Sunday, February 25, 2007

Hockey headgear needs a revolution

With all the talk lately over hitting to the head and it’s legality, the NHL is in a bit of a quandary. It is indeed a rough – and sometimes even violent – game but taking hitting out of it would be a step backwards, both for the players and the fans.

But at the same time, players are getting hurt, often seriously. In a game on Feb. 21, Sabres forward Tim Connolly was forced to leave after taking a hit to the head against the Senators – he’s now on the injured reserve. Calgary defenceman Richie Regehr has been out since December 28th with “concussion like symptoms”. Just by looking through the NHL injury report on tsn.ca, there are 11 players listed as suffering from them.

And the NHL is going to have to do something about it.

But what can the league do about it? You can’t outlaw hitting in a game that’s often fast and violent. You can’t police what is and what isn’t a headshot because it’s often impossible to separate what is and isn’t an intentional hit to the head.

So what can the league do?

One would be to enforce rules already in place, and perhaps bolster them with more rules.

Players are already required to wear helmets and have been since 1979. But there are no rules regarding their chinstraps. When players take a big hit, like Connolly did against Ottawa, and have not fastened their strap, their helmet is very likely to pop off – just like Connolly’s did, leaving his head to hit the ice.

If there was a rule in place that forced players to wear their straps up, it is not hard to see head-related injuries go down, if only because their helmets will be hitting the ice, not their head. The NFL has adopted a rule like this – in that league, all players have to have their straps buckled at the snap.

It’s not a rule that would be hard to enforce – all a referee would have to do is look around before a face-off at the players.

Another change should be to the helmets worn by players. Yes, the ones worn now are better then ones worn in years past and are better then nothing at all but they could be a lot better.

A couple years back, Riddell introduced their line of Revolution football helmets. By making a few changes to the average football helmet – such as “form-fitting” padding and extending it to cover the chin – they can cut the risk of a hit giving a player a concussion.

Why can’t somebody make a helmet like this for the NHL? There is no helmet on the market today that has anything similar to the Riddell Revolution helmet for hockey – although Riddell does make a Revolution model for lacrosse. Why can’t they adapt one for hockey use?

Essentially, it would be an impossible task to rid the NHL of concussions and still have the game resembling anything that is interesting (after all, how many people watch professional ringette?) to fans.

However, it would be easy for the NHL to greatly reduce the risk players would face if they just force players to strap their helmets and if they look into better designed helmets.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Who's more valuable to their team? A quick look at Hockey Sabermetrics

This morning I was wondering which player is more valuable to his team: The player whose point total is through the roof? The player who scores the most goals? Or is it the player who has the highest +/- rating?

And thanks to a book I just picked up, I might have the answer.

In a seminal – and, for some reason, out of print – book on hockey and hockey statistics called “The Klein and Reif hockey compendium”, the authors Klein and Reif use a fairly simple method to get a players “true” +/- rating.

The main problem with counting goals or points is that it just measures the offensive output of a player – it says nothing of his two-way play. Goals for are just as, if not less, important as goals against are.

So the stat of Plus/Minus should be good, right?

But it’s not – it’s a good indicator, like using OPS for baseball, but it means almost nothing. A good player on a bad team can have a plus/minus in the toilet – and a bad player on a good team can have a great +/-.

So this is where Team Adjusted +/- (TA+/-) comes into play – it takes all goals scored (and goals scored against) by the team and filters out power-play goals, giving you what the team’s plus minus is. The formula is fairly simple: Team even-strength/shorthanded goals (Goals for – PPG) minus the even-strength goals for (total allowed minus PPG allowed).

Then, to get a player average, you divide by five (five skaters per side, right?)

So what does this mean? It’s easy – it shows what the average player on that team would have for a plus/minus. This, in effect, allows you adjust any player’s +/- so you can compare them equally.

All you have to do is subtract the player’s +/- from the TA+/- to get their adjusted +/- (PA+/-).

And there you go – an equal way to compare hockey player’s +/- without worrying about their team’s overall quality.

So how does this mean anything to anybody?

