Are the NY Rangers a One-Trick Pony?

Bennett/Getty (NY Daily News)

In a word, YES. One third of the way through the season, the New York Rangers find themselves 10th in the Eastern Conference, with a record of 13-13-1. They're scoring a respectable 2.89 goals/game (tied with Edmonton for 13th in the NHL), but giving up a disturbing 3.11 goals/game (24th). The Blueshirts' bloated GAA can be traced in part to backup goalie Stephen Valiquette, who has a save pct. of .852 and a GAA of 3.74 in six appearances this season. Valiquette was waived Wednesday, and will try to rediscover his game in Hartford if he clears waivers. New York's biggest problem, however, lies at the other end of the ice.

Off-season acquisition Marian Gaborik has been both outstanding and (mostly) healthy so far this season, and he's the reason the Rangers are at .500 today. Gaby has 21-16-37 in 25 games. How huge is that? Without Gaborik's 21 goals, the Rangers would be averaging a pitiful 2.19 G/gm - good for 29th in the league (and just .01 ahead of Carolina). Gaborik is not the problem: Almost every other Ranger forward is.

While Gaborik is on pace to score 67 goals this season, no other Blueshirt is projected to score more than 19. In fact, after Ales Kotalik (projected goals: 19) and Vinny Prospal (p.g.: 18), the scoring pace for Ranger forwards drops deep into the numbers expected of 3rd or 4th line skaters: Anisimov - 15, Avery - 14, Callahan - 12, Dubinsky - 12, Lisin - 10, Drury - 7 (that's SEVEN (projected) GOALS for a guy who's never scored less than 18 in a season), and Chris Higgins, who has three 20+ goal campaigns under his belt, and who is projected to score a pitiful 6 goals in 2009-10.

The list above contains five proven 20+ goal scorers, and three potential 20+ men. Right now, NONE of them are on pace for 20 goals. In fact, the only player on that list who seems to be playing up to his statistical potential is Sean Avery, who is on pace for 14-24-38 - one goal short of his career best season.

Part of the reason the Rangers aren't scoring is because they're not putting pucks on net: With an average of 29.0 shots/game, New York is tied with Phoenix for 22nd in the NHL. Beyond the low number of shots, shot quality seems to be an issue, as well - just compare New York (29.0 S/gm, 2.89 G/gm) to Atlanta (28.8 S/gm, 3.46 G/gm). The Thrashers are shooting less, but scoring more. Both the reason behind Atlanta's success and the solution to New York's goal scoring woes lies in a quote from the immortal Herb Brooks (as Tweeted by @MikeMcKenzie11 earlier this week):

"If you want money, go to the bank. If you want bread, go to the bakery. If you want goals, go to the net."

The Rangers need to find their inner Pat Verbeek. 'Beeker understood that so-called "garbage" goals count the same as the highlight-reel variety, and was willing to pay the price to get in close, screen the goalie, and send those rebounds to their rightful home. Sean Avery understands, and so does Ryan Callahan...but the understanding seems to stop there. The Blueshirts better figure it out - and fast - because the season is quickly slip slidin' away.



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Maurice Richard and the Myth of 50 in 50 (Part 2) - by Big Tex

In Part One, the two most common arguments used to defend Maurice “Rocket” Richard’s feat of scoring 50 goals in 50 games were exposed as myths. In the process of researching that article, however, I discovered a surprising truth in Richard’s achievement – a truth which makes his 50 in 50 even more unique than previously thought. In order to explain the uniqueness of the Rocket’s 50 in 50, I had to develop a new quantitative concept: Statistical Supremacy.

The name is based on the military concept of Air Supremacy, which is defined as “…the complete dominance in the air power of one side’s air forces over the other side’s during a military campaign.” (h/t Wikipedia). One step below Air Supremacy would be Air Superiority, which is simply one side having an advantage over their opponent.

