For the next stop on my Oilers Nostalgia Tour, I watched the clinching Game 5 of the 1984 Stanley Cup Final between the rising Oilers and the veteran New York Islanders dynasty.  It’s actually a really fascinating point in Oilers history — by the 1984 playoffs the team had been one of the most prominent in the NHL for 3 straight seasons but had not yet won a Stanley Cup.  There were a lot of critics to silence, especially since record-breaking deity Wayne Gretzky was an easy target for the typically brainless Canadian hockey media (no heart when it counts, etc).

The Oilers had come off of a 446 goal regular season, their third season in a row (of an eventual 5) over 400 goals scored.  Two years previous they’d lost in the infamous Miracle in Manchester 6-5 comeback game to the Kings in the first round.  The previous season (1983), they’d been beaten by the Islanders’ Cup-winning machine in a 4 game shellacking. By the time this Stanley Cup Final started, the Oilers had lost 10 consecutive games to the Islanders (playoffs and regular season combined).  The old goats were in their heads, no doubt. Glen Sather was actually getting criticized by national media for not being able to put together a cup contender (!).  As you could imagine, the pressure was absolutely enourmous.  It’s really quite easy to forget the time before the Oilers had won a Stanley Cup (especially for me, since I was a barely conscious human being by 1984).  The eventual dynasty team was not a given.  Up to this point, they were simply a collection of high scoring players who had fallen short of expectations. By 8:30 local time on May 19, 1984, all of that would change in an instant.

Even though the Oilers won the game 5-2, they were out shot-attempted at even strength 45-32, including a 25-12 ass-kicking in the third period as they sat on the 4-0 lead after 4o minutes.  Two of the Oilers goals were scored 5 on 5, 2 were on the powerplay, while another was scored with an empty net.  My numbers in this post include the empty net time, as on the broadcast there was no way for me to know exactly when the net was vacated as the Islanders were pouring on the gasoline in the Oilers end.  The first two periods were fairly evenly matched in terms of possession, but the Oilers’ finishing skill was on full display to spot them the big four goal lead.

In net to start the game were Andy Moog and Billy Smith — Fuhr had been hurt in Game 3 after playing a large majority of the playoffs to that point, so he was in plain clothes while some random guy with a moustache was suited up as the Oilers’ backup.  Apparently there was talk that Al Arbour would start Rollie Melanson in place of Smith, but Arbour felt Smith has earned his right to play considering his history with the team.  And hey, the Islanders had won 19 playoff series in a row, so it’s hard to argue with that idea. That was just an insane streak of dominance.

The first line in this game was Semenko-Gretzky-Kurri, and you can see that their performances went a long way in securing the victory by just looking at these numbers.  I’d say that Gretzky was easily on the ice for 25%-30% of the overall minutes at even strength, and he was only on the ice for 5 (or 11.1% of the total) Islanders attempts at the Oilers’ net.  Even as I was watching this game, I was thinking that his score would underrepresent the possession that his line actually had.  We talk sometimes about the player type who tends to hold off shooting the puck until they have a greater than average chance at scoring — to me, Gretzky is the prototype of this.  Many times he’d end a shift without even a hint of a shot attempt on net, even though he may have had possession for the large majority of it.  He wasn’t going to give the puck up until he knew it was going to be productive.  You see this attitude clearly in his zone entries — I couldn’t remember one instance of him dumping the puck in, he always seemed to want control of the puck on the attack.  Also, you can already see why Kurri was by this point already a Selke runner-up (to Clarke in 1983).  Many times at even strength he is comically out of frame, as Gretzky and Semenko and/or a defencemen pin the puck down low and Kurri is already covering the point high.  Sometimes this line would attempt some shots, and I’d have to wait until the whistle blew and many seconds to pass to identify that, yes, Kurri was actually on the ice.  Semenko reminded me of a Sasquatch on the ice.  Do you remember watching those World’s Strongest Man competitions on TSN at like 3 am and there was always some Canadian dude named Terry Funk who looked like a deranged lumberjack?  Yeah, that’s Semenko.  I guess no one messed with Gretzky in what was in reality a fairly chippy game, so his primary objective was accomplished.  His strength down-low reminded me a lot of Big Georges; in a couple of instances he fought off two defenders to make a play from the boards, though more often than not, the play would die on Semenko’s stick.

The second line was Anderson-Messier-Lindstrom, and man did they have a tough game.  Messier ended up being on the ice for 24 of the Islanders’ 45 attempts, or 53.3%.  He didn’t have anywhere close to that proportion of minutes, though I’d guess he did play about one-third of even strength ice time.  Messier saw time on left wing with a few different combinations, and was in more improvised line combinations than any other Oiler.  Sather seemed to deploy him a lot in the defensive zone, and he also would stand in for, say, Semenko for a d-zone draw and hop off the ice when the puck reached neutral ice.  In my estimation, he did not have the same bite in his game as he would show in 1987.  I don’t remember him hitting anyone, nor do I remember any cheap shots.  He could ramp up his speed when required to close on an attacker, but he seemed to coast around a lot more than his later self would.  The wrecking ball on that line at this time was definitely Glenn Anderson — he had modern speed and essentially no sense of self-preservation.  He’d fling himself through players on the attack, as if he was shot from a musket.  I don’t ever remember watching Willy Lindstrom play, so this was a first for me — but I was disappointed.  The play died on his stick the most.  He seems to have decent speed and hands, but his head was not operating at the same rate.  If you created a looping tape of Taylor Hall’s worst attempts at beating three guys at once that go nowhere, that was Lindstrom’s game here.

The third line is probably debatable, but I’d say it was Pouzar-Linseman-Lumley.  They all had pretty damned good games at north of 50% in Corsi percentage, but you can tell that they were trusted with important minutes by the coach.  I didn’t detect a lot of line matching, but noticed that these guys drew Bossy-Trottier-D.Sutter more than their fair share.  Pouzar is a stout player, and you can see his strength when he rips obstructing players off him like a can-opener to make a play.  He seemed to have a lot of foot-lbs of torque in his legs and had a heavy shot.  On Linseman, I’m probably biased as he’s one of my favourite Oilers ever, so please grant me a bit of latitude.  Seeing him play, I could not help but to see flashes of Jordan Eberle, both in his hands and his ability to find open ice in tight.  Now, not all hands are created equal.  Gretzky’s hands were legendary, but they were more deliberate, or intentional.  I’ve always thought Eberle’s hands have a three stage rocket booster in there, where even he’s not quite sure where they’re going to go sometimes.  Linseman has those same mitts, where he can deke guys out and it’s not even close. Lumley was a surprisingly adroit as a checking player, and was used in multiple line combinations.  I’d describe his play as “enthusiastic” — he was dogged on the forecheck and could keep up with the talented guys.

The fourth line was Conacher-McLelland-Hughes.  They struggled together as a line, only generating 4 shot attempts against the Islanders but allowing 8 against.  McLelland and Hughes saw time with some other combinations, but Conacher was lightly used outside of his own line.  They didn’t give up a goal against, but didn’t generate anything of substance either.  They were low-event players, but at least succeeded in sustaining some pressure and crushing guys on the forecheck.  By 1987, Sather had shortened his bench for the finals, but at this point he was definitely rolling 4, even late into the game holding a two-goal lead.

