”) was not. So it’s probably a little silly to jump on Foster for those words. Johnson is absolutely right that the NHL needs to add in filtering for games played – but that’s so obvious that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was added today or at least very, very soon.

Johnson makes two really great points that I’m completely on board with.

1. There is no need for both SAT and USAT stats. Unblocked shot attempts, I’ve never understood the point of it when the SAT measures the same thing but with more data (tongue-in-cheek hint: in statistics, the larger sample size is generally regarded as more accurate). Having both just adds clutter. But USAT (Fenwick) has its defenders, so I guess that’s the argument to keep both…

2. There is no need for both /20 and /60 statistics. Just make it all /60. More clutter.

One final thought on this – I’m glad the names Corsi, Fenwick and PDO are gone. Kudos to their respective inventors, but I’m glad we’re moving forward using names that make better sense.

Frozen Pool fans, which is all of you (because it’s often imitated, never duplicated!), will be happy to know that the changes haven’t impacted that section (yet). And the new stats will make it easy to add to the very reports that we have set up, as we see fit. We’re evaluating that stuff right now. But hopefully the player profiles will soon have ‘recommendations’ (at a very high, general level) of “buy”, “sell” and “hold”.

Braden Holtby, who pretty much single-handedly killed me in my one league, finally lost on Sunday. He still won’t give up four goals though – just once in the last 11 games did he give ups four. And his lack of “blowouts” has served to make him a top goalie to own. Ah, the Barry Trotz Effect. Guess when the last time Holtby allowed five goals was? Hint: He had a different coach then. March 2, 2014.

You can’t say anything bad about Trotz because whatever he’s doing, it’s working. But it sure is a headscratcher as to why he keeps sitting Andre Burakovsky. And why he throws Jay Beagle on the Ovechkin line. But, whatev. Next year Burakovsky will no longer be “a rookie” so the scratches will hopefully go away and we can watch him blossom into something special.

11.26%

20 HIGGINS,CHRISTOPHER – 27 MATTHIAS,SHAWN – 17 VRBATA,RADIM

The Henrik Sedin and Daniel Sedin are maintaining success this year rather than fading away because they are being used differently. Ice time is down, so they’re getting rested. But another reason for the success is the linemates are clicking with them this year. Radim Vrbata was fantastic with them for 40-plus games. And after the Vrbata well started to dry up, now Kassian is doing great there. Henrik has posted four consecutive two-point games.

Ryan Miller left the game last night with an injury after his own player collided with him:

It looked to me like his leg bent weird. Eddie Lack was strong in relief, stopping all 27 shots he faced. He may be your smart pickup for the near future as I get the sense that Miller will miss a couple of games. It doesn't look serious though. This is just Dr. Dobber using his own eyeballs, I’m sure you have your own take on things based on the clip. He skated off on his own.

A couple of quiet stars woke up on Sunday, and as long as they don’t just roll over and hit snooze we could be in for a treat (provided you own them). Nathan MacKinnon scored three times – of course he did – I just traded him last week in a bigger deal. I can’t complain because Ovechkin was part of my return. But Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby combined for five points and if they’ve shaken their slump then there will be yet another NHL scoring leader changeover.

The Penguins swapped Hornqvist and Kunitz in the line combos and it seemed to work. Here were the combos last night:

#1	21.3%	CROSBY,SIDNEY–HORNQVIST,PATRIC–PERRON,DAVID
#2	18.5%	BENNETT,BEAU–SPALING,NICK–SUTTER,BRANDON
#3	13.5%	DOWNIE,STEVE–LAPIERRE,MAXIM–SILL,ZACH
#4	12.9%	COMEAU,BLAKE–KUNITZ,CHRIS–MALKIN,EVGENI

Perron also had some shifts on the Malkin line.

Just when you thought Steven Stamkos was about to overtake Tyler Johnson for the TB scoring lead, he gets shut down (and goes minus-3?) while TJ buffers his lead with three points. Furthermore, Kucherov has a pair of points and is actually just two points behind Stamkos. This is just a hell of a year for the Lightning, as they seem to have one superstar showing his mortality while two more are created.

So yeah, that line is heating up again. Do they have a nickname? Ondrej Palat has a five-game points streak going (seven points in that span). It looks like this young trio has some longevity. It’s rare to see a good line combo stay together for several years, but I think this one has staying power. I’m talking three years. And while next year the three of them may pull back slightly by five or 10 points each as opponents key on them, they’ll still be a force.

And just when you thought that maybe Ben Bishop was in a bit of trouble, Andrei Vasilevskiy puts up a dog of a game. Thirteen saves on 18 shots and his second straight loss. This is Bishop’s team, and while one game doesn’t prove anything, that’s really the point. His great first couple of games shouldn’t lead you to conclude that a change is coming, and his latest couple of games shouldn’t lead you to conclude the opposite. The current starter is playing well and so the job is his to lose.

Martin St. Louis has seven points in his last five games. He has 52 points in 77 games as a Ranger, and seems determined to get past the 60-point threshold by the time he plays his 82nd game for this team.

Marko Dano had a pair of points Sunday and has three in his last two games. He’s a solid Columbus prospect, but I wouldn’t expect the production to continue for the short term. However, if your league counts hits he may be worth looking into. For more on Dano, check out his scouting report.

Cody Franson got his first point back with the Preds. It was a great game for seeing Franson’s usage, as there were a ton of power plays. The good news for Franson owners is that he saw 6:23 in PP time, which is a number rarely hit in a single game. The bad news? Three defensemen saw more PP time. But as expected in my Franson trade analysis, he’s paired up with Seth Jones on the PP (and with Ekholm at ES).

The arrival of Mike Santorelli has made Calle Jarnkrok a healthy scratch and rumor is that the Preds could move him. To where and for whom, well…if I told you, I’d have to kill you.

Minnesota beatwriter Michael Russo Tweeted last night that the Wild are 25-9-1 with Matt Dumba in the lineup and 6-12-6 without him. That’s pretty significant, more than just a random, explainable number. I had no idea. Hadn’t watched many Wild games this year, I guess. Probably because Granlund is the only player I own on that team in my three leagues.

Speaking of Mikael Granlund, he tallied his first three-point game of the season.