Hello and welcome back to Geek of the Week! In this week's article, I am going to analyze an ugly stat that many (including myself) don't love to include in my multicategory leagues, but it's still widely used – Plus-Minus.

In general, players can be hurt in the plus-minus category based on their teammates' poor play, but this stat is still quite predictable and you can gain an edge in your leagues if you can properly predict it. The general rule of expecting negative plus-minus from players on terrible teams and positive plus-minus from players on elite teams is not a bad heuristic, but I am going to dive deeper. I'll examine a few players who might be over or under valued in this category and determine where I think they will end up the rest of the season.

The main stat I will examine is how different the on-ice goals differential (shown by plus-minus) is to the expected on-ice goal differential (AKA expected plus-minus). Let's say a player has an on-ice goal differential of 30 (30 more goals scored than given up while he's on the ice). If his on-ice expected goal differential is 0, he is either getting very lucky, or he is constantly playing with players that are elite finishers, mostly the former.

Brayden McNabb – plus-23

McNabb is perennially a plus rating player. This is a great boost to his multicategory value to go alongside his hits, blocks, and penalty minutes. His current rating of plus-23 would be a career high pace of plus-40 if he keeps it up. Taking a look at even-strength expected plus-minus, McNabb's is at plus-5. We'll give a boost of 3 to the sustainable 3 shorthanded goals he's been on the ice for to put his expected plus-minus at plus-8. This is much closer to what we'd expect and closer to his previous years' ratings. I'd expect McNabb to finish the season on a plus-16 to plus-20 pace and finish with only a rating of around plus-30. Still great for the peripheral waiver add, but not league-leading plus-minus.

Bryan Rust – minus-23, and Sidney Crosby – minus-19

Both Rust and Crosby both have a career-worst single season plus-minus rating at the moment. Both of these players are normally great plus-rating players. For leagues that count plus-minus, fantasy managers have been greatly disappointed by these players.

Rust's even strength on-ice expected goals for is in line with his goals for. It's the goals against that are much higher than expected. Rust's expected plus-minus is only minus-5. The Penguins poor goaltending this season is a huge factor here, with a negative 27 goals saved above expected. With the Penguins waiving Tristan Jarry, maybe this can turn around. As bad as the Penguins have been, Rust's plus-minus should not continue to be this bad. I'd expect his plus-minus to stay close to where it is to finish the season.

As for Crosby, his expected plus-minus is only minus-1! He is getting very unlucky this season in this regard. It does look like he'll pick up just his second campaign in his career with a minus rating, but -19 may be as bad as it gets.

I'm expecting Crosby and Rust to be close to an even rating the rest of the way (to finish with the rating they currently have).

The Carolina Jordans – Martinook – plus-14, and Staal – plus-11

Both Jordan Martinook and Jordan Staal are already at career highs in plus-minus this season. They don't see any power-play time, so all of their goals for are at even strength or shorthanded. They are also very strong defensively, giving up very limited goals against. Is it sustainable? The underlying numbers suggest yes.

No matter who the third player on their line is, they are consistently shutting down competition, allowing less than 2 expected goals against per 60 minutes and being near the tops of the league in even strength expected goal differential.

Martinook's expected plus-minus at plus-17 is actually higher than his plus-minus. Staal's is the same with an expected plus-minus of plus-16. While they don't play with elite talent, their expected goals should be pretty predictive of their actual goals. No one is scoring with an elite shot consistently scoring more goals than expected.

Both Martinook and Staal have sustainable plus-minus production thus far. Both should finish with career high ratings and provide managers in deep leagues continuous coverage in this category.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s breakdown!

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