Period One

• The Oilers take an early penalty for too many men on the ice, and send Messier and Gretzky out to kill it together.  It seems that the regular PK forwards are 99+11, along with Anderson with either Kurri or Linseman.  Messier and Gretzky together are just fantastic on the PK — Messier lays out to block a shot, but it’s only time the entire game I observed someone laying full-out.  Gretz is just a stick-lifting machine — as soon as anyone comes within range, he’s trying to lift their sticks to steal the puck.
• Moog looks like a child in net, it’s quite awesome.
• Tonelli crushes McLelland with a totally obvious elbow to the chops, but the commentators don’t mention elbowing, instead calling it “interference”. No call is made.
• Apparently, Conacher is playing instead of Dave Hunter, who was injured.
• Semenko is playing a shift on the PP with 99 and Kurri!
• Billy Smith tries a patented Billy Smith poke check, by throwing his stick in a 270 degree arc at a player near his post.  I guess history was right about that one.
• Messier sees time with Linseman and Lumley, with Mess and Linseman taking turns at the defensive zone draws.
• It’s fascinating to just watch Gretzky in isolation.  There’s a small play where he seems like the obvious Oiler to enter a puck battle along the side boards for a loose puck, but he holds up, and takes a line to seemingly nowhere about 10-15 feet away from the loose puck.  The Islander player seems like he’s got a free route to the puck, but then an Oiler defenceman comes storming into the frame to get to the loose puck first, chip it, and it just so happens to land softly at Gretzky’s feet.  He calmly walks out of the corner, less a defender.  It’s poetry.
• On the same shift, Kurri goes deep into the Oiler zone to retreive a puck.  He swings around, and throws a long, controlled pass up half the ice surface to a streaking Gretzky.  It looks like it could be a one on two, but Gretzky pulls away from both Islander Dmen in a shocking burst of speed to make it a breakaway, where he calmly dekes Smith to the forehand, and slides it under him as Smith attempts to lunge across the crease to stop him.  Gretzky is not known as a fast player, but can anyone remember him being caught from behind on a breakaway?  On the play, Moog gets creamed behind the play by Boudelier (sp?), and it was a delayed call.
• Gretzky scores on his very next shift.  It was one of those plays that develops suddenly into a three on one line rush with Kurri and Semenko ahead and Gretzky catching up as the trailer.  Kurri has the puck, looks at Semenko, looks at Gretzky, and passes it to Gretzky.  99 delays, delays, waiting till the d-man’s ass is in Smith’s face, and then slides it in five hole.  It all happens within a few seconds.
• Oilers fans are chanting “Billlllly…..Billllllly”.  Glad to know this tradition was alive so early in franchise history
• Duane Sutter takes a dumb penalty by assaulting Glenn Anderson for no apparent reason, and then shoots water at fans behind the penalty box.
• Nystrom elbows Messier and Anderson on the shame shift, very hard, and gets no call.

Period Two

• Melanson starts period 2, with Arbour forgetting about his respect-pact with Smith.  Within seconds he stones Messier by stacking the pads to his left on an Oiler’s PP.
• On the same PP, Gretzky passes from the side of the net back to the point, where Huddy leans into a slapper that Melanson saves.  The rebound pops out to Linseman, who makes a quick deke, moves around the goalie, and calmly pots the goal.
• Peter Pocklington is shown sitting in the stands with Brian Mulroney, who at that point was 5 months away from being Prime Minister, but had been leader of the Conservatives since 1983.
• Pat LaFontaine looks about as young then as RNH does now.  He was a year removed from junior, and two years from local midget hockey.
• Potvin reminds me of late career Lidstrom.  Conservative in his movement, kinda slow lookin’, but knows where the puck should go and how to get it there. He wore a helmet that looked like a bike helmet.
• Pouzar drives hard to the net, and draws a penalty.  The Isles would take 5 in this game, the Oilers only 2.
• Kurri scores on the powerplay, on a one-timer from the outside hash marks.  Coffey gets the primary assist, Anderson gets the second.  Kurri’s shot would be considered fast in the modern game — it was a rocket, and perfectly placed.
• When Gretzky gains the offensive zone, he commonly stops up, and surveys the zone: where his teammates are, where the opposition is, and how he can make his play.  He turns both his head and his body back and forth, like a radar array scanning the skies.
• Did the term “corral the rebound” mean back then that the goalie stopped a rebound chance?  Moog stops two great chances in close, and the colour guy (Gary Dornhoefer) mentions that he was able to corral the rebound.
• At this point in time, Gretzky already held the record for most points in a playoff game, with 7.
• The Islanders have a dangerous rush, where they hit the trailing man loading up for a shot, but Pouzar busts his gut getting back to check the player and stop the threat.  Very impressed with his game.
• Messier has started taking D-zone faceoffs, with Gretzky and Kurri on his wings, and then hopping off the ice for Semenko.  Was Gretzky known as a bad faceoff guy or something?  He seems fine (even dominant at times) to me on the dot.

Period Three

• 13 seconds into the period, Lafontaine picks up a blocked shot off Lowe, walks in and chips it over Moog like he’s got a chipping wedge. Moog’s technique is terrible here, flattening out (that the commentators call “swimming”) and leaving the entire net open above him.
• Lafontaine scores 35 seconds into the period, redirecting a pass/shot from the high boards past Moog five hole as he goes down to stack the pads and cannot squeeze them in time.  It’s the fastest two goals to start a period in a playoff game ever by the same player, beating some record that stood since the early 60s that was done in a minute and 8 seconds.  They were only Lafontaine’s second & third goals of the playoffs.
• After the Oilers let the lead slip to 4-2, you notice their shifts have shortened noticeably, and they go into full-on prevent mode.  The rest of the period is essentially all-Islanders
• Bob Cole talks about the possibility of the Cup “coming back to Canada”, as if 5 years had been a long time.  Sorry Bob, in the present day we’re at 20 years and counting…
• Gretzky wins a draw by shooting the puck forehand right on Melanson who has to make a pretty good save.  Gretzky tries new stuff on the faceoff dot all throughout the game, weird tactics that I’ve never seen before.
• A graphic flashes up that Islanders coach Al Arbour had won a Stanley Cup with TORONTO?  Talk about stuff you just would not see on a graphic today.
• Flatley flattens (haha) Moog for no apparent reason right as the Islanders have the Oilers phoning a friend for help.  This one penalty kills the Isles’ sustained pressure for the rest of the game, and an atmosphere of celebration builds quickly.
• Sather puts Messier, Gretzky, and Lumley out on the ice together to kill the last minute of play.  Lumley scores a dead centre empty net goal from his own ringette line.  The place goes wild, dozens of balloons burst onto the ice, streamers start flying.  There are still 13 seconds left to play.
• Three guys jump on the ice and Gretzky stops to hug a fat guy.
• The Oilers get one more shot attempt after the last faceoff, then it’s over.
• Ziegler just kind of stands there, and hands the Cup to Gretzky.  No speech, no pomp. He just hands it to the captain. Why don’t we do it that way now?
• Dick Irvin Jr. has a nice line about how it’s a fitting tribute that the Islanders played such a great third period, as it’s “the final period of their dynasty”.

I recently started a new series of posts tabulating Corsi data for notable games in Oilers history, beginning with their 1987 Game 7 Stanley Cup Finals victory over the Flyers.  It was a fun little exercise, and provided me a legitimate excuse to revel in the past — a favourite pastime of any Oiler fan.  The game exceeded even my nostalgic expectations, with the Oilers claiming 72% of all shot attempts on the way to a 3-1 victory.  But what I couldn’t stop thinking about was this — was this Oiler team of the 80s some kind of super-machine from the past that the advanced stat community today could not fathom?  Were they a 70% shot attempt team all the time?  It’s pretty well-known that that team was able to sustain some ridiculous percentages over the decade, but what about sustaining ridiculous shot rates?  What kind of monster is this?  How would they compare to championship teams of the past and future?

Well, there’s really no way to go back to estimate shot attempts — the NHL didn’t start tracking that stuff at a team level until about 1998, and didn’t start tracking them at a player level until 2007.  There’s also no way to find even strength differentials, as this stat was also a relatively new invention. So I decided to compile plain old shot on net differential.  I wasn’t aware of a place that had total team shot attempts over a season earlier than 1998, so I decided to add up game sheets, one at a time.  For this, I used a wonderful site called the Hockey Summary Project.

