How is John Tavares a minus player on the Islanders?

[Tripod]

this

Plus/Minus is not "useless", it's worse than that. It provides 0 useful information and people make false judgments off it.

The reason Tavares is a "minus player" is because when Tavares is on the ice, NYI goalies have a 0.898sv%. Tavares is not causing his goalies to play like replacement level AHL 3rd stringers, it's just luck. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with Tavares' defensive ability.

Over the past 3 seasons, 2 of the 5 best on-ice save percentages belong to defensive luminaries Shawn Thornton and Cody McLeod, while the bottom-20 includes wretched defensive players like Patrick Elias, Frans Nielson, and Mark Giordano... that's sarcasm

All you did was show that SV% by goalies vary from player to player....team to team.

Do you find it odd that Tavares and Okposo are the only forwards on the NYI current roster who are a minus?

Not saying it is, but it COULD be that they are late getting back due to being offensive guys and thus leading to a odd man rush the other way.

I don't think +/- is useless...because it does tell a story when comparing it to teammates. But it certainly doesn'y DETERMINE who is good at defense or who isn't.

Watching JT play shows that he is average at best at defense...don't need +/- to see that.

 

[Kamiccolo]

Change Tavares to Kessel, and look at the love Tavares gets vs Kessel's same thread when the leafs we're playing well.

Tavares is a terrible center. I've said it over and over. Bad defensively, not amazing on draws. Throw him on wing to a more responsible center.

 

[SLAPSHOT723]

Change Tavares to Kessel, and look at the love Tavares gets vs Kessel's same thread when the leafs we're playing well.

Tavares is a terrible center. I've said it over and over. Bad defensively, not amazing on draws. Throw him on wing to a more responsible center.

No he's not, and this has nothing to do with Kessel. There was no reason to bring him up.

 

[Appleyard]

this

Plus/Minus is not "useless", it's worse than that. It provides 0 useful information and people make false judgments off it.

The reason Tavares is a "minus player" is because when Tavares is on the ice, NYI goalies have a 0.898sv%. Tavares is not causing his goalies to play like replacement level AHL 3rd stringers, it's just luck. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with Tavares' defensive ability.

Over the past 3 seasons, 2 of the 5 best on-ice save percentages belong to defensive luminaries Shawn Thornton and Cody McLeod, while the bottom-20 includes wretched defensive players like Patrick Elias, Frans Nielson, and Mark Giordano... that's sarcasm

It is true that the 0.898 he currently has will rebound.

However... he career on ice sv% before this season was 0.908... which was the 9th worst of any forward with over 2000 minutes played (412 of them) from 2007-14.

Part of that is ofc the Islanders goaltending in that time. (0.914sv%, 2nd worst in the league) They have three forwards in the bottom 20.

But I do think there is minor correlation between on ice SV% and defensive ability as well. But not much really. It is far more dependant on the team you play on and the goalie and D behind you.

But the +/- makes Tavares look worse than he is... he is below average defensively (his Corsi and Goals against/60 have been routinely amongst the worse on the Islanders, with easier minutes than teammates), but not in the bottom ~10% of the NHL.

The Corsi against, GA and sv% (to a lesser degree) Tavares has over his career point to the same thing. He is below average to poor defensively.

 

[Micklebot]

this

Plus/Minus is not "useless", it's worse than that. It provides 0 useful information and people make false judgments off it.

The reason Tavares is a "minus player" is because when Tavares is on the ice, NYI goalies have a 0.898sv%. Tavares is not causing his goalies to play like replacement level AHL 3rd stringers, it's just luck. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with Tavares' defensive ability.

Over the past 3 seasons, 2 of the 5 best on-ice save percentages belong to defensive luminaries Shawn Thornton and Cody McLeod, while the bottom-20 includes wretched defensive players like Patrick Elias, Frans Nielson, and Mark Giordano... that's sarcasm

I'll preface this by saying I agree there is little a single player can do about on ice sv%, and there are lots of uncontrolled variables not accounted for by +/- making it a terrible stat.

