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Three Cheers for Cause and Effect*

Tyler at Mudcrutch posted this research in response to ongoing concerns within the Edmonton Oilers internet community that Shawn Horcoff has not produced much offense at even-strength this season. Tyler’s basic point is that he’s still getting his shots and, perhaps more importantly, the Oilers are outshooting the opposition when Horcoff is on at evens. Horcoff at the time had scored 1 goal in 37 even-strength shot attempts, so Tyler ran some sort of programming script, I imagine, from some sort of master set of data he seems to have and looked at every other 1-for-37 streak an NHL player had last season. Not surprisingly, there were a bunch. Also not surprisingly, those players started to put the puck in the net coming out of their 1-for-37 droughts. Streaks in hockey, and anything else where there’s a certain amount of randomness involved, exist. And then they end. When an average player in the NHL, where the shooting percentage is around 8%, goes 1-for-37, the odds are he’s going to do better in his next 37. Horcoff scored an even strength marker later that night, almost proving Tyler’s point res ipsa loquitur.

What I’m more interested in here is why some players seem to have “off” years, that is, where previously established scoring rates are significantly reduced for a prolonged streak that lasts an entire season, and how can we predict whether or not such an off year will occur. To the extent Tyler is saying, “Horcoff is fine, he’s getting the same number if not more shots than last season, it’s only a matter a time before his prior scoring rate returns,” I think it’s useful to look at some players who have recently had these off years and examine what drove those results, particularly in terms of shooting percentage and shooting rate. (I’ll note that I don’t think Tyler is necessarily making the quote I attribute to him, but I do think it’s a pretty quick logical jump from what he is saying).

I identified 12 players who saw their goal scoring rates drop significantly from 2006-07 to 2007-08. At least computationally, there are two measures that can affect a player’s goal scoring rate, their shot rate – how many shots they are getting over time – and their shooting percentage – how often their shots score. I looked at these two drivers for the 12 players. Ideally, I would have broken this all down to even-strength and power play situations, but as I couldn’t find any stats from 20006-07 that separated shots into even-strength or power-play situations, we’re left with only looking for total goal scoring rates and total shooting rates. As long as these players’ saw the same relative time at evens vs. the power play, it shouldn’t create too many problems, certainly not enough to muddle what I think are fairly clear results.



TotG equals the goals per 60 min of total ice time (all rates are per 60 min of total ice time). The preponderance of sub-.70 Ratio TotG signifies that there were some significant scoring rate drops in this group. The final two columns, decline in shooting percentage and shooting rate, are the independent variables I looked at separately as possible causes of the decreases in scoring rate. And the R-squared values (where the scoring rate is the dependent variable) show a pretty decent correlation between shooting percentage and scoring rate, while the correlation between shooting rate and scoring is basically non-existent. Within this small sample size, getting shots was in no way a harbinger of scoring success. While I don’t think this necessarily means you want to be not getting any shots at all rather than getting them and misfiring, it does make me think that Horcoff isn’t necessarily out of the woods just because he's getting shots. There are numerous reasons why a good player would have a bad year (injury, change in linemates, being used in different situations, confidence, loss of ability), but I think it’s certainly possible, and these numbers reflect it, that a bad scoring year will show up only as a function of shooting percentage and not shooting rate. I think this makes intuitive sense as well: if a player is struggling, he could start to get the puck off too quick, not having the patience or confidence to make an extra move or to wait the extra moment to get in a better position, he could be floating around the periphery taking shots that he merely hopes find a way. Time will tell if Horcoff matches his impressive scoring rate from last year, and I don’t think there’s any doubt it will improve dramatically from what it is now, but his numbers (probably explained mostly by bad luck and not playing with Hemsky) are nonetheless not inconsistent with predicting a down year.

* The title of a fictional feature film of James Incandenza in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

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Tomorrow this country will elect its first Muslim, socialist President. This kid is stoked.

Professional scouting within the NHL, terrible or just inadequate?

The little I know of Washington Capitals head coach Bruce Boudreau suggests he’s a pretty good guy and a pretty good coach. A career minor leaguer as both a player and bench boss, he came up to the bigs mid-year last fall and turned around the Caps’ season, making a bunch of good decisions and few poor ones to do so. He was rewarded with Coach of the Year honors and some well-deserved attention. He loves to talk and often has something interesting or funny or both to say about the game and his team. With the Capitals rarely venturing out in Western Canada, giving those folks few opportunities to see Alex Ovechkin in the flesh, Boudreau had a what I imagine was an extended interview session with a swarm of press before last night’s game against the Calgary Flames. The topic of Ovechkin vs. Flames’ rearguard Dion Phaneuf came up (the two play similarly punishing styles and have a history against each other, with Ovechkin famously leveling Phaneuf twice on one shift the last time they met in the NHL). Boudreau said something so unbelievably right-sounding but so unbelievably wrong that I was left shaking my head in disgust and bewilderment:

"I can guarantee they're going to put Phaneuf out on the ice every time Alex is out there," Boudreau said. "We just have to see how that works out. That's what makes Alex, Alex. I don't want to change him."

Anyone who has been paying even a modicum attention to the Calgary Flames for over the past year (which I would hope includes the subset of people who coach a hockey team that is less than 8-hours from playing said Calgary Flames) should know that Phaneuf is not charged with the task of playing against the opponent’s top-line. That task goes to Robyn Regehr and his partner, Cory Sarich. Yes, Phanuef’s quality of competition has improved since he entered the league and he no longer gets third-pair minutes and assignments, but it is clear and incontestable that Regehr is the first choice to play against the other team’s star offensive players. Shouldn’t Bruce Boudreau know that? If the Caps are playing the Flames, shouldn’t at least someone in the Caps’ professional scouting department tell the head coach who Ovechkin is going to face?

