Leverage, Pre- and Post-Lockout
by Hawerchuk on Feb 2, 2010 9:00 AM EST
11 comments
Leverage is a concept that gets used a lot in baseball - it's essentially the probability of winning at a given point in a game. In hockey, unlike baseball, teams are awarded a point for losing, so leverage actually captures not winning percentage, but the expected number of points a team can expect in the standings given the score and the time remaining in the game. Here's what the leverage looks like for 2005-09:
And here's what the same data looks like for 2001-03:
What I want to draw your attention to is the difference between the two charts. In particular, there is a significant leverage difference in tie games:
Basically, the "loser point" has completely changed third-period incentives. Giving up a tie-breaking goal in the last five minutes of the game is now approximately one quarter point more costly than it was before the lockout, while scoring that same goal is worth one quarter point less than it was before. NHL teams are obviously aware of these incentives, and it should come as no surprise that a record high percentage of games have been tied at the end of regulation time this season. I know of no other sport that works like post-lockout hockey - as long as teams don't decide to game system any more than they already do, it can probably continue. But the incentive is to play for the tie whenever you can, and the system can easily fall completely out of its unsteady equilibrium.
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I see that being down one or two goal in the third period have both moved up slightly, but not as significantly as tie games. Would you interpret that as anything but the attempt at getting to tie to get two points? Perhaps players didn’t feel the use in busting their asses to get one point?
If I’m the coach of a team that just let in the tying goal with only minutes left in the game, I’m going to send out my best set of shutdown players to keep it tied only if I’m pretty sure my shootout specialists can get the second point. Being aggressive in the overtime period clears out a lot of ice for a transition game that could easily come back to bite me in the ass. Look at how many Sharks game have gone past regulation and not been decided until the shootout. Three, if I recall correctly. Not many.
Jon Casey fan since '84
I don’t think there’s any such thing as shootout specialists. At the very least, nobody has identified them yet.
RE: Shootouts
Mr. Desjardins, I’ve long wondered something about shootouts. As a Thrashers fan, I’ve often witnessed Johan “Moose” Hedberg try to hang on in a shootout while the team prays for Slava Kozlov to score. The game that Kozlov got a game misconduct, coupled with his first game being a healthy scratch this season (both of which went to shootouts which the Thrashers lost) got me wondering about the Thrashers’ shootout tactics. I’m afraid I’m not very good with stats, and I don’t have a clue where to start looking for the groundwork stats to arrive at a conclusion about it. I was referred to you when I asked this of Falconer over at Bird Watchers Anonymous.
So my question is this: Is one shootout goal consistently enough sufficient for victory that a team can afford to have only one guy who scores in the shootout?
can you explain that in a bit more detail? Do you mean having one “sure” shooter (like Kozlov, who is probably a 41% shooter) and then a bunch of average shooters?
I think his question is about the average number of shootout goals scored by the winning and losing teams.
Side question, but related, how often do extra rounds of a shootout contain two saves (or misses)?
Jon Casey fan since '84
This is a great site for shootout stats:
http://www.nhlshootouts.com/ShootoutStats.htm
It should answer most if not all of your questions
Sorry for the unclear question…
I was asking if a team can consistently win shootouts if they only score one goal, or if they tend to need to score two to win the skills competition. Basically, can you win a good number of your shootouts if you can only score once.
Thanks for the shootout stats page, bookmarked! I’ll see if I can get some kind of answer to my question after checking it out.
Hmm… Looks like the number of shots combined with shooting %, save % and goals suggests that scoring once isn’t a reliable shootout strategy… But again, I’m pretty weak with stats. Does it seem like I’m reading the data correctly?
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