That said, Tavares has consistantly had a worse on ice Sv% than the team average.

Season | On ice Sv% | Tm Sv% | Rel
2014-2015 Season | 0.893 | 0.9127 | -0.0197
2012-2013 Season | 0.885 | 0.9112 | -0.0262
2011-2012 Season | 0.885 | 0.9093 | -0.0243
2013-2014 Season | 0.9 | 0.9105 | -0.0105
2010-2011 Season | 0.9 | 0.9125 | -0.0125
2009-2010 Season | 0.901 | 0.9151 | -0.0141

My point is that while the NYI have consistantly had poor goaltending (almost certainly bottom in the league over this span) Tavares hasn't once been better than the rest of the team. I would imagine if on-ice Sv% is just statistical noise and can be entirely attributed to luck, he'd have been above the team average a year or two. So that leaves the uncontrolled variables as the culprit; QOC, QOT, and Zone Starts.

From a rel QOT perspective, I think he gets the best the team has to offer (correct me if I'm wrong) and he's always gotten very high OZ start %. So that leaves QOC, which to the best of my knowledge has never been abnormally high though I wouldn't call him sheltered in that regard by any stretch.

Again, I'm not saying that Tavares is the cause for his lower on ice Sv%, but I'm also not willing to absolve him entirely. imo, a combination of his play, the coaching tatics (high risk vs defensive, ect) linemates, QOC ect all factor in. I'm sure for example, if he was playing with Rinne in nets, Hossa and Elias on his wings against other teams third and 4th lines, everything would be peachy.


Edit: Interesting to note that BTN and HockeyAnalysis stats for onice Sv% don't line up (neither do the games played, Hockeyanalysis is missing a game from the 2009/10 season). I imagine that one of them is using ES instead of 5vs5 or perhaps they aren't counting empty net goals? The key point here is that since my numbers come from one site for personal stats and the other for team stats, I might be off reg relative on ice sv%

 

[blinds]

Why do people continue to insist that +/- is completely useless? It's not a particularly great stat, but it has it's uses. For instance, when comparing one line/player to another on the same team, it can be very useful.

With NYI, Tavares and Okposo are getting the best zone starts and are the only forwards that are -'s. That certainly says something about their defensive ability and overall utility at even strength. Maybe they score a lot of goals, but they're also liable to give up a lot as well. I doubt that's the line that they want out to defend a lead.

 

[eklunds source]

Actually it tells you that he has had more ESGA than ESGF when he is on the ice. It tells you a lot and if you're happy with your first line centre allowing more than he scores that's on you. I would be very concerned of I was an Isles fan.

Yes, +/- basically measures even strength goals for/against. However, the correlation (R squared) between "goaltender performance" (PDO) and "even strength goal ratio" is about 73% -- meaning:

Just over 2/3rds of a players +/- is a direct result of how both goaltenders performed, not at all related to how well the forwards controlled play or created/denied scoring chances.

All you did was show that SV% by goalies vary from player to player....team to team.

They vary from player to player, team to team, year to year... So much so that it's basically random.

Do you find it odd that Tavares and Okposo are the only forwards on the NYI current roster who are a minus?

No; they are 2nd last and 3rd last in PDO. I would expect them to be a minus because they've been unlucky.

I don't think +/- is useless...because it does tell a story when comparing it to teammates.

The story it tells is "how good was the goaltending they faced or played in front of".

But I do think there is minor correlation between on ice SV% and defensive ability as well. But not much really. It is far more dependant on the team you play on and the goalie and D behind you.

Believe it or not, people have done studies on this. Players - even defensemen - have no real impact on their goaltender's save percentage.

Defensemen still have no sustainable control over save percentage

Ultimately, defenders fail in being able to sustainably improve or worsen their goaltender’s save percentage. The model only explains 2.6% of the outputs.