My methodology was pretty simple.  Go down the list of every Stanley Cup winner since initial NHL expansion in 1967-68, and add up the shot differential of every game they played in their playoff runs before winning the Cup.  Even though we could look at more modern measures like 5×5 Corsi for modern winners, we want to find a measure that is apples to apples across eras and statistical availability.  But I think overall shot differential is still a reasonable proxy for team strength — this past 2013 season, for instance, overall team shot percentage had a 96.9% correlation with 5×5 shot percentage and a 94.0% correlation with 5×5 Fenwick percentage.

Now, the first obvious question would be: is there era bias?  Have Stanley Cup winners over time shown a distinct pattern of increasing or diminishing strength over their playoff runs that would bring into question an even comparison between them?  As it turns out, not really — here is a graph of each Cup Winner’s playoff shot percentage since 1968:

Adding a trendline suggests that there is a slight positive bias, but it is very weak — you’d add about 0.01% each passing season to each Cup winner’s expected shot percentage in the playoffs.  It seems that in every era it is possible for both strong and weak shot percentage teams to win the Cup.

Now, to the fun part.  Here’s the full list of 44 Stanley Cup winning teams ranked in order of their playoff overall shot percentage:

First off, what you’ll notice is that the top-ranked Edmonton team was the 1986-87 team that I just watched this past weekend, placing 10th out of the 44 teams at 54.9%.  The high-flying 1983-84 team was ranked 12th, while the 1993-94 Rangers team that was essentially another Oilers team (heh) was ranked 13th.  Waaaaaay down at Rank 43 out of 44 is the venerable 1990 Oilers Cup team with 47.5% shot percentage during their playoff run.

The top team is the 2008 Detroit Red Wings team who are way out in front at 60.7%.  Fittingly enough, the 2nd place team was the Red Wings edition from 11 years earlier (1997) with 58.8%.  3rd place is taken by the 2000 Devils team who perfected the art of defence — in one game in the 2nd round of the playoffs versus the Leafs, they held Toronto to SIX shots against over an entire game.  6.  Incredible.  I won’t talk about who came 4th.

You’ll notice that the late 70′s Montreal juggernaut holds 3 spots within the top 10 teams ever, placing 5th, 8th, and 9th. The Beliveau-led Habs from 1968 ended up 6th.

The best Islanders team from their run in the early 80s was the 1982 edition, who captured 54.3% of shots on net, ranking 14th.  The best the early 70s  Bruins were able to do with Bobby Orr at the wheel was the 1970 edition, with a shot rate of 52.9% or 21st in this group.  This actually turned out to be the median shot percentage among all Cup-winning teams.

The Lemieux-led Penguins were one of the poorer-placing teams on this list, with the 1991 and 1992 teams placing 40th and 39th, respectively, both under 50%.

What do the bottom teams have in common?  Well, the worst 4 teams all had Conn Smythe-winning goaltenders. 6 of the bottom 10 teams had Conn Smythe winning goaltenders.  The eyes of Conn Smythe voters were not deceived — their goalies did a lot to secure these teams’ victories.  Of the top 10 teams, only one had a Conn Smythe winning goaltender (which hilariously was Mike Vernon in 1997, an overrated goaltender who was pulled multiple times that year in front of one of the most dominant teams ever).

The lesson in this is the same in any application of shot metrics — outshooting an opponent is important, but not what decides victory.  A goaltender can get hot for an entire playoffs (see: Ken Dryden 1971) and steal his team a Cup.  There are also instances of teams who had crappy goaltending (early 90s Flames, late 90s/early 00s Blues), who were denied shots at the Cup.

What’s interesting to me is this: that 1987 Oilers team that had 54.9% shot differential in the playoffs were only a 49.5% shot differential team in the regular season (yes, I added up all 80 games).  I ran a quick t-test to test the underlying sample means, and there is approximately a 0.1% probability that these two teams had the same game-by-game shot differential means.  These were literally two statistically different teams taking the ice, one coasting their way to a President’s Trophy, the second putting their skates to the throats of the best teams in the league.  At this point in time, it looked like the Oilers really were learning how to “take it up a notch” for the playoffs.

With the Oilers 2012-2013 season left on the scrap-heap of history, I’ll get to undertake a series I’ve long planned to do, which is to treat historical games of great Edmonton Oilers teams to the same statistical exercise I’ve applied to modern games.  As a fanbase, I think we tend to assume that the teams of the past were almost unassailable — are they really the blitzkrieg’ing holy warriors we recall from memory?  How would they perform in a measure like Corsi (or shot attempts)?  To begin, I watched perhaps my favourite Oilers team (the 1986-87 version) win Game 7 of the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals 3-1 versus the Philadelphia Flyers, a game which took place on May 31, 1987 in Edmonton at the then-styled Northlands Coliseum.

I watched the game using the “10 Greatest Games” DVD set I’d received as a gift some time ago but hadn’t actually gotten around to watching yet.  I realize it’s a bit rich to look at one of the team’s 10 “greatest games” as representative of an entire era, but I believe it’s still a fascinating sample nonetheless.  After all, this was Game 7 of the Finals against a Flyers team which was the 2nd best in the regular season, garnering 100 points to the Oilers’ 106 points — it’s hard to imagine a scenario where competition would be more ferocious than this, with the two best club teams on the planet flying their final epic sorties.

You’d imagine the game would be pretty close then? Well, you’d be wrong:

The above table shows Shot Attempts at even strength by period and event type.  The Oilers scored all 3 of their goals while at even strength, while the Flyers only marker came during an early 5 on 3 power-play.  They owned every single period by a factor of over 2 or 3 times more events.  They played the final period and a half with the lead, with the modern concept of “score effects” showing absolutely no sign of taking place as they dominated play versus the outclassed Flyers.

Shots that made it on net were 35-15 for the Oilers, but what’s most interesting is the ratio of missed and blocked shots, with the Oilers having a 30-10 lead in such events.  Overall, the Oilers had 65 shot attempts to the Flyers’ 25, a ridiculous shot attempt percentage of 72.2%. Game 7, Stanley Cup Finals, 72% corsi percentage.  This really did exceed any and all expectations I had for what the final numbers would turn out like.

I kept player by player numbers, but only for the forwards, as many times it was impossible to tell which defencemen were on the ice for the many Oilers attacks off the rush.

Oilers Head Coach/GM Glen Sather shortened his bench to just 3 lines for the entire game, with only Mike Krushelnyski getting the odd shift with the top 9 forwards.  As a result, Krush actually led the team in Corsi% with 86%, but with a very small sample of shifts of likely less than 5.

The Anderson/Messier/Nilsson line was dominant from the outset, and they led the team in Corsi%.  Messier was pretty easily the MVP of this game, and you really got a sense of why he’s considered one of the game’s greatest ever players — his brilliance on the forecheck, off the rush, punishing physical game, puck skills and awareness away from the puck were absolutely all-time all-world fantastic.  There were 31 attempts at the Flyers net when he was on the ice, while the Flyers could only muster 10 the other way, for a +21 Corsi rating.  The best any Oiler forwards could muster in the 2013 season was +18, put up by RNH and Eberle during that ridiculous victory versus the Avs that broke a team record for shots on net.  In that game, RNH was +28/-10, for instance.

The line of Tikkanen/Gretzky/Kurri had Cori percentages that were not far off Messier’s line, with Gretzky having a +19/-6 ratio for a percentage of 73%.  Watching Gretzky play, you’re struck almost by how invisible he is until all of a sudden he’s creating something out of absolutely nothing.  I’ve resisted the many attempts to equate his game to RNH’s, but you really do see some similarities.  Gretzky did not overpower people, he didn’t beat people on the rush, he wasn’t really much of a cycler — but opponents barely could touch him (his angle work while on skates is extra terrestrial), he had a sixth sense of how and when to stall for time as a teammate got into scoring position, and above all he seems to enter the offensive zone with possession of the puck on almost every play.  This Oilers team was certainly fast, but Gretzky was happy to gain possession of the zone, stop up suddenly, survey the situation, and then pick apart the holes he saw in the matrix.  This is a skill we have seen from RNH on the powerplay, for intsance, but it’s this ability to make space for yourself and your teammates at even strength that will truly get RNH to that next level.