As applied to hockey, Statistical Supremacy would be “the complete dominance of a given statistical category by an individual or (in the case of team stats) team.” After studying goal-scoring stats over the entire history of the NHL, I determined that “complete dominance” is achieved by scoring a minimum of 50% more goals than the nearest competitor. Statistical Superiority, by comparison, would be achieved by scoring a minimum of one more goal than the nearest competitor. The value of Statistical Supremacy lies in its’ utility: Length of season or high scoring vs. low scoring era are irrelevant. All that is measured is complete dominance of a given statistical category for one particular season.

In the 1944-45 season, Maurice Richard not only became the first player in NHL history to score 50 goals in a season (coincidentally, a 50-game season), but he also became the first player in NHL history to achieve Statistical Supremacy (SS) in Goals, as his nearest competition – Boston’s Herb Cain– only scored 32. Despite a league average of 7.35 Goals/Game that season, despite the fact that 22 of 117 players in the NHL that season (18.8%) scored 20 or more goals, the Rocket still managed to set himself apart from the crowd. Until the 44-45 season, no one – not even Joe Malone, with his 44 goals in 20 games back in 1917-18 – had ever finished the goal-scoring race so far ahead of the pack.

Remarkably, Richard duplicated the feat just two seasons later. In the 1946-47 campaign (now a 60-game schedule, in which the Average G/Gm dropped to 6.32), he finished with 45 goals, trailed by Roy Conacher (DET) and Bobby Bauer (BOS), who each tallied 30. Though the Rocket had many good seasons ahead of him and retired with 544 goals to his credit, he never demonstrated SS over his competitors again.

There were a handful of others, however, beginning with Gordie Howe. Howe’s 1951-52 (47 goals) and 1952-53 (49 goals) seasons were SS. Nine years later, in 1961-62, Bobby Hull’s first 50-goal season was SS. The Golden Jet scored 54 in the 1965-66 season to achieve SS for a second (and final) time.

Believe it or not, Wayne Gretzky only achieved SS once, scoring 87 goals in the 1983-84 campaign. The last time an NHL sniper demonstrated Statistical Supremacy was in the 1990-91 season, when recent Hall of Fame inductee Brett Hull scored 86 as Cam Neely, Theo Fleury and Steve Yzerman tied for 2nd with 51 goals apiece.

When will we see another player achieve Statistical Supremacy over his peers? The last occurrence was almost nineteen years ago. Who among this generation’s best can do it – Ovechkin? Malkin? Kovalchuk? Nash? Gaborik? The NHL today is fortunate to have so many top snipers…but in the beginning, there was just one Rocket…

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The Game-Winning Save UPDATE - by Big Tex

On the first day of the 2009-10 season, I wrote about a theory I’d developed last season and called it the Game-Winning Save (GWS). For those of you who don’t feel up to reading my original post, here’s GWS in a nutshell:

If a team trails by one goal at any point in the 3rd period and takes a shot which hits the post and does not go in the net, that team loses the game every time.

For more about the reasoning behind this, you’ll just have to read the original post. In the meantime, after watching a great many games over the first three weeks of the season, I have some results to report:

GAME 1: (Saturday, 24 OCT) San Jose 4 @ Atlanta 3. Evander Kane scores 40 seconds into the 3rd period to make the score 4-3. 48 seconds later, Rich Peverley hits the post.

GAME 2: (Monday, 26 OCT) Islanders 2 @ Montreal 3 (OT). Montreal leads, 2-1, and with 7:25 remaining in the 3rd, Bruno Gervais hits the post. The Isles score just over three minutes later to tie the game, but Montreal finishes them off in OT.

According to the Accounting Department, that makes two games in which the GWS theory has proven true. It hasn’t been disproven (yet), but there’s always an exception to the rule. If you should happen to see a Game-Winning Save-related event – whether proving or disproving the theory – please let me know, either via email (matt@ongoalanalysis.com) or Tweet (@OGAs_BigTex). Before you go emailing or Tweeting, however, there are a couple of rules to keep in mind:

1. The shot off the post must take place in the 3rd period.
2. At the time of the shot, the shooting team must be trailing by one goal.

