League Leaders: Around the Net

by Hawerchuk on Nov 13, 2009 9:00 AM EST Comment 1 comment

Los Angeles Kings' Ryan Smyth reacts after scoring during the first period of an NHL hockey game as New York Rangers' Marc Staal, center, and Daniel Girardi, left, look on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

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4 months ago: Los Angeles Kings' Ryan Smyth reacts after scoring during the first period of an NHL hockey game as New York Rangers' Marc Staal, center, and Daniel Girardi, left, look on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

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This is thoroughly unscientific, but I couldn't think of a better way to combine the league leaders in deflections, hits, rebounds, takeaways, penalties drawn and wraparounds. So, in the spirit of corrupt Russian figure skating judges, I added together each player's league-wide rank in each category and threw out the highest and lowest figures. Ranking the players by lowest score gives us the following top 25:

		Deflections	Rebounds	Takeaways	Draw Pens	Hits	Wraps
1	Ryan Smyth	X		X	X		X
2	Eric Staal	X	X	X	X		X
3	Zach Parise	X	X	X	X
4	Ryan Malone			X	X		X
5	Alexander Ovechkin		X	X	X	X
6	Henrik Zetterberg		X	X	X		X
7	Rick Nash			X	X		X
8	Vaclav Prospal		X	X			X
9	Thomas Vanek	X	X	X			X
10	Sidney Crosby		X	X	X
11	Andrew Brunette	X	X				X
12	Jonathan Cheechoo	X	X			X
13	Shane Doan	X		X	X
14	Martin St. Louis	X	X	X
15	Brian Gionta	X	X	X
16	Olli Jokinen		X				X
17	Jarome Iginla	X	X		X	X
18	Mike Knuble	X	X
19	Alexander Frolov			X			X
20	Corey Perry	X					X
21	Justin Williams			X			X
22	Daniel Sedin	X	X
23	Chris Neil			X	X	X
24	Mike Richards				X
25	Dustin Brown				X	X

Players who ranked in the top 30 in the NHL in a given category have an 'X' under that heading. Offensive-zone hits are the least predictive of the six categories, followed by wraparounds. Ryan Smyth is the most complete player in these categories, with several top ten rankings - he fell just outside the top 30 in rebounds. Eric Staal and Zach Parise also have a broad skill-set, and if we just consider the first four ratings - excluding hits and wraparounds - Parise is #1 in the league. We can argue about the exact order of the top 10-20 players on this list, but it's clear that we've figured out basically who the best players in the league are around the other team's goal.

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Comments

Methodology

Might it be better to take each value and normalize by the average number of events? (i.e. if there are 5 times more penalties than rebounds, divide penalties drawn by 5, etc). I know any amalgamated ranking is just for run, but it would give you a way to reward those who excel in a category without throwing it out.

by Tom Awad on Nov 22, 2009 9:30 AM EST reply actions 0 recs