RGI - Index to Measure players Grit and competiveness

[FAN]

I think this is better than using PIM, but how is this different from simply looking at hits and blocked shots, which don't tell the story themselves?

Throwing hits and blocking shots may show grittiness and support one's viewing of a player, but hits stats can be unreliable indicators of grittiness and blocked shot figures are so dependent on penalty killing time and system. You also don't need to be gritty to take away the puck. it seems your index would favor defensemen and forwards who forecheck, kill penalties, and don't handle the puck. Just out of curiosity, how does Patrick Kane's numbers look like for 2011-2012. It would seem like Patrick Kane played a whole lot grittier last season than this past season based on the fact he had slightly more hits, slightly more blocked shots, and a much higher takeaway to giveaway ratio.

And then you have guys like Ryan Smyth, who even in his prime barely threw a hit, didn't block many shots, and had more giveaways than takeaways. Guys like him who are known for their willingness to take punishment in front of the net would be classified as a soft player under your index. An enforcer who is not an adept hitter will also have an average index score.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by kirant

Just for kicks, I modified ricardo's formula and tried it on players who played most of last season (36+ games last season). The formula I used was:

Altered RGI (ARGI) = (Hits + Blocked Shots + Takaways - Giveaways)/(minutes per game)

This takes out the assumptions of minutes played by each player. The results of the calculation can be downloaded on this spreadsheet:

http://rapidshare.com/files/1638440078/ARGI.xls

Take it for what it is...an arbitrarily defined stat.

I also did simple cut offs by minutes played per game on subsequent sheets. The basic stats (average, median, standard deviation) are provided on each sheet.

General notes:
- Apparently it's possible to get a negative score. Ask Kovalchuk
- A score of about 3 to 8 is where the majority of players fall. Above 8 and, by ricardo's system, you'd call them grittier than most. Below 3 and you'd likely be defined as softer.
- The differences in responsibility of defence vs forwards was not considered. I deleted the position column too quickly
- Tim Jackman is way up there, making me question how valid this test really is. Players with lower minutes per game seem to do much better.
- The use of the giveaway/takeaway seems too useless in this scenario. I'm not really sure I'd call Crosby all that soft.

Why would people consider Crosby a gritty player?? He is one hit away from being in the Hockey HOF next season.

Of course he is going to play soft and is a turn over machine, He more than makes up for this by scoring so much. Other players are required to do puck recovery for him. Not that big a deal. Penguin Management recognized that and to load up for the SC run: Douglas Murray, Morrow ... These guys were playing gritty. Iginla who from observation was not playing near as physical as he did in 2004-07 when he became smaller and faster still has the ability to play gritty for short spurts. They were brought in to get the puck back.


Jackman is one of the best players in the league at his role. He is supposed to go out and hit someone every chance he gets and he does this. If he could do this and score 15-20 goals / year he would be making 5M/year.

The Flames , because of the sheer numbers of soft players - Cervenka, Hudler, Cammalleri, Tanguay and Bouwmeester getting huge amounts of ice time just had to have Jackman, Comeau and Begin to try to slow the other team from physically dominating the Flames. (didn't work)

This coming season with Galiardi and David Jones basically replacing Cervenka and Tanguay... the Flames will be far more gritty overall.

I expect that the remaining Soft skilled players --- Hudler, Cammalleri will have better seasons than expected. Baertschi has a chance to meet expectations.

I may have been wrong in my analysis that Gaudreau would not succeed as a Flame. He would have had a miserable time on the 2012-13 team but Feaster is making room for him for next season.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by FAN

I think this is better than using PIM, but how is this different from simply looking at hits and blocked shots, which don't tell the story themselves?

