There was a point when I was like those many curmudgeon old sports columnists who looked down on complex statistics. Thankfully, though, there have been enough great stat blogs to finally teach me my lesson: some stats just don't tell you as much as you might originally think.
(Click to enlarge)
So those of you who hate simple arithmetic, you're welcome. The real reason I thought to do this, though, was to take a look at special teams numbers.
It's always bothered me that such an emphasis has been made on Power Play and Penalty Kill percentages but who gives a rat's ass about that? To me, PP effectiveness has always been about a) sheer quantity of goals and b) timeliness. There's no doubt in my mind that I'd take a powerplay that scored 2 out of 10 than one that scored 1 out of 4.
I'm aware that is an overly-simplistic criticism, but work with me here.
To take a more "big picture" look at special teams, I think it is also important to compare teams' PP and PK together. If your team can eek out a substantial amount of PP goals while keeping PK goals under control, you'll have a major advantage while attempting to make the playoffs.
So, I've come up with (OK, I bet someone else has done this too since it's super-simple) "Special Teams Plus-Minus."
The formula's almost as simple as "Net Goals"
PP Goals Scored + SH Goals Scored - PP Goals Allowed + SH Goals Allowed* = Special Teams Plus-Minus.**
* Just realized I didn't include SHG allowed but I'll do it next time. Promise!
** - However, if I've come up with something stupidly original feel free to call it a Jimbo Score. :)
5 comments:
I refuse to look at the spreadsheet.
XD @ the tags for this post
It's always bothered me that such an emphasis has been made on Power Play and Penalty Kill percentages but who gives a rat's ass about that? To me, PP effectiveness has always been about a) sheer quantity of goals and b) timeliness. There's no doubt in my mind that I'd take a powerplay that scored 2 out of 10 than one that scored 1 out of 4.
Uhhhhhh wut?
You'd prefer a 2/10 powerplay, as opposed to a 2.5/10 powerplay? Where were you when they were explaining fractions in school dude? Thats why rate statistics > raw numbers, almost every time. The only problem with PP% as a stat is that they count shortened PP's. Mickey Redmond once suggested something when I was kid about tracking it based on PPG/PPmins, in a game where the Wings had a bunch of abbreviated power plays. I always thought that would be a good idea.
I prefer 2 out of 9 over 1 out of 4 in a single game. My point was that I'd rather look at total season PPG instead of total season PP percentage.
I can see why you would get confused with the wording but that's what I meant.
To expand on that idea, a team might also create more powerplay opportunities, which might water down their percentages.
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