Coefficients of determination are not naturally intuitive to most people. So, why is the model’s weak R2 an issue? Let’s look at the same data in a different way.

The 10% of players with the most extreme negative impact in their first two seasons end up having no impact on average over the next two seasons.

Fooled by randomness; how to evaluate defensemen

Over a three-year span, it doesn't matter whether a forward sees his team stop 94% or 90% of the shots with him on the ice at 5-on-5; either way, the best guess for how he'll do in the next three years is league average. If there are differences between players in their ability to influence the opponents' shooting percentage, those differences are much less than whatever other random factors come into play.

So while there may be a sliver of repeatable talent for defensemen preventing the opponents from getting high-percentage shots, after three years of data we aren't even close to being able to reliably tell who's good at it.

If defensemen can control ~1/40th of the variation in their goaltenders save percentage, then you can be damn sure that any effect forwards might have is wiped out by noise.

 

[Darth Milbury]

Why do people continue to insist that +/- is completely useless? It's not a particularly great stat, but it has it's uses. For instance, when comparing one line/player to another on the same team, it can be very useful.

With NYI, Tavares and Okposo are getting the best zone starts and are the only forwards that are -'s. That certainly says something about their defensive ability and overall utility at even strength. Maybe they score a lot of goals, but they're also liable to give up a lot as well. I doubt that's the line that they want out to defend a lead.

Plus/Minus is not a meaningless stat. You just have to take it with a grain of salt.

In this particular case, I do think there is something significant going on here. On the Isles board, we all felt that JT had a very shaky first half (probably post injury) and that that line was weak overall defensively (possibly because of the insane line combinations - like using Conacher as a LW on that line).


I'm a huge JT fan, but his line had defensive struggles for the first 40 games or so and he has only recently started looking like the JT of old.

So, IMO, the OP is raising a very sensible concern.

 

[Doctyl]

Can someone explain why +/- is useless? Its not a great stat. It should not be used as a be all end all when discussing a player. But it shows the ESGF and ESGA difference. I don't think thats useless.

 

[Micklebot]

Why do people continue to insist that +/- is completely useless? It's not a particularly great stat, but it has it's uses. For instance, when comparing one line/player to another on the same team, it can be very useful.

With NYI, Tavares and Okposo are getting the best zone starts and are the only forwards that are -'s. That certainly says something about their defensive ability and overall utility at even strength. Maybe they score a lot of goals, but they're also liable to give up a lot as well. I doubt that's the line that they want out to defend a lead.

There are still lots of uncontrolled variables when just looking at players on the same team though. Icetime/games played, linemates, QOC, OZ start percentage just to name a few. As Eklund's source pointed out, research has shown that a single player cannot exibit significant control over his goalies sv%, though I'd argue that they can, it just takes extreme circumstances to the point that it's highly uncommon at the NHL level.

Not sure there is a good defense for +/-. A better case could be made if you started controlling for at least the simplest variables, like doing it per 60 mins instead of a raw count, but even then there are significant issues.

 

[MastuhNinks]

The Isles have had high GA totals with Tavares on the ice year after year. He's still a great player, but it is funny how it gets completely ignored but other offensive stars get rippped on repeatedly for defensive shortcomings.

 

[blinds]

Can someone explain why +/- is useless? Its not a great stat. It should not be used as a be all end all when discussing a player. But it shows the ESGF and ESGA difference. I don't think thats useless.

It's certainly not useless. I think people just get upset when people don't understand it's context and try to use it to compare players across teams.

For instance, comparing Patrick Kane's +/- to Kessel's would be meaningless. Kessel is playing on a team that is a trainwreck defensively and doesn't have nearly the caliber of teammates as Kane.

It's useful when comparing players to other players on their team. Maybe it has a little use when comparing players across teams that perform relatively similar. But people use it wrong all the time and I think that's why it gets so much hate.

