[CP Story] WAR Model and an Updated Roster

[Bingo]

WAR Model and an Updated Roster

Another shorter story looking at the changes to the Flames roster and the correlation between the Manny WAR model and the standings.

I adjusted all the WAR data to WAR/60 to make contributions weighted by ice time.

Comments welcome as always

[Cali Panthers Fan]

My first comment is simple. This doesn't take into account goaltending. I think if you looked at a better WAR value for goaltenders, you would understand the difference in the WAR and standings.

For example:

Anaheim's WAR is listed as 17th, but their standings was 9th. That's because of John Gibson. He covers up a lot of problems on that team, and I'm surprised he wasn't given more Vezina votes. He was that good.

In fact, in the Corsica rankings his rating was the highest of all goalies at 81.32, and was the only goalie in the top 30 player rankings.

Then Vegas, another outlier, goes from the 15th ranked WAR to the 5th spot in the standings. The reason? Marc Andre Fleury who was 4th best goalie last year with a 79.62 ratings.

The Kings as another outlier? Jonathan Quick who was the 9th ranked goalie at 76.08

How about the other way?

Montreal went from 14th in WAR to 28th in the standings...well guess what. Price had a bad year ranked as the 30th best goalie with just a 72.61 rating just ahead of such excellent goalies such as Michael Neuvirth and Brian Elliott.

St. Louis goes from 7th to 18th. Well Jake Allen was pretty awful all year with a rating of 70.30 and ranked 47th in the NHL. Carter Hutton was much better ranked 22nd, but he only had 32 starts despite being the far better goalie, so he didn't change their position in the standings that much.

The only weird one is Dallas as Ben Bishop had a very solid year ranked 15th with a rating of 75.15. Is it possible that Lehtonen was that bad as the back up? Well, he's still looking for a job, so probably.

Going forward, I would definitely look at the impact of goaltending on team numbers if you're going to do this.

[MrButtons]

I have read on this forum a bit that Derek Ryan is a more offensive type player, but his DWAR is second behind Smith. Honest question - how come that is the case?

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan

My first comment is simple. This doesn't take into account goaltending. I think if you looked at a WAR value for goaltenders, you would understand the difference in the WAR and standings.

I included goaltending.

Mike Smith is the Flame's highest rated defensive player.

Here are the top 31 goaltenders based on their dWAR contribution /60 minutes

RYAN.MILLER 0.136
ANTTI.RAANTA 0.135
CARTER.HUTTON 0.134
JUUSE.SAROS 0.130
COREY.CRAWFORD 0.118
JONATHAN.QUICK 0.108
MARC-ANDRE.FLEURY 0.101
JOHN.GIBSON 0.098
PHILIPP.GRUBAUER 0.090
CASEY.DESMITH 0.087
CONNOR.HELLEBUYCK 0.086
SERGEI.BOBROVSKY 0.079
CURTIS.MCELHINNEY 0.077
PEKKA.RINNE 0.074
ROBERTO.LUONGO 0.066
DARCY.KUEMPER 0.066
MIKE.SMITH 0.065
SEMYON.VARLAMOV 0.055
MARTIN.JONES 0.046
ONDREJ.PAVELEC 0.045
ANTTI.NIEMI 0.041
FREDERIK.ANDERSEN 0.031
BRADEN.HOLTBY 0.026
HENRIK.LUNDQVIST 0.026
STEVE.MASON 0.026
JAMES.REIMER 0.025
CHARLIE.LINDGREN 0.025
KEITH.KINKAID 0.025
CORY.SCHNEIDER 0.024
CAM.TALBOT 0.024
JIMMY.HOWARD 0.024

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by MrButtons

I have read on this forum a bit that Derek Ryan is a more offensive type player, but his DWAR is second behind Smith. Honest question - how come that is the case?

Shot suppression.

He's elite in keeping shot rates against down when he's on the ice. Much like Matt Stajan having a high suppression number it makes you wonder, but the weightings are the weighting and they both stick out.

[Cali Panthers Fan]

Originally Posted by Bingo

I included goaltending.

Mike Smith is the Flame's highest rated defensive player.

Here are the top 31 goaltenders based on their dWAR contribution /60 minutes

RYAN.MILLER 0.136
ANTTI.RAANTA 0.135
CARTER.HUTTON 0.134
JUUSE.SAROS 0.130
COREY.CRAWFORD 0.118
JONATHAN.QUICK 0.108
MARC-ANDRE.FLEURY 0.101
JOHN.GIBSON 0.098
PHILIPP.GRUBAUER 0.090
CASEY.DESMITH 0.087
CONNOR.HELLEBUYCK 0.086
SERGEI.BOBROVSKY 0.079
CURTIS.MCELHINNEY 0.077
PEKKA.RINNE 0.074
ROBERTO.LUONGO 0.066
DARCY.KUEMPER 0.066
MIKE.SMITH 0.065
SEMYON.VARLAMOV 0.055
MARTIN.JONES 0.046
ONDREJ.PAVELEC 0.045
ANTTI.NIEMI 0.041
FREDERIK.ANDERSEN 0.031
BRADEN.HOLTBY 0.026
HENRIK.LUNDQVIST 0.026
STEVE.MASON 0.026
JAMES.REIMER 0.025
CHARLIE.LINDGREN 0.025
KEITH.KINKAID 0.025
CORY.SCHNEIDER 0.024
CAM.TALBOT 0.024
JIMMY.HOWARD 0.024

Sorry, I meant to say a better WAR model for goalies in my post. I don't think this works particularly well. Goalies are on the ice all the time, and both good and bad goalies can change team success quite a bit. The contributions get diluted on a per 60 minute basis, but they are the major difference between goals being scored against or not.