Throwing hits and blocking shots may show grittiness and support one's viewing of a player, but hits stats can be unreliable indicators of grittiness and blocked shot figures are so dependent on penalty killing time and system. You also don't need to be gritty to take away the puck. it seems your index would favor defensemen and forwards who forecheck, kill penalties, and don't handle the puck. Just out of curiosity, how does Patrick Kane's numbers look like for 2011-2012. It would seem like Patrick Kane played a whole lot grittier last season than this past season based on the fact he had slightly more hits, slightly more blocked shots, and a much higher takeaway to giveaway ratio.

And then you have guys like Ryan Smyth, who even in his prime barely threw a hit, didn't block many shots, and had more giveaways than takeaways. Guys like him who are known for their willingness to take punishment in front of the net would be classified as a soft player under your index. An enforcer who is not an adept hitter will also have an average index score.

You make some great points.

Gritty by nature players that are put in a position to block shots on the PK are much the same as softer skilled players who get put on the PP and have inflated point scoring. Iginla does not block shots.... therefore he doesn't kill penalties..... feeds to a lower ARGI score. Point scoring is very very important.......

So is physically controlling the game.....

Pittsburgh had far better scoring stats and Boston was far grittier. Boston 4 Pittsburgh 0. The Leafs are not nearly as talented as Pittsburgh but forced Boston to resort to a miracle on ice finish. Why? The ARGI might provide some insight as to why Toronto was better than Pittsburgh in the playoffs.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by theinfinitejar

You can do all the work you want, but this metric is useless from the word go.

To win hockey games you need score more goals than the other guys, and the best way to do that is to have the puck more than they do. So if you have a metric where "positive" events can only happen when the other team has the puck, how can it possibly be useful at predicting success?

...because what you do when you don't have the puck is just as important or more than what you do with the puck. How many teams with bottom 10 defense win cups?

[Ring of Fire]

Using grit/gm (hits+bks+tka-gva / gp) here are a few player scores:

Crosby 0.72
P. Kane 0.65
Giroux 1.33
J. Staal 2.83
E. Staal 1.73
Bolland 1.88
Toews 1.70
Datsyuk 1.68
M. Richards 1.64
Stoll 3.06
Brown 3.35
Prust 3.03
Bickell 2.77
Nash 1.32
Callahan 5.00
Backes 4.56
Neil 4.58
Lucic 3.00
Marchand 1.20

Pietrangelo 2.63
Polak 3.91
Boychuk 3.52
Chara 2.98
Ference 2.65
Kronwall 2.40
Doughty 3.06
Regehr 3.92
Weber 3.75

Looking at this sample, for forwards, less than 1 is a finesse player (if used in top 6 min), approx 1.5 is a solid 2-way forward strong on the puck, 3 and above is a very physical/gritty player used in lots of defensive situations. For d-men, 3 and above is a physical defender. 2.5-3 is average physically, less than 2 would be non-physical.

For comparison, here are some Flames:
Stempniak 1.53
Backlund 1.59
Stajan 1.95
Cammalleri 0.81
Hudler 0.65
Glencross 1.45
Tanguay 0.95
Iginla 2.06
Baertschi 1.20
Horak 1.90
Jackman 2.71

D.Jones 1.90
Galiardi 1.52

Giordano 3.43
Brodie 1.85
Wideman 2.59
Butler 2.59
Bouwmeester 1.96
Sarich 2.46

O'Brien 2.71
Russell 2.58

[theinfinitejar]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

...because what you do when you don't have the puck is just as important or more than what you do with the puck. How many teams with bottom 10 defense win cups?

Chicago was 23rd in road shot blocks last year and 30th in road hits. Boston was middle of the league for both. Obviously what you do without the puck matters, but the best thing you can do is get it back right away and go back on the attack, not stay in your own end blocking shots and finishing checks.

[thymebalm]

Originally Posted by Justin Azevedo

this is one of the least-needed threads in the history of the internet.

Unnecessary. And you've obviously never heard of 4chan.

takeaways are inherently good, but the situation which leads to them is bad. this is the reason guys like datsyuk and crosby have the most giveaways in the league - it's because they always have the puck on their stick. if a guy has a lot of takeaways, it suggests that most of the time when he's on the ice he's chasing the puck, not possessing it.