 

[Hisch13r]

Where is the one guy who said Ovi wasn't worth Josh Bailey? I guess Tavares isn't worth Eric Fehr then either

 

[Micklebot]

It's certainly not useless. I think people just get upset when people don't understand it's context and try to use it to compare players across teams.

For instance, comparing Patrick Kane's +/- to Kessel's would be meaningless. Kessel is playing on a team that is a trainwreck defensively and doesn't have nearly the caliber of teammates as Kane.

It's useful when comparing players to other players on their team. Maybe it has a little use when comparing players across teams that perform relatively similar. But people use it wrong all the time and I think that's why it gets so much hate.

If comparing players on one team vs another isn't useful, why is comparing players on one line to another useful? In both cases, the circumstances of the two players can be completely different. For example, why would I compare a 2nd or 3rd liner used for DZ faceoffs against other teams top lines, to a first liner given high OZ starts and lined up against weaker opponents to take advantage of poor matchups?

 

[Appleyard]

Yes, +/- basically measures even strength goals for/against. However, the correlation (R squared) between "goaltender performance" (PDO) and "even strength goal ratio" is about 73% -- meaning:

Just over 2/3rds of a players +/- is a direct result of how both goaltenders performed, not at all related to how well the forwards controlled play or created/denied scoring chances.


They vary from player to player, team to team, year to year... So much so that it's basically random.




No; they are 2nd last and 3rd last in PDO. I would expect them to be a minus because they've been unlucky.


The story it tells is "how good was the goaltending they faced or played in front of".


Believe it or not, people have done studies on this. Players - even defensemen - have no real impact on their goaltender's save percentage.

Defensemen still have no sustainable control over save percentage


Fooled by randomness; how to evaluate defensemen


If defensemen can control ~1/40th of the variation in their goaltenders save percentage, then you can be damn sure that any effect forwards might have is wiped out by noise.

Over that size of sample (600) though the lowest significant R squared value would be ~0.06 (assuming a two-tailed test... which it has to be in this scenario)... so while ~0.026 is insignificant it does show some positive correlation over a pretty large sample.

As I said in my post... I would expect: 'minor correlation between on ice SV% and defensive ability as well. But not much really. It is far more dependant on the team you play on and the goalie and D behind you.'

So that article pretty much says that, eh?

And if Tavares is not poor on D how do you explain him routinely having below average CA/60 amongst Islanders forwards with some of the easiest minutes? Sv% does not come into that...

I mean, his CA/60 5v5 before this season for his career was 59.77...

that value is 447th of the 479 forwards who played 1000 minutes over that 5 year span.

that value is also 315th of the 329 forwards who played 2000 minutes over that 5 year span.

I mean, the team you play on also comes into Corsi for and against quite heavily. But his Corsi against relative to teammates is 2.23 in that time with easy minutes...

274th of the 329 with 2000+.

396th of the 479 with 1000+.

Whatever statistic you look at Tavares looks subpar on D.

So really the reason Tavares has been a - player his whole career is:

that he allows more shots against while on ice relative to his teammates, and in the bottom 20% of NHL forwards relative to teammates... with easy minutes. Hence more GA/60, hence more -'s.

Though he would be a + this season with a more normal on ice sv%... and he will likely end the season as a +. But that in itself does not detract from him being subpar on D.

 

[Tripod]

If comparing players on one team vs another isn't useful, why is comparing players on one line to another useful? In both cases, the circumstances of the two players can be completely different. For example, why would I compare a 2nd or 3rd liner used for DZ faceoffs against other teams top lines, to a first liner given high OZ starts and lined up against weaker opponents to take advantage of poor matchups?

You have a point....but I look at it in a simple way.

JT gets lots of OZ starts against defensive lines...to try and stop his line. Not only are they stopping JT but they are ourscoring him.

That shouldn't be.

I would EXPECT someone like Neilson to be close to a minus....because he probaly starts more in the defensive zone and plays against teams top lines...harder competition.

Maybe it's over simplifying it...but that is what I would expect to see.