The checking line was Hunter/MacTavish/McSorely, and I was jaw droppingly impressed at how they dominated play.  They weren’t necessarily the same threat to score, but they did have many great chances and kept chances against to an absolute minimum.  Harry Neale on colour commentary mentioned how Sather didn’t usually “match lines”, but that he was trying to get this checking line out against the dangerous Flyers trio of Tocchet, Propp, and Pelle Eklund as much as possible, and it showed.

I took some game notes by period:

Period One

• Coffey breaks his stick in the defensive zone, and then proceeds to mug the Flyer player’s face with his half broken stick /gloves. This would have been seen as the biggest prick Oilers move of the last 5 years, and it happens in the first 2 minutes of this game.
• The Flyers score their only goal of the game early on a 5 on 3, with Coffey in the box and Messier joining him for being Messier. It was scored by Murray Craven on a shot or attempted pass from the side of the net that goes in off Fuhr five-hole as he stands there and doesn’t move at all, and doesn’t square up to Craven, staying deep in his net.  It’s a goal only Marc Andre Fleury could let in today.
• Gretzky and Messier kill a penalty together! Have two top 15 players of all time killed penalties together since? Nuts.
• Gretzky embellishes a hooking call, obviously throwing himself to the ice, but he gets the call.
• Reijo Ruotsalainen on defence is a brilliant hockey player.  He had more noticeable rushes with the puck than Coffey in this game, but his playmaking wasn’t really up to his speed.
• The Oilers first goal is a tic-tac-toe play off the rush between Anderson, Nilsson, and finished by Messier for an easy empty net goal behind a helpless Hextall.  It’s a goal in any era, and is prototypical of this era in Oilers history. It’s creative, precise, and deadly.
• Both Tikkanen and MacTavish are tripped in plays much more legit than the one that felled Gretzky earlier, but do NOT get calls.
• Marty McSorely saves a sure goal, when Fuhr stops 98% of a good Flyers chance, but the puck goes in behind him and sits right in front of the goal line. McSorely is deep enough in his zone to be the first player to the puck before two close Flyers for what would have been a touch-in goal.
• There’s a sign in the crowd that says: “MacT Alias: Captain Grinder”. Firstly, it’s good to know he was called MacT this early in Oilers history. Second, only Oilers fans could be watching the most brilliant offensive team in the history of the sport and make a sign celebrating the checking line.
• Kurri is again, and again, and again the first man back on his line.  At this point he was a common Selke runner-up, and was playing with a future Selke runner-up in Tikkanen.  These two definitely cover any gambles taken by Gretzky.  Kurri reminds me of Paajarvi in that sense, in always being the primary defensive forward even on the wing.
• Gretzky makes a play where he gains the line, fakes a slapshot, which forces the Philly defender to fall over, while 99 immediately stops, does a spinarama near the blueline close to the boards, all of a sudden has about 10 feet of open ice to work with on all sides, and finds (I believe) Randy Gregg trailing the play for a free and uncontested breakaway/shot from the slot (he misses the net).  He is the Great One, kids.
• Messier thinks he scores a second goal, where he cuts into the mid-slot and fires a cannon of a wrister over Hextall.  Live for the first time it does look like it goes in, but replays show that it hit the crossbar flush and Van Hellemond made the right call to wave it off.  Meanwhile, Messier is coasting around the offensive zone with both arms raised in typical fashion for a comically long time, the team is celebrating, the crowd is going nuts, while the play continues right on to the Oilers zone.  Insane.

Period 2

• The period starts with MacT being absolutely robbed by Hextall with the best save of the game.  Off a broken play MacT find himself uncontested, charges the goal, dekes Hextall who goes down, MacT pulls it back to his forehand to slide it around Hextall and into the open net, but Hextall reaches back with his paddle to deny the sure goal.  It’s reminiscent of CuJo in ’98 versus the Avs, and always my favourite kind of desperation save.
• An aside: I love Gretzky’s pre-faceoff ritual twirls, bent over, with his legs stuck together, and resting his stick on his knees.  Everyone’s ready to go, but Gretz is still twirling around, making everyone wait while he gets ready.
• Fuhr absolutely stones Ilkka Sinisalo from in close.  The replay shows Fuhr makes his kick move and then Sinisalo hits his kicked out leg, but either way he makes the save.
• Coffey pinches a ton in this game, but he’s the fastest player on the ice and can get back before the Flyers even crack the blueline.
• Many times, Kurri covers for any pinching D-man almost as if he’s had to do it 10,000 times in his career up to that point.
• Then, Kurri scores.  Tikkanen pressures the Flyers dman behind his net, forcing him to weakly attempt a clearing pass up the wing.  Gretzky has already anticipated that this will happen, closing against the winger waiting for the pass along the boards, then cuts in front of him after the pass attempt is made, and intercepts it.  Meanwhile, Kurri is looping the zone high, and finds a perfect seam with no Flyers near him.  When he sees Gretzky’s likely to intercept the pass, Kurri closes low, and Gretzky makes the pass with barely a look over to see where Kurri is.  Kurri snaps it from the faceoff dot far-side, beating Hextall cleanly.
• Soon after the goal, Messier takes a boarding call that can only be called vicious, almost criminal.  The Flyers player is about 3-4 feet away from the boards, with his back to Messier, facing the glass.  Messier two-hand cross checks him in the middle of the back very hard, sending him hurtling towards the boards face-first.  This would be a fairly undisputed 5-game suspension now.  Messier proceeds to beak the ref all the way to the box, and for a while thereafter. He gets 2 minutes.
• For the absolutely key penalty kill with a one-goal lead in G7 SCF, Gretzky takes the first PK shift, and the Flyers do not get a sniff.
• Gretzky and Kurri get a clear 2 on 1, but Gretzky is looking pass the entire way and the entire arena knows it.  The D-man and Hextall pressure Kurri and force him into missing his shot.  Gretzky really should have shot that one, it would have been a gimme goal.
• Nilsson gets a breakaway but gets hauled down to draw a penalty.

Period 3

• On a scoring chance, MacTavish careens hard into Hextall, knocking him over, and proceeds to get Hextall in a headlock (!).
  
• There are at least 5 Oilers hit-posts in this game, with MacT, Gretzky, Gregg, and Tikkanen all hitting iron in the final frame.  I don’t remember the Flyers hitting a post all game.
• I notice that Krushelnyski is out there for defensive zone faceoffs when the Messier line is out there in place of Nilsson.  One particular time, Krush rushes back to the bench when the play makes the neutral zone and Nilsson hops back on the ice.  I’m guessing Sather wanted Krush out there in case Messier gets thrown out?  He’s also likely a better defender.  Through this last period, Krushelnyski takes turns seeing ice in place of Nilsson and then Tikkanen with Gretzky.
• Coffey reminds me a lot of, wait for it, Ales Hemsky in the offensive zone.  On 3 occasions in this game he circumnavigates the entire offensive zone, looping around the net, trying to find someone for a pass.  This has always been my favourite Hemsky play, in that it creates so much chaos with the continuously changing angle he creates against defenders.
• Nilsson still sees many shifts right up until the end of the game.  Halfway through the 3rd period, he’s cherry picking behind the Flyers D and almost gets a breakaway pass from Messier. G7, SCF, one-goal lead, cherry picking.  This is the perfect symbol for the entire Oilers mentality right there.
• Messier gets nailed in the boot by a Dr. Randy Gregg point shot.  He limps off the ice, goes to the room, then comes back a minute later.  He takes his next shift to a standing ovation.
• Messier then gets a partial breakaway going across the goal.  It looks like he’s got Hextall beat, but misses the net wide on the deke.
• On the very same shift, Anderson corrals a loose puck just outside the offensive blueline, cuts towards the middle over the blueline, and rifles a rising slapshot past a defender and through Hextall’s five hole.  Incredibly, Harry Neale says that Hextall “went down a little early” on the goal.  On a five-hole goal Hextall was going down to try to save, Neale thinks he’s going down “too early”.  Man, times change.
• With the 3-1 lead with 2.5 minutes left, Wayne Gretzky gets the next shift, and then takes another shift in place of MacT with Hunter and McSorely.  He’s on the ice for almost 2 minutes, leaving the ice with only 39 seconds left. G7 SCF, defending a lead, Gretzky gets double-shifted.  To me, that says a lot of how highly Sather thought of 99′s game even in this situation.  While he’s on the ice for those 2 minutes, the Oilers attempt 2 shots at the Flyers net, the Flyers attempt none.