Simple, right? So far this season, I’ve only seen the above criteria met in two games. It’s not easy, primarily because shots off the post aren’t normally tracked as a game statistic. What it boils down to, then, is something you have to see with your own eyes, either by watching the game live or in highlights (thank you, NHL Network). I’m going to track this to the best of my ability, but feel free to let me know of any instances you witness of a team either proving or dis-proving the theory. I’ll post more updates as conditions warrant.

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Testing a Theory: Game-Winning Save - by Big Tex

Okay, so the first draft of this blog died a merciful death when I realized that it sounded like I was writing a scholarly piece for The Scientific Journal of Hockey Statistical Analysis for People Who are to Hockey Statistics as Trekkies are to Star Trek. While anyone who has memorized the Corsi Ratings for the entire 2007-2008 Tampa Bay Lightning roster would’ve eaten that stuff up, I felt that a rather large segment of the hockey-loving populace – about 98% (+/- 2 percentage points) – would stop reading as soon as they hit the first references to sample size and game segment subsets. After a failed attempt to crumple up my monitor and throw it in the wastebasket (in retrospect, I should’ve just opened up a new Word .doc), I began again, in a much more reader-friendly format:

Last season, I watched more hockey than ever before (thank you, NHL Center Ice!). As the season progressed, I became aware of a particular trend, which is summarized best by the following statement:

If a team is trailing by one goal at any point in the 3rd period and takes a shot which beats the goalie but rings off the post, that team (the team which hit the post) loses the game…EVERY SINGLE TIME.

In game after game, I saw this scenario play out. Remember Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals? The Penguins’ post came up big in that one. Many a Game-Winning Save was made by an alert goalpost last season…more than I can recall, in fact.

***NOTE: I realize the term, “Game-Winning Save,” is ridiculous, as there’s no such creature. If a goalie stops 24 of 26 shots in a 3-2 win, how can you decide which of his 24 saves was the “GWS”? You can’t. Also, shots which hit the post don’t count as either shots or saves, officially speaking. I’ve decided, however, that GWS is much easier to manage than a Shot Off the Post in a One-Goal Game (SOPOGG), and much more family-friendly than a Post-Interdicted Scoring Shot (PISS)…although the headline, “Heatley takes a PISS in 3rd; Sharks lose to Stars, 4-3” holds a certain appeal…but I digress. Game-Winning Saves they shall be.***

Once I noticed this trend, the three-year-old in me asked the obvious question: Why? Why does hitting a post when down by a goal in the 3rd period guarantee a loss for the shooting team/guarantee a win for the defending team? After much rumination on the subject, I came up with a theory:

A glance at goalie save percentages in the NHL (Chris Osgood excepted) indicates shooters will only beat goalies on about one in ten shots. Factoring in shots off the post reduces goalie save percentages slightly, which improves the shooters’ odds somewhat – say to three in twenty shots. A goalie will only be beaten a finite number of times in a game, so a shot off the post is not merely a save, but a GOAL DENIED…and in a one-goal game, it’s the Game-Winning Save, every time.

This all makes perfect sense to me, but I’ve had all summer to think about it. Starting today – 1 October 09 – I intend to test this theory. All season long, I’m going to keep track of one-goal games I watch in which the trailing team hits a post in the 3rd period. I’ll post the results periodically, or if I can get enough hockey fans to send me the Game-Winning Saves they witness, I’ll find some space on the On Goal Analysis home page to keep a running total. If you’d like to test this theory with me, email me at shotoffthepost@ongoalanalysis.com with the date, teams, final score, and a very brief explanation (if needed), like: 1OCT, VAN 3,CGY 2. 2 posts for CGY. Or, if email is too “20th century” for you, send me a Tweet ( @OGAs_BigTex). And if you should happen to watch a game which proves this theory wrong, I really want to hear about that.

And now, all I can say is…GAME ON, BABY!!!

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