Edit: So with mine...you get the simplton's explanation...and above mine....you get Appleyard proving he is poor defensively. Take your pick.

 

[flaneur]

huh. that is surprising.

+/- is not a be all end all stat but it does have some analytical use. -1 isn't all that bad but if you compare it to his teammates' +/- it is almost at the bottom (22/25). this stands out because the islanders have such a good goals for record and tavares is leading the team in points. shallow analysis of this would lead one to believe that jt needs to work on his defense (islanders fans who watch the game can probably give a thorough breakdown on why this is or isn't the case)

 

[Appleyard]

I mean, lets 'pretend' that Tavares had a .913 on ice SV% this season. (Isles average)

He currently has .893 on ice SV% 5v5.

He has a GA/60 of 2.88 in 729:14 minutes. So he has 35 GA in 729:14.

That means to have a .893 on ice SV% he has faced either 326, 327 or 328 shots.

Lets call it 327 for prosperity. A .913 on ice SV% on 327 shots is 29 goals against.

So 6 extra goals against due to his on ice SV% (assuming SV% is not influenced whatsoever by defensive ability)

He is -1 currently.

He would be +5 if his sv% was normal.

His GA/60 would be 2.39/60.

That is 0.10/60 below current team average (and the current team average would be better as a result of this adjustment, so it would be even further below than 0.10)... with the easiest zone starts on the team, facing middling QoC.

So even if we assume that he has just been unlucky, and that sv% is not affected by defensive ability... he would still concede more goals that the average Islander did... in easier minutes than the average Islander gets.

 

[Micklebot]

Over that size of sample (600) though the lowest significant R squared value would be ~0.06 (assuming a two-tailed test... which it has to be in this scenario)... so while ~0.026 is insignificant it does show some positive correlation over a pretty large sample.

As I said in my post... I would expect: 'minor correlation between on ice SV% and defensive ability as well. But not much really. It is far more dependant on the team you play on and the goalie and D behind you.'

So that article pretty much says that, eh?

And if Tavares is not poor on D how do you explain him routinely having below average CA/60 amongst Islanders forwards with some of the easiest minutes? Sv% does not come into that...

I mean, his CA/60 5v5 before this season for his career was 59.77...

that value is 447th of the 479 forwards who played 1000 minutes over that 5 year span.

that value is also 315th of the 329 forwards who played 2000 minutes over that 5 year span.

I mean, the team you play on also comes into Corsi for and against quite heavily. But his Corsi against relative to teammates is 2.23 in that time with easy minutes...

274th of the 329 with 2000+.

396th of the 479 with 1000+.

Whatever statistic you look at Tavares looks subpar on D.

So really the reason Tavares has been a - player his whole career is:

that he allows more shots against while on ice relative to his teammates, and in the bottom 20% of NHL forwards relative to teammates... with easy minutes. Hence more GA/60, hence more -'s.

Though he would be a + this season with a more normal on ice sv%... and he will likely end the season as a +. But that in itself does not detract from him being subpar on D.

Two points;

1) I don't think it's fair to say he's had the easiest mins. His QOC hasn't been particularly sheltered, though I admit he gets a ton of OZ starts we're talking about 2 extra OZ starts every 5 games over the previous 5 years (not includuing this season).

2) I think using CA/60 as a proxy for defensive play is mis-guided. Playing a high pace style does not equal poor defensively. You can play high paced hockey and be good defensively, or play low pace hockey and be poor defensively. Using the senators as an example, Chris Neil isn't what I'd call a good defensive player, despite having a lower CA/60 than Turris and MacArthur, but as far as regulars over the last 5 years, Neil has the best CA/60.

That said, I'm not here to say Tavares is good or bad defensively, I just got caught up in the +/- and on ice sv% talk.

 

[RMimagery]

What is John right now...-1?

Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here.