This post continues a series of examinations into the concept of team ‘luck’.  I initially wrote a three part series on team PDO, testing both it and its constituent parts to find out if they were truly random over time.  I found that while team shooting percentage does seem to be random over time, team save percentage shows distinct evidence of not being random.  The influence from SV% was so strong that it made PDO statistically predictable over time — kind of a bad thing when it’s traditionally used to reflect luck.

The first post in this current series tried to envisage a new way to calculate PDO, taking into account the expected performance of goaltenders entering a season and weighting it based on how many starts that goaltender received in the current season.  I then applied the methodology to the 2013 season and promised to analyze it with the same vigour I’d used in my initial 3-part series on PDO.  And here we are.

Firstly, I’d like to report that my initial methodology for a modified PDO statistic (MPDO) did *not* pass my statistical tests — it definitely showed more randomness than PDO, but any given MPDO could still be used as a statistically significant predictor of a team’s subsequent season.  It really made me think more about what this entire process is trying to accomplish.  If you recall, my initial methodology for coming up with a goalie’s predicted SV% for any upcoming season was to simply take his save percentage over the last 5 seasons of data (as long as he had > 500 shots against).  My rationale was that we were trying to get an idea of what a goalie’s “true” talent level is using a large data sample, so that any deviation from this monolithic number could be seen as manifested luck. However, when implementing this methodology in practice, I realized that the 5-year average was simply too long — there were many instances of years long past polluting my dataset, in that they were no longer useful predictors of expected future performance.  A quick example would be including some of Martin Brodeur’s monster post-2005 lockout years to help predict how he would do in some of the last few years.  His performance over this time period was so different, with high SV% years falling into low ones, that the 5-year average essentially evened out to league average, leaving his “standard” the same as it would be in traditional PDO.

I then realized that this is essentially a forecasting excercise.  We’re trying to come up with what a goaltender’s expected performance in this season, not what his long-term true talent level is.  Those are related, but slightly different concepts.  Knowing Martin Brodeur’s long-run SV% is interesting, but it’s certainly not going to be very useful in trying to predict what his SV% “should” be when he’s 40.  I put the word “should” in quotation marks to emphasize this point: we need to find an expected save percentage where it is EQUALLY LIKELY for his actual SV% to be above or below that number.  Read that sentence again, it’s important. Meaning, we really need to give this the college try to predict (or, forecast) what a goaltender’s performance will be this season.

Now, I’ve worked with SV% numbers and forecasting a lot, so I had some ideas of how this could be accomplished.  I needed something both simple to understand and decently accurate.  After about 10 different attempts at trial and error, I came up with a new methodology that satisfied these requirements.  Instead of using a 5 year average SV%, I only used the last 3 years of data.  This concentrates the expected performance on a goalie’s most recent history, but includes enough data to be considered a large sample size (in my eyes anyways).  I then weighted the 3 years in an exponential fashion, with the most recent year having the most weight and 3 years ago having the least weight (I used the arbitrary weights 2, 4, and 8 for the save percentages recorded three, two, and one year ago).  A goalie still needed to have seen 500 shots within the last three years to qualify, and any non-qualifying or new goalie was given the same “average new goalie” SV% I used in the first part of this series (which are 4-5 points below league average SV%).

Once I had my expected SV% for each goalie, I then weighted them by the starts that each team’s goalies saw to come up with an expected team SV% for that team for that season.  If the actual SV% was above this, it was considered lucky, and if it was below this it was considered unlucky.  For instance, the Oilers this year had an expected team SV% of 0.921, but actually had a team SV% of 0.924, meaning they did a bit better than was expected, or “luckier” than expected.  I took the difference between the expected and actual, added to the difference between the team’s expected and actual shooting percentage, and came up with a modified PDO (MPDO) for each team for each of the last 6 seasons.

To normalize the MPDO results, I transformed all the numbers for each season into normal cumulative distribution scores between 0 and 1, a technique I used extensively in the initial 3-part series on PDO.  A score of 0.50 was league average, anything above that is above league average, anything below is below league average.  It’s just a technique to compare apples to apples over time.  If MPDO is random, I would expect the long-term average scores to tend towards 0.50 or league average.  Here are the 6 years of data:

The teams in this table are ranked in descending order from the most “lucky” over the last 6 seasons to the least.  Already we see a promising band of scores around 0.50.  Let’s compare the top and bottom 5 teams to their normal PDO counterparts:

The top team in traditional PDO was Vancouver by a landslide, with an average 6-year score of 0.87.  However, in MPDO Vancouver slides down to the 4th luckiest — why is this?  Well, Vancouver has employed consistently good goaltenders over this time-frame, meaning that one would “expect” them to do better over time than the league average.  In other words, Vancouver would consistently have high PDO, and people would construe this as being “lucky”, when in fact it was only because they had good goaltenders.  Their MPDO in 2013 was a touch below league average because their expected SV% was 0.931, while their actual SV% was 0.928.

And just eyeballing this table should tell you something about what’s going on here –instead of the top and bottom PDO teams being the ones who’ve had consistently good or bad goaltending, it seems to be more of an unexpected mix of teams.  ”Hey, Dallas is the third luckiest team over the last 6 years!” instead of “Hey, Boston’s had two Vezina winners and the best young goalie in the game, neat!”.

Compare this graph of the 6-year average scores using MPDO:

To this original one using PDO:

You’ll immediately notice more teams in the arbitrary yellow band +/- 10% from the expected long-run tendency towards 0.50.  You also notice a less number and less severe outliers.  The new MPDO does seem to be increasing the gravitational pull towards 0.50 (league average).

You may also recall a technique I used in my PDO series where I found the expected probability of any team having, say, 6 above average and 0 below average seasons out of 6 seasons, etc.  The expected probabilities were calculated using a probability tree that assumed the chance of being above or below 0.50 should be 50% if the measure truly is random (the measure in this case being MPDO).  The following table shows the actual numbers of teams that had the specified number of above/below average seasons and compares it to the expected numbers.

The effect is better seen graphically.  Compare this graph of how MPDO compares to the expected probabilities:

To this graph using the original PDO:

What we’re looking for is evidence of a central tendency — if the measures are random, we want to see them bunch up in the middle where teams have more equal numbers of good and bad seasons instead of a sustained number of good or bad seasons.  Now, perhaps the two graphs don’t seem all that different, but check out how the 6 Above/0 Below bar in the PDO graph is completely absent in the MPDO graph, with its weight being added to the more central 4 Above/ 2 Below category.  It’s a small change, but does show a more central tendency.  How can we test this?

