Interesting Stats to Dissect: Giveaways

[John Eichel da GOAT]

Forwards - Min 50 GP and 17:00 TOI/GP

Player	Team	GvA	GvA/60	GP
Mathew Barzal	NYI	103	4.53	68
Matthew Tkachuk	CGY	86	4.08	69
David Pastrnak	BOS	88	3.97	70
Evgeni Malkin	PIT	69	3.85	55
Ryan Getzlaf	ANA	76	3.52	69
Artemi Panarin	NYR	82	3.46	69
Leon Draisaitl	EDM	91	3.4	71
Chris Kreider	NYR	61	3.36	63
Mitchell Marner	TOR	71	3.34	59
Jonathan Huberdeau	FLA	70	3.24	69
Johnny Gaudreau	CGY	71	3.23	70
Dylan Larkin	DET	81	3.22	71
Connor McDavid	EDM	75	3.21	64
Max Domi	MTL	64	3.16	71
Brad Marchand	BOS	71	3.12	70
Nikita Kucherov	TBL	59	2.75	68
Jack Eichel	BUF	66	2.63	68
Sebastian Aho	CAR	58	2.63	68
Mikael Backlund	CGY	55	2.62	70
Anthony Beauvillier	NYI	51	2.6	68
Patrik Laine	WPG	57	2.59	68
Max Pacioretty	VGK	55	2.59	71
Jonathan Marchessault	VGK	48	2.52	66
Taylor Hall	NJD,ARI	52	2.5	65
Tyler Bertuzzi	DET	57	2.49	71
Filip Forsberg	NSH	45	2.47	63
Evander Kane	SJS	51	2.44	64
Eric Staal	MIN	46	2.44	66
Brock Nelson	NYI	52	2.43	68
Evgeny Kuznetsov	WSH	45	2.4	63
Ryan Strome	NYR	54	2.36	70
Aleksander Barkov	FLA	52	2.36	66
Tyler Seguin	DAL	52	2.36	69
John Tavares	TOR	47	2.28	63
Phillip Danault	MTL	50	2.24	71
Pierre-Luc Dubois	CBJ	46	2.19	70
Nathan MacKinnon	COL	53	2.17	69
Nicklas Backstrom	WSH	42	2.17	61
Jordan Eberle	NYI	37	2.14	58
T.J. Oshie	WSH	45	2.13	69
Rickard Rakell	ANA	42	2.13	65
Anders Lee	NYI	44	2.12	68
David Krejci	BOS	37	2.11	61
Mika Zibanejad	NYR	43	2.09	57
Lars Eller	WSH	41	2.09	69
Chris Tierney	OTT	42	2.06	71
Jordan Staal	CAR	41	2.06	68
Alex Ovechkin	WSH	48	2.04	68
Phil Kessel	ARI	41	2.04	70
Bryan Rust	PIT	37	2.04	55
Evgenii Dadonov	FLA	40	2.03	69
Teuvo Teravainen	CAR	44	2.02	68
Blake Wheeler	WPG	46	2.01	71
Anze Kopitar	LAK	49	1.99	70
William Nylander	TOR	41	1.98	68
Auston Matthews	TOR	48	1.96	70
Gustav Nyquist	CBJ	41	1.94	70
Reilly Smith	VGK	41	1.93	71
Tom Wilson	WSH	40	1.93	68
Nazem Kadri	COL	28	1.89	51
Steven Stamkos	TBL	33	1.88	57
William Karlsson	VGK	37	1.86	63
Alex DeBrincat	CHI	37	1.81	70
Mikael Granlund	NSH	34	1.81	63
Mark Stone	VGK	38	1.8	65
Mark Scheifele	WPG	46	1.78	71
Brady Tkachuk	OTT	40	1.78	71
Brayden Schenn	STL	39	1.78	71
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	EDM	39	1.75	65
Jonathan Toews	CHI	40	1.73	70
Dustin Brown	LAK	35	1.72	66
Sean Monahan	CGY	36	1.7	70
Connor Brown	OTT	40	1.68	71
Nick Foligno	CBJ	35	1.67	67
Kevin Hayes	PHI	34	1.66	69
Patrick Kane	CHI	41	1.64	70
Jakob Silfverberg	ANA	32	1.64	66
Joel Armia	MTL	27	1.62	58
David Perron	STL	35	1.61	71
Logan Couture	SJS	26	1.61	52
Claude Giroux	PHI	35	1.6	69
Nico Hischier	NJD	28	1.6	58
Sean Couturier	PHI	36	1.57	69
Elias Pettersson	VAN	33	1.57	68
Victor Olofsson	BUF	26	1.57	54
Kyle Connor	WPG	39	1.56	71
J.T. Miller	VAN	36	1.55	69
Timo Meier	SJS	31	1.53	70
Jakub Voracek	PHI	30	1.53	69
Kyle Palmieri	NJD	28	1.51	65
Jean-Gabriel Pageau	OTT,NYI	32	1.49	67
Andrew Copp	WPG	27	1.45	63
Elias Lindholm	CGY	33	1.43	70
Sam Reinhart	BUF	33	1.39	69
Marcus Johansson	BUF	24	1.39	60
Gabriel Landeskog	COL	25	1.38	54
Derek Stepan	ARI	28	1.36	70
Jaden Schwartz	STL	29	1.34	71
Boone Jenner	CBJ	28	1.32	70
Alex Killorn	TBL	26	1.27	68
Ryan Johansen	NSH	24	1.24	68
Brock Boeser	VAN	22	1.24	57
Bo Horvat	VAN	27	1.18	69
Patrice Bergeron	BOS	22	1.15	61
Anthony Cirelli	TBL	24	1.14	68
Zach Parise	MIN	22	1.11	69
Zach Hyman	TOR	16	0.98	51
Brayden Point	TBL	19	0.91	66
Ryan O'Reilly	STL	22	0.9	71
Paul Stastny	VGK	18	0.88	71
Travis Zajac	NJD	17	0.86	69
Alex Iafallo	LAK	11	0.49	70