I mean, can you look at the above list and tell me the best 4 goalies in the league were all back ups? Ryan Miller is the best goalie in the league in terms of WAR? That's ludicrous.

And look at the difference in numbers. Miller's is a 0.136, but Bobrovsky is only a 0.079, and cup winner Holtby is only 0.026. Doesn't that seem a little off to you if you're going to calculate team WAR?

I think if you blended the Game Score and WAR models for these players, you'd probably get a better representation. and exclude backups because unless it's a 1B situation, they don't have much impact on the standings.

[jaikorven]

Thank you Bingo & Cali, some good posts in here about Bingo's write-up (well done btw). Very appreciated.

[Strange Brew]

There is an expression that hockey could be renamed “goalie’ because they have that big an impact. Open to debate but you simply can not win with bad goaltending IMO.

Flames hot streaks and cold streaks over last few years have directly correlated to goaltending it seems.

[Enoch Root]

Good article and good contribution to discussion.

But according to WAR, Matt Stajan was the most valuable Flame last year. There is no recovering from that.

[Jason14h]

How can JG and Frolik have the same offensive WAR last season....


Something seems... Off?

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

How can JG and Frolik have the same offensive WAR last season....

Something seems... Off?

For what it's worth ...

Frolik
4th on team in shot rates for
25th in shot quality for
Zero for shooting
21st in penalties drawn

Gaudreau
9th in shot rates for
2nd in shot quality for
Zero for shooting
1st in penalties drawn

But the differential in shot rates is huge in Frolik's favour and the model favours guys that put pucks on net in their OWAR calculation

[Hockey-and_stuff]

It does appear that shot metrics are valued too high compared to on ice results. It pushes Stajan and Frolik up too high and the star players too low.

Would you be able, as an example, to give up the oWAR and dWAR for a top team, like Tampa or Vegas for example? I'd like to see how their metrics look vs our team side by side.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Hockey-and_stuff

It does appear that shot metrics are valued too high compared to on ice results. It pushes Stajan and Frolik up too high and the star players too low.

Would you be able, as an example, to give up the oWAR and dWAR for a top team, like Tampa or Vegas for example? I'd like to see how their metrics look vs our team side by side.

http://corsica.hockey/war/ There's the link to do whatever you want.

[Bingo]

A great example is Tampa.

Kucherov, Stamkos and Point are all great in oWAR but don't give that value away defensively sot they stay hugely positive.

Gaudreau has to bone up on his own zone play if he and Calgary want to go to that next level. He's too important a player to be terrible defensively.

Gaudreau is the 110th ranked oWAR player from last year, but in that 110 he's the 9th worst defensively.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Bingo

A great example is Tampa.

Kucherov, Stamkos and Point are all great in oWAR but don't give that value away defensively sot they stay hugely positive.

Gaudreau has to bone up on his own zone play if he and Calgary want to go to that next level. He's too important a player to be terrible defensively.

Gaudreau is the 110th ranked oWAR player from last year, but in that 110 he's the 9th worst defensively.

He should grab video of small wingers who are good defensively. Marchand, Schwartz, Cogliano.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

He should grab video of small wingers who are good defensively. Marchand, Schwartz, Cogliano.

Last year was an outlier for Gaudreau. He's been pretty neutral in his dWar most years. Nothing to get worried about.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

Last year was an outlier for Gaudreau. He's been pretty neutral in his dWar most years. Nothing to get worried about.

Sure, but he can improve defensively - it's easily the weakest part of his game. He's good at takeaways - he should be buzzing around the d-zone more. He cheats out of the zone a fair bit.

Now adding a better defensive winger on the other side would also help. Ferland's defensive play was not a strength. If you put Lindholm or Neal there I think the line's numbers jump.

[EVERLAST]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

He should grab video of small wingers who are good defensively. Marchand, Schwartz, Cogliano.

Just watch allot of Pavel Datsuk . Led the league in takeaways for several years.
Man he was something else

We’ve had some good ones

Fleury, Mullen, Loob, StLouis .......all small players that stripped pucks very well.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I've got zero issues with Gaudreau's game. I've seen it live, on highlight videos and heard coaches like Blashill talk about how hard he tracks back, how he breaks up plays in the defensive zone.

Yes he cheated at times but with the struggles of the team to score last year I can see why he did it - in fact I'd want him to do it in that circumstance.

If the Peters plays that uptempo system, the forwards are in fact deeper and the D are more involved, I think the pressure to score will be lessened on Gaudreau and he will return to those type of hustle defensive plays he demonstrated in the past.

He was flat out great last year - I was very impressed with his effort - that 100pt pace was not a hot streak, I have no doubt he can get that marker.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by EVERLAST

Just watch allot of Pavel Datsuk . Led the league in takeaways for several years.
Man he was something else

We’ve had some good ones

Fleury, Mullen, Loob, StLouis .......all small players that stripped pucks very well.

I would have said Datsyuk except he's a centre, so different responsibilities.