I chose to use a Chi-Squared test to make my point here.  What Chi-Squared answers is, basically: “does a set of actual numbers match a set of expected numbers”?  It’s often used in situations like this, where the expected numbers are assumed to be random chance, and the observed actual numbers are tested to see if they deviate significantly from the expected ones.  If so, whatever you’re analyzing can be found not congruent with simple random chance.  This test uses P-values: any P-value below 0.05 suggests whatever you’re analyzing is not congruent with random chance, any score above 0.05 suggests that it is.  I proceeded with chi-squared tests not only for MPDO but also PDO and the original parts of PDO (team save and shooting percentages) to illustrate the point.

Here again we see the evidence that SH% is truly random, very much above the 0.05 cutoff.  SV% is found to not be congruent with random chance, well below 0.05 at 0.0004.  What’s interesting is that PDO is found to show adherence with random chance with this test at P-value: 0.18, but it is obviously heavily influenced by SV% downwards.  Alternatively, the new MPDO statistic has a P-value much higher at 0.59.  The difference in the P-values suggests MPDO displays much more randomized characteristics than PDO.

To finish off, I performed my favourite test of randomness: I performed a regression equation using one season’s MPDO normal cumulative distribution score as an independent variable to predict the next season’s score as a dependent variable.  The rationale here is that if I can use one year’s MPDO to predict the next year’s with statistical significance, the measure cannot be random.  If you recall, I performed this test with PDO and came up with a P-value of 0.0014, well within the 0.05 boundaries needed for me to accept the hypothesis that they do have a statistical relationship.  What I’m hoping for with this test with MPDO is for a high P-value, showing a very weak statistical relationship from one year to the next.

I was not disappointed.  Using the MPDO normdist scores, I calculated a P-value of 0.32, meaning that I cannot accept a hypothesis that one year’s MPDO has any bearing on the next year’s — the relationship is random.

To conclude, I do not want to suggest this new MPDO stat is supreme over all potential others — it is to prove that finding a measure to properly reflect luck in hockey is possible.  Showing which teams are riding luck and which ones are due to break-out has been one of the most useful developments of the advanced stats community.  It’s my belief that refining our methods to more accurately depict this concept is important, and will provide a great many insights for years to come.  This new MPDO statistic is proven to be randomly influenced by a force that we can approximate as luck.

For those interested, here’s a table that compares MPDO to PDO for each team for the last 6 years.  If you’d like this in excel format, just email me and I’d be happy to provide a copy of my work.

Previously on this blog I’ve completed a three-part series that looked at team PDO critically to understand whether it truly is a measure of “team luck”.  PDO is a combination of even strength team save percentage and shooting percentage — the higher it is the luckier your team has been assumed to be.  However, what I found was that PDO is a statistic that can be sustained by a team either high or low — and it does not tend towards league average over time in the fashion expected by chance.  This effect was entirely because of team save percentage — save percentage can be sustained at high or low levels, which obviously makes sense when you consider teams have similar goaltending year after year.  Shooting percentage was proven to be essentially random, so completely plausible as a component of luck.

These observations got me thinking about how to best reflect team luck: what improvements could be made to PDO?  I concentrated on save percentage, as shooting percentage wasn’t broke and didn’t need to be fixed.  How can we know how “lucky” team’s goaltending is?  To me, the obvious answer was to consider the historical performance of the actual goaltenders they employ and play.

The first thing I needed to do was compile a list of all goaltenders who’ve played in the NHL by season since 2001 and their even strength save percentage.  I downloaded this data from NHL.com and compiled a series of huge tables covering the years from 2001-02 to 2012-13 for each goaltender facing an even strength shot over that period.  The first table showed the total amount of even strength shots they faced by season.  The second showed the total number of even strength goals they allowed by season, and the third showed their even strength save percentage by season.  I then created a 4th table which took a 5-year moving average of a goaltender’s performance over time by season.  To qualify, you needed to have faced at least 500 even strength shots over the last 5 years (to cut down on small sample sizes).  If you were a new goalie, or had not faced 500 shots in the last 5 years, I just assigned the average ES save percentage of all new goalies in the NHL over the last 5 years (0.918 entering this season).

The next step was to compile what I called the Expected SV%, or what I would expect your team’s even strength save percentage to be for a season based on your goaltenders.  For an example, let’s consider this year.  Here’s the table showing how I calculated each team’s expected save percentage at even strength:

First I found all goaltenders appearing this year by team, and found how many games each had started for their teams.  Then I looked up what each of their 5-year historical even strength save percentages were according to my previously constructed table.  This SV% appears in the table above two cells to the right of each goaltender (again, remember that 0.918 was used for new or little-used goaltenders).  The final step was to create a sumproduct team expected save percentage that combined all the goalies historical save percentages and how many games they started.  Weighting by number of games started made sense to me to keep it simple.  If we were in the middle of the season, you’d simply find out how many games had been started by which goaltender up to that point in the season, and then multiply by that goalie’s historical save percentage *entering that season*.

Now we can compile what I’m calling the Modified-PDO, or MPDO, for each team.

This data includes all 5 on 5 and 4 on 4 situations, and combines data compile from Behind the Net and NHL.com.  I had to use Behind the Net to find shots for and against and goals for and against at even strength, but then I had to use NHL.com data to strip empty net goals out of Behind The Net’s totals.  There will be a few empty net goals that I had to strip out that must have been scored on the powerplay that I could not identify given the source constraints, so this data will not be perfectly accurate, but will be extremely representative.

First you see the expected team save percentages based on the numbers I’d found in the earlier table, which takes the historical performance of each goaltender and weights it based on how many games he started.  Then I found what the team’s actual even strength save percentage was. Finally, I subtracted the expected SV% from the Actual SV% to leave a residual performance — a positive number indicates the goalies did better than their historical performance would have suggested, a negative number means they underperformed.

I then found the team shooting percentages in the traditional way, finding how many shots they took at even strength and then how many of those turned into goals.  Then I subtracted the league average shooting percentage (near 0.079), to come up with a shooting percentage difference score, again with higher scores meaning luckier scores.

I took a total difference score, which just added the SV% difference score to the SH% difference score — again, higher equals luckier.  Then to modify this number to match the current PDO convention, I added one and multiplied by 1000 to create the familiar format we all seem to like.

I’ve added ‘lucky ranks’ on the far right to show the luckiest team (1st) all the way down to the unluckiest (30th).  Toronto is the luckiest on the strength of an insanely good shooting percentage, while Chicago is 2nd because of equally lucky shooting and save percentages.  Edmonton ranks as the 13th luckiest team with a moderately lucky save percentage and just a slight bit of bad luck for shooting percentage.

So, how does MPDO compare with PDO?

This table compares MPDO to traditional PDO.  It shows which teams by MPDO are luckier (with a positive difference) or unluckier (with a negative difference) than when compared with PDO.  A team like Winnipeg is luckier with MPDO because, of course, the Jets play Ondrej Pavalec, and his expected save percentage was lower than the league average this season.  On the flip-side, the Canucks’ MPDO is much lower than their PDO because their goaltending is known to be excellent, and had a bit of a down season.

And that’s really the spirit of this: how boring is it for the Canucks to be near the league leaders in PDO season after season, especially considering the presupposition that their PDO will gravitate towards 1000 over time.  It doesn’t.  But MPDO does allow their score to approach 1000 — Luongo and Schneider can have average seasons that are STILL above league averages.  Doesn’t mean they’re average goaltenders, it just means that this season could be considered right in line with expectations for them, even though it was 0.007 SV% points above league average.

The next part in this series will examine if this new MPDO displays characteristics of truly reflecting chance, or luck, using similar mechanisms I used in my original three-part exploration of team percentages.  I can’t wait to find out what the evidence says. No really, I haven’t done it yet — this stuff takes forever.

And it ended not with a bang, but with a slightly meaningless bang.  In the last game of the season, the Oilers torched the visiting acting troupe from Vancouver 7-2, including a 6-1 score at even strength.  With the  season now over, the Oilers are snugly in 7th last in the league (24th) and 12th in the Western Conference.  With 4 consecutive seasons of last, last, 2nd last, and 7th last, the Oilers are now following their own Fibonacci sequence of improvement.  Maybe next year they’ll get to 14th last and a shot at the playoffs! Sounds like a mathematical certainty.