Sure enough, Ovechkin did not see much of Phaneuf at even-strength, despite Boudreau’s uninformed prediction. The two were on the ice for only 2.6 of Ovechkin’s 12.7 ES minutes. Ovechkin saw more of 4 other Flames defenseman (Sarich, Regehr, Vendermeer, and Acoin) than Phaneuf. Why aren’t teams spending the 10-minutes it takes to have this information before games? And why is Boudreau making garauntees regarding subjects he clearly knows nothing about? This increases my worry that Nylander will not be getting back with Semin or on the first PP anytime soon.

photo 7 for real

Don't doublecross this guy, don't even think it. A prize for whoever can tell me what kind of bird this is. And don't just say the kind with the evil eye.

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This certainly gives new meaning to the idea of The Lizard King.

Alexei Cherepanov R.I.P.

Shocking tragedy struck today as one of hockey’s brightest future stars, Alexei Cherepanov, died during a KHL game in an inglorious and spartan rink in the Moscow suburb of Chekhov. Cherepanov collapsed on the bench late in the third period and went into cardiac arrest. He reportedly lost and regained consciousness numerous times while being tried to be revived and waiting for an ambulance, normally at the arena but for some reason having left the game early, to take him to the hospital. Attempts to resuscitate at a hospital were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at 10:55 pm local time. Cherepanov was 19-years old.

Cherepanov burst onto the international stage at the 2007 World Junior Championships, the preeminent junior-aged tournament, featuring future NHL and international stars. Though primarily a tournament for 19-year olds, Cherepanov led the tournament in scoring and was named the best forward by the IIHF. He was 17-years old. He went on to break the scoring record for first-year players in the Russian Super League that season, besting the rookie seasons of current and former Russian NHL superstars like Ovechkin, Malkin, Kovalchuk, Bure, and Fedorov. He was taken in the first-round of the following NHL draft by the New York Rangers, slipping all the way to 17th (largely due to the uncertainty of his moving to North America in the absence of a transfer agreement between Russia and the NHL) despite being considered among the most talented players in the draft. Following an unspectacular sophomore season in the RSL, Cherepanov began this season playing the best of hockey of his career; he was among the league leaders in scoring and had recently produced the longest consecutive points scoring streak in the league this season (at 9 games, he was finally shut out in the penultimate game of his life). He scored earlier in the game today and was by all accounts playing exceptional hockey. The day before his death saw Cherepanov realize a longtime dream: he was named to the Russian National Team.

I had only seen a handful or so of his games, between two World Junior Championships and some KHL games this season, but it was obvious to me that this was a special player. He had the raw skills necessary, but not merely sufficient, to score prodigiously: a phenomenally powerful shot, slick hands and all the dangles, and the speed to get to get to the puck and away from defenders. But perhaps most dangerously, and most required of true snipers, he had the knack to find the puck, fill the open spaces, and the goal scorer’s will and determination to go the net and finish, often with the panache and style reserved only for the greats. And the joy that both follows from and creates all that. Patrick Kane and Kyle Turris (two players selected before him in his draft) will be great NHL players for many years to come, but I think Cherepanov would have become the better hockey player and the more electric scorer. Of course we'll never know. He may not have been the once-in-a-generation-or-two talent that Ovechkin and Malkin are, but Cherapanov was a special, special hockey player that would have tantalized hockey fans for years and years to come.

Beyond my friends and family, many of my greatest joys come from hockey. And more than cheering for any specific team or outcome, I love watching great players do what they do, dance, create, work, think, feel, spin, move, compete, battle, and ultimately, play a great game. Cherepanov was one of those players who made it easy to spot the joy in his game and who brought the same out in me. Whether it was absolutely wiring the puck off one-timers that went screaming over the net, or finding the puck in his feet and flicking a backhander to the top shelf, Cherepanov played the game in the way that I fell in love with it in the beginning. I am really going to miss all the good times I would have had watching him play in the NHL and beyond. I am deeply saddened by his loss and all of ours.

The circumstances surrounding his death are troubling to say the least. The game was played in a tiny arena 40-miles outside of Moscow. The ambulance that should have been there was not and arrived 15 minutes after Cherepanov went into cardiac arrest. There is a video out there (I will not post here because of just how mind-numbingly sad it is) that shows Cherepanov receiving what looks to be very confused and disorganized medical attention on the bench. Players are looking over him while trainers who do not appear to be doctors look down at him, then up, then around, then back down. There was no stretcher to take him off the bench, rather a group of players carry him into a tunnel with his legs up and in the air and skates dangling limp. It’s a gut-wrenching scene. There are questions as to whether the defibrillators at the scene were working properly. Just outside a city that boasts more millionaires than any other in the world, a 19-year old (a millionaire in his own right) kid’s heart stopped and started several times as he went in and out of consciousness and struggled to live. Was there really nothing anyone could do to save him? Would those 15-minutes have made a difference? Could it really just end like this?

Laurie from Beyond the Blueshirts has done an excellent job in keeping up with Cherepanov's exploits this season, has a translation of Cherepanov's first and last blog entry written last week.

Rest in peace, young Alexei. My thoughts and prayers are with your family, friends and teammates.

UPDATE: A nice look-back on the ways in which Cherepanov was misunderstood as a player and a person by Gare Joyce. We'll never know just how much we lost yesterday.

UPDATE II: NY Times' Slapshot blog has the translation of a very vivid and unbearably sad account of the events from Russian journalists at the game.