NHL Fighting and Chess Revisited
by Hawerchuk on Jan 4, 2010 9:00 AM EST
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Earlier this year, I use chess' ELO ratings to evaluate the league's best fighters over the last three seasons using the user votes from hockeyfights.com. I decided to expand that to the last four seasons and update the results through January 1st. Here are the results since the lockout:
| Fighter | Ft | In | Wt | W | L | T |
| Georges Laraque | 6 | 3 | 253 | 32 | 5 | 6 |
| Derek Boogaard | 6 | 8 | 257 | 35 | 11 | 4 |
| D.J. King | 6 | 3 | 229 | 17 | 2 | 4 |
| Donald Brashear | 6 | 3 | 234 | 31 | 15 | 7 |
| Brian McGrattan | 6 | 4 | 220 | 25 | 18 | 6 |
| Wade Belak | 6 | 5 | 228 | 20 | 12 | 9 |
| Colton Orr | 6 | 3 | 222 | 38 | 25 | 10 |
| Raitis Ivanans | 6 | 4 | 256 | 25 | 13 | 10 |
| Eric Godard | 6 | 4 | 214 | 26 | 23 | 14 |
| Cam Janssen | 6 | 0 | 210 | 31 | 15 | 10 |
One of the advantages of ELO is that a guy like Godard, who has fought the guys above him 18 times, isn't penalized for taking on the top tough guys in the league and winning outright just 30% of the time. McGrattan didn't make this list before the season started, but he's had a great year, going 6-2-2 against a solid set of heavyweights.
Here are the "infrequent" fighters - guys with a bit too much skill to justify having them in the penalty box:
| Fighter | Ft | In | Wt | W | L | T |
| Zdeno Chara | 6 | 9 | 255 | 8 | 0 | 2 |
| Sheldon Souray | 6 | 4 | 233 | 12 | 0 | 2 |
| Kevin Bieksa | 6 | 1 | 195 | 22 | 2 | 1 |
| Milan Lucic | 6 | 3 | 228 | 19 | 4 | 2 |
(In case you were wondering, I had Lucic in the heavyweight group before; he may still fight now that he's back in the lineup, but I would imagine not as frequently.) And finally, the up-and-comers, guys who fight a lot, fight well, and have yet to play 82 games in the NHL:
| Fighter | Ft | In | Wt | W | L | T |
| John Scott | 6 | 8 | 258 | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Rick Rypien | 5 | 10 | 181 | 15 | 3 | 0 |
| Steve MacIntyre | 6 | 6 | 265 | 6 | 2 | 1 |
| Matt Carkner | 6 | 4 | 231 | 7 | 1 | 4 |
| Paul Bissonnette | 6 | 2 | 211 | 10 | 2 | 5 |
We're well aware of Rypien's rise to beating his first top ten heavyweight (Janssen), but John Scott has yet to get his due after handily dispatching George Parros, David Koci and Joel Rechlicz. Most opponents lack the reach to even land a shot on him. Scott's one of those defensemen who so lacks a scoring touch that he has less than 40 points since he was in high school (he's 27 now) so it remains to be seen if he can stick in the league long enough to become a really big brawler.
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New to the Site
I’m a bit new to the site, but I’ve been digging hockey data for a while. A group of buddies and I have been crunching numbers, trying to see if there’s value (that can be assessed) in fighting. Have you done anything on it? I’ve got some pretty interesting results on comparing performances after fights, and another guy in our group is looking at shot totals and fighting in certain game situations. I just wanted to see what you have right now.
Bettman's Nightmare: A Blog Where Hockey Aficionados Dismantle That Mighty Empire, One Balsillie at a Time
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Jan 5, 2010 2:47 AM EST reply actions 0 recs
This leaves a question to be asked, especially in light of last year’s playoffs: does a player have to win the fight to energize his team?
Bettman's Nightmare: A Blog Where Hockey Aficionados Dismantle That Mighty Empire, One Balsillie at a Time
http://bettmansnightmare.blogspot.com/
by Bettman's Nightmare on Jan 5, 2010 3:00 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
I did a little study a couple of months ago, using hockeyfights.com data and observing the play of teams for the remainder of the period after a fight. I gave a + if the goals scored for the remainder were in favor of the team I was analyzing, a – if there were more goals against than for in the remainder, and 0 if the score remained the same. It was a real intermediate study, but among 5 teams this year (Flames, Penguins, Flyers, Ducks, Rangers), only one team, the Flames, finish +, at a +1 over 36 fights. The others were -3 or worse. What’s more, there was little to no relation between positive outcomes and winning fights. In fact, teams were just as likely to do well after losing a fight than after winning one.
Bettman's Nightmare: A Blog Where Hockey Aficionados Dismantle That Mighty Empire, One Balsillie at a Time
http://bettmansnightmare.blogspot.com/
by Bettman's Nightmare on Jan 5, 2010 3:30 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs
A six-year-old girl on roller skates can handily dispatch Koci, so I’m not sure that’s an accurate barometer. Otherwise, great stuff!
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by Mike @ MHH on Jan 6, 2010 3:29 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
rypper ftw, obviously.
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by missy on Jan 6, 2010 10:10 PM EST reply actions 0 recs
Who do you think would win Rypien-Laraque? It’s kind of like Ditka-God
by Hawerchuk on Jan 7, 2010 1:08 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
Hopefully we can find out on February 2nd!
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by Cornelius Hardenbergh on Jan 7, 2010 8:53 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs
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