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Defense - Min 50 GP 20:00 TOI/GP

Player	Team	GvA	GvA/60	GP
John Klingberg	DAL	71	3.31	58
Jake Muzzin	TOR	63	3.3	53
Ben Chiarot	MTL	86	3.23	69
Ethan Bear	EDM	84	3.23	71
Dmitry Kulikov	WPG	55	3.23	51
Jeff Petry	MTL	88	3.14	71
Kris Letang	PIT	80	3.05	61
Shea Weber	MTL	79	3.03	65
Duncan Keith	CHI	74	2.98	61
Erik Karlsson	SJS	68	2.97	56
Miro Heiskanen	DAL	79	2.93	68
Filip Hronek	DET	76	2.93	65
Aaron Ekblad	FLA	74	2.88	67
Drew Doughty	LAK	82	2.84	67
Thomas Chabot	OTT	87	2.82	71
John Carlson	WSH	80	2.82	69
Damon Severson	NJD	73	2.76	69
Jacob Trouba	NYR	69	2.62	70
Charlie McAvoy	BOS	68	2.62	67
P.K. Subban	NJD	65	2.59	68
Erik Gustafsson	CHI,CGY	58	2.58	66
Brent Burns	SJS	76	2.56	70
Noah Hanifin	CGY	63	2.55	70
Dmitry Orlov	WSH	65	2.54	69
Ron Hainsey	OTT	56	2.53	64
Ryan Pulock	NYI	64	2.52	68
Hampus Lindholm	ANA	53	2.5	55
Nick Leddy	NYI	52	2.46	60
Devon Toews	NYI	57	2.45	68
Tyson Barrie	TOR	62	2.42	70
Quinn Hughes	VAN	60	2.41	68
Brady Skjei	NYR,CAR	55	2.38	67
TJ Brodie	CGY	52	2.38	64
Josh Manson	ANA	41	2.38	50
Mike Green	DET,EDM	41	2.35	50
Ivan Provorov	PHI	67	2.34	69
Esa Lindell	DAL	62	2.3	69
Torey Krug	BOS	48	2.3	61
Roman Josi	NSH	68	2.29	69
Patrik Nemeth	DET	54	2.29	64
Travis Sanheim	PHI	53	2.28	69
Matt Niskanen	PHI	56	2.25	68
Neal Pionk	WPG	62	2.24	71
John Marino	PIT	42	2.22	56
Oscar Klefbom	EDM	58	2.2	62
Jakob Chychrun	ARI	52	2.2	63
Zdeno Chara	BOS	52	2.18	68
Connor Murphy	CHI	44	2.14	58
Mark Giordano	CGY	51	2.13	60
Dylan DeMelo	OTT,WPG	42	2.12	59
Shea Theodore	VGK	54	2.05	71
Nikita Zaitsev	OTT	44	2.05	58
Travis Hamonic	CGY	36	2.03	50
Cale Makar	COL	40	2	57
Anton Stralman	FLA	48	1.98	69
Alex Goligoski	ARI	53	1.97	70
Darnell Nurse	EDM	54	1.94	71
Alexander Edler	VAN	43	1.93	59
Mattias Ekholm	NSH	50	1.88	68
Jason Demers	ARI	32	1.87	50
Zach Werenski	CBJ	47	1.86	63
Josh Morrissey	WPG	46	1.86	65
Ryan McDonagh	TBL	32	1.85	50
Jaccob Slavin	CAR	49	1.84	68
David Savard	CBJ	43	1.83	68
Nate Schmidt	VGK	39	1.82	59
Oliver Ekman-Larsson	ARI	45	1.77	66
Brett Pesce	CAR	39	1.75	61
Alec Martinez	LAK,VGK	32	1.75	51
Tyler Myers	VAN	41	1.68	68
Marc-Edouard Vlasic	SJS	40	1.68	70
Colton Parayko	STL	41	1.67	64
Justin Faulk	STL	39	1.64	69
Mikhail Sergachev	TBL	39	1.64	70
Alex Pietrangelo	STL	45	1.59	70
Jay Bouwmeester	STL	32	1.58	56
Samuel Girard	COL	39	1.56	70
Seth Jones	CBJ	37	1.56	56
Cody Ceci	TOR	30	1.56	56
Victor Hedman	TBL	40	1.51	66
Cam Fowler	ANA	31	1.43	59
Brandon Carlo	BOS	32	1.39	67
Matt Dumba	MIN	35	1.35	69
Brayden McNabb	VGK	32	1.35	71
Erik Johnson	COL	27	1.3	59
Jared Spurgeon	MIN	23	0.98	62
Ryan Suter	MIN	27	0.95	69
Rasmus Ristolainen	BUF	24	0.91	69
Jonas Brodin	MIN	16	0.64	69