This is not true. It's kind of true. sometimes. It was Dion Phaneuf (53) that had the most giveaways this season. Thorton (42) led for forwards. The thing about Datsyuk and Crosby is that they have positive differentials between there GwA and TkA.

This season Jonathan Toews and Datysuk led the league with 56 takeaways. Not players I would define as always "chasing the puck". More like players I would define as "always having the puck on their stick". Toews had just 15 giveaways. So does that mean he must have not had the puck as much?

hits, takeaways, giveaways and blocks are very very subjective. they fluctuate by a huge margin rink to rink as there is no official definition for what constitutes a block, hit, etc.

Yea, but the thing is, every team plays in every building and every team benefits and suffers from how different it is rink to rink. And those are the stats, they are official NHL stats.

And I think everyone here knows exactly what a blocked shot is. It's a pretty solid statistic. The analysts keep very close track and always replay shot blocks. It's really not that subjective.

more pims does not make a player more gritty or better in any way. the only thing penalties accomplish is hurting the team.

PIMS are bad, mmkay. No argument here. No one ever called Rene Bourque gritty because of his penalty minutes.

although i'm sure all of these points will be missed, this horrific, illogical attempt at the evaluation of players necessitated a response.

This is the kicker. First you insult the OP for taking the time to compile and analyse some data for us to mull over in the summer months.

Then you insult the entire populous of the board by assuming no one here is as smart as you to see how flawed his analyst might or might not be.

Then you use bogus data to deflate someones hard work.

Justin, you just lost yourself a reader at Flamesnation. Grow up.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Oilers stats guy has historically given out way more giveaways then league average so the Oilers probably can't ever do well in this stat.

Go to NHL.com and look at old Oilers-Flames games. Ones in Edmonton will usually have 2-3 times the giveaways as the ones in Calgary.

But if more giveaways are awarded in Edmonton, shouldn't Oiler players also benefit from getting more takeaway stats, offsetting the difference?

Or are you suggesting that the statistician is biased against the local boys?

[Vulcan]

No, it really doesn't. It MAY show this IF you perform the same analysis for Glencross over each season of his career, which happens to result in a pattern or trend downwards. Even then, because Glencross's role on the team has changed from when he first joined the Flames, I suspect that your analysis is likely not showing a true relationship between his performance and the outcome of the games.

I don't think this stat is meant to be used as an outcome of the games, it's used to measure grit. Teams need a mixture of both skill and grit and sure Glencross' role has changed so his grit index has probably fallen. This is just one stat of others to judge players usefulness by. Somebody has to go into the corner and feed Crosby the puck.

[theinfinitejar]

I just checked the game reports from the Boston-Pittsburgh series. Pittsburgh out-hit Boston in all 4 games of that series, and it has a pretty good inverse correlation with the score too. The game Boston won 6-1 they got nearly doubled up 37-19.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by theinfinitejar

I just checked the game reports from the Boston-Pittsburgh series. Pittsburgh out-hit Boston in all 4 games of that series, and it has a pretty good inverse correlation with the score too. The game Boston won 6-1 they got nearly doubled up 37-19.

So Boston suckered them in to playing their game.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Oilers stats guy has historically given out way more giveaways then league average so the Oilers probably can't ever do well in this stat.

Go to NHL.com and look at old Oilers-Flames games. Ones in Edmonton will usually have 2-3 times the giveaways as the ones in Calgary.

Sounds scientific to me.

[theinfinitejar]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

So Boston suckered them in to playing their game.

Or maybe, hit totals are useless in determining which team is likely to win.

Also, Pittsburgh hit more than Boston all year, they were second in the league in road hits.

[thymebalm]

Hitting and shooting increase significantly when a team starts trailing.