Let’s say I wanted to solve the question I posed above – which kind of player is better to their team? Would it be the point leader (Sidney Crosby, with 83 points)? Would be the goal leader (Vincent Lecavalier, with 35 goals)? Or would be it the regular +/- leader (Nicklas Lindstrom, with a +36 rating)?

Let’s work with the numbers, then. Here are the goals for each team.



Conversely, here’s what their goals against look like - Remember, the numbers go Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay and Detroit
Goals Allowed: 116 172 137
PP goals allowed:58 49 50
Even Strength Allowed Goals: 108 123 87

Now, here’s each teams adjusted +/- rating:
Even Strength Goals: 119 117 129
Even Strength Allowed Goals: 108 123 87
Adjusted Team +/- rating (AT+/-): +11 -6 +42

Now, remembering to divide by five, so we get a player average:
Raw AT+/-: +11 -6 +42
Average Adjusted Player +/- :+2.2 -1.2 8.4

So the average adjusted player +/- for Pittsburgh is 2, for Tampa Bay it's -1 and for Detroit it's +8.

So what does this mean? Simple: That’s the average +/- for any player on that team. We now can use that to adjust the raw +/- for any player. So, to go back to our original three players, we can just check their numbers by subtracting the average from their +/-:

So here, the numbers go: Sidney Crosby, Vincent Lecavalier and Nicklas Lindstrom
Regular +/-: +13 +6 +36
Average Adjusted Player: +/- +2 -1 +8
Player Adjusted +/-: +11 +7 +28

So, by looking at this – by seeing how much better a player is then his team’s average +/- and how important they are to the team - we can see three things: Crosby’s two-way play is a little overrated, Lecavalier’s two-way is a little underrated and Lindstrom, while playing on a team that inflates his +/- by a considerable margin, is still really good.

So there you go – Yes, Lindstrom is the most valuable of the three, since his two-way play (or perhaps just his defense skill) worth about 28 more points then the average player on Detroit.

Once again, thanks to the team of Klein and Reif for their formula here. It's a bit of a shame that they're not doing this anymore.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Tell your QB rating to shut up, Rex

It’s a Friday night, the Super Bowl is something like 72 hours away and I still cannot make up my mind about who is going to win. Will Payton Manning find a way past maybe the best defence in the NFL? Will the Colts find a way to shut down another great team with a great tandem of halfbacks?

More importantly – will Rex Grossman find a way to shut up his critics?

He enters this 41st Super Bowl game as maybe the most criticized starting quarterback since Joe Nameth. He has been chided on all sides for his inconstant play all season lone – from his infamous game against the Vikings on week 13 (1.3 QB rating, 31 completion percentage, 34 yards passing) to a brilliant game against the Giants on week 10 (3 TD, 246 yards, 105.7 rating).

Yes, he’s not the best QB in the league (not even close, I’ll admit). His play in the playoffs has been, well, spotty – two touchdowns in two games, only competing half of his passes, etc). But you know what? I believe in him.

And why shouldn’t I believe in him? It’s not a matter of him being good or bad – that doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to be good to win games – just like he’s proven all year long. He has been exceptionally good this season and he’s been exceptionally bad this season – and still, the Bears won 13 games in the regular season and two more in the playoffs. Sure, he’s not as good as Payton Manning – but when his team is as good as it is, he doesn’t need to be (although, imagine if he was – what a team that would be, eh?).

Right now, Chicago is leading all teams in rushing yards per game (158) and points per game (33). While Indianapolis does have a good rush defence, they also allowed a big rushing day against New England – a team who’s running game is nowhere near as good as Chicago’s. Despite having a big advantage, statistically, over New England (they held the ball for more five more minutes, had almost twice as many first downs and had over 100 more yards offensively) they just squeaked out a win.

And that was against a team that finished the season tied with them (12-4) and scored almost 100 points less then them (New England scored 385 points, Indianapolis 427).

The Bears won more games (13-3), scored just as many points (427) and allowed more then 100 points less against them (255) then the Colts – clearly they’re just as good, if not better… So why are they seven point underdogs to a team that just barely beat New England?

I have no idea.

And that’s why I’m taking the Bears to win Super Bowl XLI.