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

I looked up this stat when someone said Pasta gives the puck away a lot and was shocked to see he was correct and even more shocked to see some of the names high up.

Shockingly high: Barzal, Pasta, Malkin, Panarin, Draisaitl, Marner, McDavid, Marchand, Kucherov, Eichel, Klingber, Keith, Heiskanen, Chabot, McAvoy.

Shockingly low: Point, Boeser, Landeskog, Pettersson, Giroux, Kane, Ristolainen, Hedman, Fowler, Sergachev.

Sorry for the long post, but I think this is a rpetty important stat to look at when talking about overall game.

Click to read more...

 

[HabsQC]

Great job, very interesting

 

[Isaac Nootin]

Not really surprising. Good players have the puck on their stick much more often.

The leaders in this category year after year are high end caliber players.

 

[John Eichel da GOAT]

Not really surprising. Good players have the puck on their stick much more often.

The leaders in this category year after year are high end caliber players.

Brayden Point? Dude was very low. 19 total giveaways.

Barzal 103
Draisaitl 91
MacKinnon 53
Giroux 35
Pettersson 33

Those are all elite players who are all over the board. Its not consistent at all.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Bad players actually 'give' the puck away more than star players, it's just not recorded as such. Like a bottom pairing defenseman chipping off glass instead of making a play out of the zone, where the other team recovers at center ice. Or a 4th liner dumping the puck instead of making a play into the zone.

Giveaways are largely a useless stat.

 

[M88K]

Wouldn't look too much into this stat, especially since the standard for what is a giveaway is different in each building. The stat is almost entirely subjective.
But it stands to reason that players who have the puck more will generally have higher number of giveaways, especially playmakers who try to force passes through traffic in the offensive zone than the chip and chase players even though in actuality the latter is giving up the puck significantly more

 

[John Eichel da GOAT]

Bad players actually 'give' the puck away more than star players, it's just not recorded as such. Like a bottom pairing defenseman chipping off glass instead of making a play out of the zone, where the other team recovers at center ice. Or a 4th liner dumping the puck instead of making a play into the zone.

Giveaways are largely a useless stat.

I agree with that to a certain extent. Technically a bad chip or icing should be seen as a giveaway.

Wouldn't look too much into this stat, especially since the standard for what is a giveaway is different in each building. The stat is almost entirely subjective.
But it stands to reason that players who have the puck more will generally have higher number of giveaways, especially playmakers who try to force passes through traffic in the offensive zone than the chip and chase players even though in actuality the latter is giving up the puck significantly more

I believe that its not consistently tracked perfectly, but how do you explain Barzal, Eichel, Panarin, and Draisaitl so high then Point, Pettersson, and Kane low? All star players. Some centers, some wings, some playmakers, some goal scorers. There has to be some way to attribute this to their overall game in terms of offensive production and likely opposition chances going the other way. Hell McDavid and Draisaitl being so high explains a lot. High risk, high reward, but it often goes back the other way and we dont see that on highlights.

 

[FunkySeeFunkyDo]

Is it a style of play indicator?