 

[Appleyard]

Two points;

1) I don't think it's fair to say he's had the easiest mins. His QOC hasn't been particularly sheltered, though I admit he gets a ton of OZ starts we're talking about 2 extra OZ starts every 5 games over the previous 5 years (not includuing this season).

2) I think using CA/60 as a proxy for defensive play is mis-guided. Playing a high pace style does not equal poor defensively. You can play high paced hockey and be good defensively, or play low pace hockey and be poor defensively. Using the senators as an example, Chris Neil isn't what I'd call a good defensive player, despite having a lower CA/60 than Turris and MacArthur, but as far as regulars over the last 5 years, Neil has the best CA/60.

That said, I'm not here to say Tavares is good or bad defensively, I just got caught up in the +/- and on ice sv% talk.

Oh, I am not claiming CA and GA per 60 are perfect. As I said they are heavily skewed by the team you play on, and I do think style of play comes into it, even depending on how you defend, ie some centres who are good defensively 'channel' opponents to the boards while some go for steals and are aggresive.

But amongst guys with 5000+ minutes 5v5 since 2007:

Datsyuk, Bergeron, Toews, Koivu, Getzlaf, Elias, Kopitar, Winnik and Hanzal are all top 30 in CA/60 relative to teammates with pretty tough minutes.

Lecavalier, Spezza, Briere, Kessel, Heatley, Vanek and Tavares are all bottom 30 in CA/60 relative to teammates in top especially easy minutes.

It is not perfect, not at all... I mean, I am of the belief you have to factor in QoC, QoT, zone starts etc (and other thing factor in that we have no real way of measuring currently) to garner proper meaning to GA and CA.

But I do feel they are both ofc indicative of defensive play in general...

I mean, if you allow both more shots against while on ice and more goals against while on ice than your teammates do with not especially tough opponents or zone starts how can you be good on D?

 

[GOAT AINEC]

He is a good goal scorer. No one said he was good defensively.

 

[Doctyl]

He is a good goal scorer. No one said he was good defensively.

People at the ASG did.

 

[seafoam]

A combination of a few things probably. His shifts are about 10-15 seconds too long, sometimes he tries to make the fancy play in the NZ or along the blueline (like those behind the back/no look passes) that lead to odd man rushes when he should just make the simple play and dump it in, and he's average defensively.

It also took him a full calender year to return to form (seems like the same thing is happening to Stamkos).

 

[Mickey Marner]

Over that size of sample (600) though the lowest significant R squared value would be ~0.06 (assuming a two-tailed test... which it has to be in this scenario)... so while ~0.026 is insignificant it does show some positive correlation over a pretty large sample.

As I said in my post... I would expect: 'minor correlation between on ice SV% and defensive ability as well. But not much really. It is far more dependant on the team you play on and the goalie and D behind you.'

So that article pretty much says that, eh?

And if Tavares is not poor on D how do you explain him routinely having below average CA/60 amongst Islanders forwards with some of the easiest minutes? Sv% does not come into that...

I mean, his CA/60 5v5 before this season for his career was 59.77...

that value is 447th of the 479 forwards who played 1000 minutes over that 5 year span.

that value is also 315th of the 329 forwards who played 2000 minutes over that 5 year span.

I mean, the team you play on also comes into Corsi for and against quite heavily. But his Corsi against relative to teammates is 2.23 in that time with easy minutes...

274th of the 329 with 2000+.

396th of the 479 with 1000+.

Whatever statistic you look at Tavares looks subpar on D.

So really the reason Tavares has been a - player his whole career is:

that he allows more shots against while on ice relative to his teammates, and in the bottom 20% of NHL forwards relative to teammates... with easy minutes. Hence more GA/60, hence more -'s.

Though he would be a + this season with a more normal on ice sv%... and he will likely end the season as a +. But that in itself does not detract from him being subpar on D.

With the data you provided it appears as though the Islanders allow more shots against in higher percentage scoring areas while Tavares is on the ice. Perhaps Tavares could use some work on his defensive zone coverage.