[theinfinitejar]

Originally Posted by thymebalm

Hitting and shooting increase significantly when a team starts trailing.

That's kind of my point. Hits don't show which team is controlling a game at all. I'm not trying to argue that hitting is a bad idea, just that hits as a stat are a useless number to look at because it doesn't tell you anything useful.

A lot of the same things could be said about blocked shots too.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by theinfinitejar

Or maybe, hit totals are useless in determining which team is likely to win.

Also, Pittsburgh hit more than Boston all year, they were second in the league in road hits.

My hypothesis is that teams can only have so many soft players before they begin to become ineffective.

Chicago was 30th in road hits and total hits..... however they only had 2 players that would fit in the soft category : Kane and Keith.

Sort of a gang mentality .. everyone plays hard and they don't get pushed around. The same works in reverse with so many small soft guys it becomes too hard and courageous for the remaining gang members to stand up on a continuous basis when you can see 5-6 guys never stepping up.....

The soft guys HAVE to justify their role in the gang by being exceptional at what they do good. Cammalleri and Hudler (and Tanguay and Cervenka) have to be 30-40 goal scorers to justify their role in the gang.

Stajan used to be a soft skilled guy but had a much better season 2012-13 when he competed harder and grittier. If he isn't going to kick in 60 pts then at least he is making other contributions.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by theinfinitejar

Or maybe, hit totals are useless in determining which team is likely to win.

Also, Pittsburgh hit more than Boston all year, they were second in the league in road hits.

This is cherry picking, you could probably find the opposite when considering the 11/12 season and the Kings.

[theinfinitejar]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

This is cherry picking, you could probably find the opposite when considering the 11/12 season and the Kings.

The Kings were 4th that year in the regular season, but they were an 8th seed, so it's not like they were dominant all year. The Bruins were 23rd the year they won the cup, so I'm still not seeing any significance between hitting and winning. It seems like you find good and bad teams at both ends of the list.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by theinfinitejar

The Kings were 4th that year in the regular season, but they were an 8th seed, so it's not like they were dominant all year. The Bruins were 23rd the year they won the cup, so I'm still not seeing any significance between hitting and winning. It seems like you find good and bad teams at both ends of the list.

From what I remember they were dominant in the playoffs and their physical game led to their success. It's a part of every team and a weakness in grit will lessen your chances of success. Hitting may not be the end all but it's a part of a team's grit and if they don't have it, they aren't going far.

[Justin Azevedo]

Originally Posted by thymebalm

This is not true. It's kind of true. sometimes. It was Dion Phaneuf (53) that had the most giveaways this season. Thorton (42) led for forwards. The thing about Datsyuk and Crosby is that they have positive differentials between there GwA and TkA.

same principle. thornton dominates possession, phaneuf is a 27 minute a night defenseman.

oh, and since you're going to be a condescending dick about it - their.

Originally Posted by thymebalm

This season Jonathan Toews and Datysuk led the league with 56 takeaways. Not players I would define as always "chasing the puck". More like players I would define as "always having the puck on their stick". Toews had just 15 giveaways. So does that mean he must have not had the puck as much?

man it would be great if someone of your intelligence level could find some way to differentiate guys who have skill taking away the puck and pluggers taking it away more due to their possession levels. also toews has traditionally played easier competition.

the point here is that this stat basically takes the least useful players on the team in terms of possession (and winning games) and makes them "good". the players aren't as good and they are more of a liability the higher they score on this arbitrary scale

Originally Posted by thymebalm

Yea, but the thing is, every team plays in every building and every team benefits and suffers from how different it is rink to rink. And those are the stats, they are official NHL stats.

fundamentally untrue. the rangers have a much higher shot count because they play at msg 41 games per year. just because they are official nhl stats doesn't mean that they're right.

Originally Posted by thymebalm

Justin, you just lost yourself a reader at Flamesnation. Grow up.

aww man i don't care at all.