Does it correlate to other stats like xGF%?

Is it repeatable? In general do players have the similar TOper60 year over year?

 

[John Eichel da GOAT]

Is it a style of play indicator?

Does it correlate to other stats like xGF%?

Is it repeatable? In general do players have the similar TOper60 year over year?

Im going to dive a little deeper, but did a quick 5 and 15 year sort.

5 years giveaways/60:
1. Johnny Hockey
2. Pasta
3. Burns
4. Petry
5. Matheson
6. Drais
7. Malkin
8. Marchand
9. Yandle
10. Getzlaf

And the flip side 5 years worth of takeaways/60:
1. Stone
2. Marner
3. Malkin
4. matthews
5. Forsberg
6. McDavid
7. Grabner
8. Skinner
9. Backlund
10. Armia

15 years takwaways/60:
1. Stone
2. Datsyuk
3. Grabner
4. Marner
5. Arnason
6. Mattews
7. ROR
8. Riley Nash
9. McDavid
10. Backlund

15 years giveaways/60
1. Gaudreau
2. Pasta
3. thornton
4. matheson
5. Petry
6. Drais
7. Modano
8. Kovalchuk
9. Afinogenov
10. Komisarek

 

[M88K]

I agree with that to a certain extent. Technically a bad chip or icing should be seen as a giveaway.


I believe that its not consistently tracked perfectly, but how do you explain Barzal, Eichel, Panarin, and Draisaitl so high then Point, Pettersson, and Kane low? All star players. Some centers, some wings, some playmakers, some goal scorers. There has to be some way to attribute this to their overall game in terms of offensive production and likely opposition chances going the other way. Hell McDavid and Draisaitl being so high explains a lot. High risk, high reward, but it often goes back the other way and we dont see that on highlights.

That's just it though, look at the names you listed.
Barzal, Eichel and Panarin all play on different teams.
McDavid and dria play the same team both really high.
Pettersson,Kane, Point again different teams.

Pettersson plays 41 games in Vancouver during a normal uninjured season. The stat trackers there have their own definition of a giveaway.
They decide that a play that the trackers in Edmonton would call a giveaway, isn't actually a giveaway.
So then you have McDavid who plays 41 games with, let's call them "stricter" stat trackers.
So he's getting more giveaways by the Edmonton standard than he would in the Vancouver standard.

The only thing that giveaways can give you insight with is when compared against players on the same team because they're subjected to the same standards, and even then. A giveaway in the defensive zone is more egregious than one in the offensive zone.
On a basic view
If a player has 100 credited giveaways. You'd think "oh he turns it over a lot" but if 90% of those are in the offensive zone trying to create plays.. Not a big deal on the flip side you have a player with 40 credited giveaways but 95% are in the defensive zone. That's a big problem despite it looking like he's more responsible with the puck than player A

 

[TheOtherOne]

Would be useful if it was per 60-with-the-puck-on-their-stick.

If my teammates never pass me the puck I will have 0 giveaways!

 

[nbwingsfan]

I dont think it really tells much at all. As others have pointed out its not a well tracked stat, and good players who have the puck a lot will always be near the top of the list.

A dump in or cycle can be just as bad as a "giveaway" but wont be tracked as such

 

[John Eichel da GOAT]

That's just it though, look at the names you listed.
Barzal, Eichel and Panarin all play on different teams.
McDavid and dria play the same team both really high.
Pettersson,Kane, Point again different teams.

Pettersson plays 41 games in Vancouver during a normal uninjured season. The stat trackers there have their own definition of a giveaway.
They decide that a play that the trackers in Edmonton would call a giveaway, isn't actually a giveaway.
So then you have McDavid who plays 41 games with, let's call them "stricter" stat trackers.
So he's getting more giveaways by the Edmonton standard than he would in the Vancouver standard.

The only thing that giveaways can give you insight with is when compared against players on the same team because they're subjected to the same standards.

True, but thats all an assumption. Do we know for sure that a home team stat trackers only tracks the home team? Wouldn't they track the away team as well so every player is subjected to the same 41 games worth of 31 different trackers then 41 games of their own home trackers?

Or is it some analytics nerd in Toronto watching every game tracking these? Im genuinely curious. I remember a pod where (i think the DNVR Avalanche one) where they had an anlaytics guy on and he said he was weeks to months behind watching games tallying stats and he watches every team in the NHL.

 

[M88K]

True, but thats all an assumption. Do we know for sure that a home team stat trackers only tracks the home team? Wouldn't they track the away team as well so every player is subjected to the same 41 games worth of 31 different trackers then 41 games of their own home trackers?