It’s touching that the Oilers finished their last game of the year in such unfamiliar territory, leading the game in shot attempts.  Out of 48 games, it’s only the 6th time they’ve lead in shot attempts at even strength (or 12.5% of their games).  I don’t have data on a league-wide basis, but I’m assuming that’s pretty terrible.  MacT had a great appearance on After Hours last night where he was talking about the Oilers being bad according to key metrics.  I suggest they add that one to the list.

But we’ll give the Oilers kudos for winning the hell out of this one.  It’s so very Oilers that they scored 13 goals in their last two games, while scoring that many in the 10 contests that came before.  It was all ripped wide open in the third, with the Oilers setting a new team record for the fastest 5 goals in team history (in under 4 minutes).  When you think about all of the lethal weapons that the Oilers have had throughout their history (Steven Rice, Troy Mallette, Chad Kilger, among others), it’s an even more impressive feat.

To me the biggest turning point was a wonderful three-save sequence by Devan Dubnyk in the third while the game was still tied 2-2, turning away a wide open breakaway, followed by two different rebound attempts that the Oilers confused defence was plotzing all over the place trying to find. If that results in a VAN goal, this game is different, and perhaps Yakupov doesn’t get to rack up his first career Yak Trick.  Thankfully, Dubnyk held strong and Yak-edelic history was made .

Smytty may have only one point on the scoresheet, but he lead the team in Corsi per minute, a very fitting end for the old war horse if this truly was his last Oilers game.  No Oiler forward was on for more shot attempts at the Vancouver net than Smyth.  I would say his heart grew three sizes that day, but I imagine Smytty’s heart fills the entire cavity above his diaphragm anyways.  We all saw him good tonight, and hey, no ridiculous outside slappers either!

Yakupov and Taylor Hall had another productive game together, if not entirely gleaming from a possession point of view. Yakupov’s three goals seemed to show off his burgeoning skillset — two goals off rebounds after finding a seam in the defence, and another converting an opposition turnover into a goal in a split second.  It was a delight for the senses, and gave the Rexall crowd something to remember for the long, long summer ahead.

Surprisingly, Justin Schultz had a dominating game by possession and with 4 points, his highest one-game total in the NHL to date.  He’s struggled mightily to close out this season, yet somehow managed to post 0.56 points per game for the season, the 6th best rookie offensive season since 1994 (tied with none other than Ryan Whitney).  I’d hope the coaching staff break out tapes of mid-90s Scott Niedermeyer to help him start figuring out how to play without the puck, but the kid knows what to do with it.  Tonight brought back memories of the first two weeks of this season, especially in terms of his timing for pinching down low (shown best on the game winning third goal).

The Canucks sat 5 regulars tonight, so this lineup is only slightly more put together than the AHL quality Flames squad who beat the Oilers 4-1 a couple of weeks ago, but they at least had quality like Kesler and Bieksa in the lineup to test themselves against.  Kesler came up roses against most of the Oilers lineup, but Bieksa was happily torn apart by the Eberle/Gagner duo.  My other favourite contract killing was against Max Lapierre, who ended up behind every Oiler except Corey Potter.  Couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow.

Probably the most interesting thing about this chart is how Taylor Hall was -9 in 8.5 minutes with Horcoff but +6 in 6 minutes with Gagner.  To me, Horcoff should be counted on next year as your third line defensive centre, spotting in on special teams where necessary.  He’s miscast as an offensive top 6 option, so I’d hope the Oilers have a plan B if they do decide to trade Gagner away this summer.

I’d also like to point out a steady game by Magnus Paajarvi, who quietly had a 2-point night.  He’s trailed off noticeably since his mid-season dominance, but we’ve seen enough this year to suggest he can be a top-six option for next year.  I’ve tweeted about this all year, but he just *seems* to be larger and more assertive this year.  People forget how huge this kid is, and if he continues to fill out I do think the Oilers already have their ‘winger with size’ right under their noses.  He’s a smart player that will have an NHL career for a long, long time.

Some things just seem like they’re preordained.  The Oilers lose in Minnesota on the best of days, but sans Ales Hemsky and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and with the Wild fighting for their playoff lives, the Oilers seemed as likely to win this game as they would the Miss Alabama pageant.  I missed the first period (accidentally) thinking the game started at 7, and was greeted with a 3-0 lead at the first intermission.  I missed the blowout lead we had against Chicago (that ended 6-5) under the exact same personal circumstances — I should consider missing the first period all the time.

I know there are people out there who are sad the Oilers diminished their draft lottery hopes, but I could sincerely care less.  How can you not be happy with this win?  They’ll still pick in the top 8 of the draft, and hey, they may have taken the Wild’s season down with them.  Wicked!  And to top it all off, the Flames lost in Chicago tonight, meaning the Oilers will finish ahead of them for the first time since 2003 and the pre-Sutter era.  This night literally has it all!  I’m going to crack a bottle of champagne over here!

And let’s give Khabibulin some kudos — unless Dubnyk gets murdered in net tomorrow against the Dys, this will likely be his last game as an Oiler.  But his numbers really aren’t that embarrassing this year: he has a 0.923 SV% in 12 GP, still ahead of Dubnyk’s 0.920.  Bringing him back next season as a backup for big dollars would be asinine, sure, but what if they could sign him for under $1M?  Would you do it?  It’s not like we’re dripping with quality goaltending prospects, and I am terrified at what they’d trade away for somebody like Bernier.  Shudder.

Yeah so it was a terrible game possession-wise.  The Oilers finished -29 as a team, which was their third lowest total of the year (behind games vs the Kings and Hawks).  I wonder if somebody’s looked at when score effects start to wear off, but I’d imagine they would start to diminish during a blowout.  This was a bit of a different game though — the Wild were fighting until the end to try to get something going with the playoffs on the line, and they seemed right pissed at Taylor Hall for his righteous knee of Clutterbuck earlier this year.  Haha, cute.

Jeff Petry set a team record-low Corsi total with -22, eclipsing the -21 record set by Ladi Smid last week vs the Ducks.  We’ll see who did the damage in a second, but it’s important to note that Petry had a 32% Corsi percentage tonight vs Smid’s 18% that night.  The difference was the vast bulk of shots seen tonight evening out the percentages.  Here’s a fun stat: Petry was on the ice for 41 shot attempts against tonight.  The closest I can find to that is 29 attempts against that Petry had in a game vs the Stars this year.  Those 41 attempts represent 62% of all the attempts the Wild had tonight.  But he was +5, so I guess my narrative here is a little confused.  Still, fun facts.

Even with the goal outbursts, we can’t really say the Oilers dominated play here tonight — they buried their chances and got lucky with some bunk goaltending early in the 1st.  Hall’s line posted some goals but they were handily outplayed by Parise and co in terms of possession.

Jonas Brodin may be the trendy candidate for Calder, but take heart that Jordan Eberle defended Yak’s honour by curb-stomping him to a +7 (Yak was -7 against him *pull collar*).  Side note: I’m not sure I enjoy anyone scoring more than Yakupov.  Even through the Biblical tankjob he’s managed to keep trying his ass off and entertaining the hell out of me.  Yak City.

Remember the red square of fail earlier this year?  That was only 3×3 cells large — this is 4 by 4 in the top left, and almost all are below -10!  Gotta thank Petry/Hall/Smid/Horcoff for this kind of happenstance.

There’s really no point in analyzing this game.  We feel good, we know it was pretty damned lucky, and we don’t care.  This season will be done in 24 hours, after which we can really start sinking our teeth into this year’s data.

This season is well past the point of mattering in any sense beyond getting to cheer when Yakupov does something awesome, and the game tonight certainly went a long ways to prove it.  There were a ton of exciting, offensive chances, but a large majority of those were caused by the Oilers essentially having no clue how to defend against another NHL team.  The mistakes are frequent and mystifying in their repetition: bad pinches, losing guys in the slot, lazy backchecks, bad turnovers in their own zone, and a defensive system that discourages wingers from moving.  Against the Hawks this kind of stuff ends in predictable results — losses.

The game ended 4-1, but one of those goals was scored in empty net time.  The Hawks led strength shot attempts 46-35 for the game with increasing margins in the second and third periods.  There’s really nothing for these teams to play for at all, but after having gone 1-47 in their last 10 games you’d expect the Oilers to at least attempt to play a competent game.  8 shot attempts in the second has to be near a season low.

TSN’s coverage was accentuated by an intermission panel with Dreger who suggested the Oilers first priority is goaltending.  Now, I know these guys are all about watching the games and less about analyzing what’s actually occurred, but I’m not sure how you can be watching these games and think that Devan Dubnyk is a problem.  He must have faced 5 breakaways tonight, a two on nothing, a three on nothing, 4 two on ones, along with a ton of terrible defensive play that no other goalie in the league has to deal with.

Can you say anyone had a good game tonight? I know Fistric and Potter had some decent marks here, but even they were suspect on some brutal chances against.  Hall managed to end in the positives along with Gagner, but both were -3 in traditional plus/minus tonight.  It may be related to the rigours of Krueger’s defensive scheme, but Gagner is just not a player that is worth $5M+ in cap space right now.  His favourable percentages from earlier this year are all regressing just in time to mar his counting stats.  That’s a good thing for the Oilers in negotiation, but for me I seem to be losing confidence in him with each passing game.  The 3-1 goal tonight just perfectly encapsulated it — he lost a battle in the offensive zone, then skated about as slow as you possibly can without falling over like a baby duck on his backcheck, just crossing his own blueline as the puck went in the net.  He coasted the entire length of the ice, and according to Krueger’s system, he’s supposed to be the key defensive cog as centreman.  Having a crappy system is one thing, but if this is the case, how does Krueger not reproach his players for not executing that system?

Fistric had a penalty in the first period that perfectly typified his season — a totally obvious boarding call (called an elbow by the scorekeepers).   This came right after the Oilers had just finished killing a previous penalty.  How has the coach not tutored this ridiculous head hunting out of his game by now?  It’s pretty simple — you go after a hit that takes you out of a play or into a penalty box, and you should be sitting in the pressbox.  Done *wipes hands*.  Do they notice this stuff? Do they like it?

The Oilers did a good job of containing Toews’ line tonight, especially when Taylor Hall was on the ice (+5 against Toews).  The real issues came with Pat Kane on the ice, as the Schultz’ were -12 and -11 against him tonight.

Ryan Jones and Mark Fistric should be on the ice together ALL the time, they were +10 tonight!!!

Yeah I’m trying to amuse myself.

In previous installments in this series I’ve broken down the history of team PDO and team save percentages — today I will concentrate on team shooting percentages.  We’ve seen evidence suggesting that PDO is not just a random walk through peaks and valleys, it can be sustained in a fashion more than probability would allow.  We’ve also seen that team save percentages are a large culprit for this behaviour — employing a good goalie is not something that should be attributed to luck.  But what about team shooting percentages?  I’ll treat this topic to the exact investigation I explored with the others.

To begin, I translated each team’s team 5 on 5 shooting percentage for each season since 2007-2008 into normal cumulative distribution scores between 0 and 1.  0.5 represents the mean, while one standard deviation below and above the mean would occur between 0.16 and 0.84, etc.  Above 0.5 means you’re above league average, and below 0.5 means you’re below league average.

I’ve sorted the teams based on their 6-season average, with the top shooting team at the top, the Pittsburgh Penguins, and the offensively challenged San Jose Sharks at the bottom (wait, what?).  Right away, you can see that a fair amount of teams are tending towards our long-run expectation of 0.50.  To see this phenomenon in more detail, have a look at the 6-season averages in a chart:

You can see that many teams are now within the arbitrary yellow band within +/- 10% of 0.50 — in all, 16 out of 30 teams are inside the yellow band, while 7 more are just outside of it.  This suggests that compared to PDO or team save percentage, team shooting percentage does exhibit a much stronger gravitational pull towards the expected long-run mean of 0.50.  Here’s a table of the top and bottom 5 teams:

Here we see that the top and bottom teams in shooting percentage are closer to 0.50 than the similarly-placed teams in save percentage.  There are some teams that likely could have been predicted on the best list — Pittsburgh has the benefit of the top two players of their generation playing on the same team, Chicago has elite offensive talent at all positions, Tampa Bay has Stamkos — but there is also a team like Dallas that’s somehow maintained a high degree of accuracy over the last 6 years.  It is telling that the 5th best team here is only 2.2% away from being in the yellow band in the graph above.  Tampa is only one down year away from their average being very close to 0.5.

The bottom 5 teams have teams I would have bet on being there beforehand, such as the Islanders and the Panthers, but also includes teams like San Jose and the Rangers, who’ve consistently employed some of the best offensive players in the league over this 6-year timeframe.  This fact should start to raise questions of how a team which has employed Jaromir Jagr, Marian Gaborik, Brad Richards, and Brian Boyle could be considered a poor shooting percentage team over the long term.  At least to me, it feels like there’s some randomness here.

But how much randomness?  In my first post I created a probability tree that estimated what the expected probabilities were for a team to have 1 above average season and 5 below average seasons out of 6, or 2 above average and 4 below average, etc.  The rationale is that if this was truly random, you have a 50% chance being either above or below average — it’s a true coin flip.  The next step is to compare reality to theory — what percentage of teams performed as expected?

The behaviour seen in previous installments in this series are totally absent — this data definitely shows adherence to our expected probabilities, and even a bit of a central tendency:

If this data were random, we’d expect 31.3% of teams to have 3 above and 3 below average shooting percentage seasons.  In reality, 36.7% of teams displayed such a strong central tendency.  In terms of the far extremes of this graph that were so well populated in save percentages, we see that the actual % of teams tracks very well to the expected % of teams.  To me, this suggests that team shooting percentages are randomized over the long-term.

Let’s test this using frequentist methods: I set up a regression model where I used one year’s shooting percentage for a team to predict that team’s following year’s shooting percentage.  If this was not random, we’d see a statistically significant correlation between the two (a high shooting team tending to shoot high the next year, suggesting one year could be predictive of the other).  In fact, I found the opposite.  The two have a r-squared correlation of 0.003, meaning very little influence.  The p-value for the prior year’s shooting percentage coefficient was 0.51, well above the <0.05 I’d need to reject the null hypothesis.  Therefore, this is not a statistically significant relationship, and we can say that one year’s shooting percentage has no predictive power in determining next year’s for any given team.

Now I know some people will point to the team that has 6 straight years of above average shooting percentage (Dallas) and say: “if it’s random, then how is this possible?”.  The answer is that chance allows for such a team to maintain such results over such a long period of time.  Only 1 out of 30 teams has managed to maintain 6 straight years of above or below average results.  It’s a rare event for sure, but it is expected.

This has implications for how we view luck and PDO in general.  Team shooting percentages are seemingly random, and we should expect those to regress to league average over the long term.  But we’ve also seen that team save percentages are not random, and can be sustained at high or low levels.  Expecting PDO (a combination of the two) to regress to league average, therefore, is misguided.  A new method needs to be fashioned  to properly gauge how ‘lucky’ a team is.  I’ll take a crack at that in the next part of my series.

Here are tonight’s game stats.  I had this game on in the background while having company over, and I won’t be watching the PVR recording.  Doesn’t this year feel like 2007 post-Smyth trade?  This team has been horrific since the trade deadline, but thankfully, it’ll all be over soon.