Or is it some analytics nerd in Toronto watching every game tracking these? Im genuinely curious. I remember a pod where (i think the DNVR Avalanche one) where they had an anlaytics guy on and he said he was weeks to months behind watching games tallying stats and he watches every team in the NHL.

Those Starts are tracked in real time by the NHL at the game by the staff in that building for both teams.
So in a normal season McDavid plays 41 games in Edmonton.
41 "strict" games.
41 games of varying quality from lax to strict.

 

[John Eichel da GOAT]

Would be useful if it was per 60-with-the-puck-on-their-stick.

If my teammates never pass me the puck I will have 0 giveaways!

I was thinking that too with Ovechkin for example. Dude shoots more than he passes so wouldnt Backstrom have more giveaways forcing the puck to AO?

I dont think it really tells much at all. As others have pointed out its not a well tracked stat, and good players who have the puck a lot will always be near the top of the list.

A dump in or cycle can be just as bad as a "giveaway" but wont be tracked as such

So then why is Kucherov high and Point low? They would be tracked the same. Same with Pasta/Marchand high and Bergeron low? We know Bergeron is a consistent Selke candidate. This stat relates to his game pretty well I'd say.

 

[John Eichel da GOAT]

Starts are tracked in real time at the game by the staff in that building for both teams.
So i a normal season McDavid plays 41 games in Edmonton.
41 strict games.
41 games of varying quality from lax to strict.

Alright so going off that, how do we explain Point being so low in giveaways and Kucherov being so high? Drais/McDavid go together, but not all teams are like that.

 

[Suntouchable13]

What's a giveaway anyway? I don't put too much stock in subjective stats. Same as the hit stat, for example.

 

[Doctor No]

What's a giveaway anyway? I don't put too much stock in subjective stats. Same as the hit stat, for example.

This is a good point - ultimately, what is a "giveaway" (or a "hit", or even sometimes a "shot on goal") is determined by the official scorer.

Generally, the players who will appear near the tops of this list will be those who: (1) have the puck a lot [you can't give the puck away unless you have it to begin with], and (2) play in rinks where the official scorer has a liberal definition of "giveaway" [since they'll have that scorer in half of their games].

Adjusting for these two effects is very difficult (impossible?) but useful.

 

[M88K]

Alright so going off that, how do we explain Point being so low in giveaways and Kucherov being so high? Drais/McDavid go together, but not all teams are like that.

The explanation is likely based on their style of play. Kucherov takes a lot of risk with the puck in the offensive zone to make things happen. Point generally doesn't.
But you also have to factor in who actually had the puck on there stick more during the game. Kucherov does by a lot.
It's not like point was a few points away from Kucherov. And Kucherov played what 2-3 more games but also had 20 more points.
You can't infer anything from the stat as the nhl tracks it because there's no context to it.

If they had dzone giveaways, ozone giveaways, n zone giveaways you could maybe make some kind of assumption.
But in the NHL's eyes a giveaway in front of your own net counts as 1 giveaway. As does a giveaway behind the offensive net. But 1 of those is a serious issue the other isn't.

For example. Id be comfortable with Heiskanen having the puck anywhere. I don't want Cogliano to ever have the puck come near him let alone be on his stick. But I'm sure Heiskanen has a whole lot more giveaways than cogliano

 

[TheOtherOne]

I was thinking that too with Ovechkin for example. Dude shoots more than he passes so wouldnt Backstrom have more giveaways forcing the puck to AO?

Depends also on how players play against him.

If nobody guards Backstrom because he's not a scoring threat but 3 defensemen are draped over Ovi's shoulders at all times, and they mug Ovi instantly taking the puck 9 times out of 10 but he scores on the 10th, then his giveaways are going to be awful but that wouldn't even mean he's doing anything wrong necessarily.

 

[Dekes For Days]

Brayden Point? Dude was very low. 19 total giveaways.

That's because Kucherov is often the one carrying the puck and creating the offensive opportunities on that line.

 

[The Red Line]

This type of stat is notoriously interpretive for stat keepers. Home/away stats always vary wildly.

So much of these numbers are based on what some random home team stat keeper decides is and isn’t a giveaway/takeaway and no one has the same exact definition of what that is.

Also yeah, the players who have the puck more are going to record more giveaways.

 

[Auston Marlander]

Give away per touch, or per time of puck on stick would be far more useful. All this list tells me is who has the puck more often or who drives plays more often.

 

[MartinS82]

This isn't a great stat. If they had something like pass completion percentage that might be useful or 1v1 battles or something. But this stat rewards players for dumping the puck in, chipping the puck out, and penalizes those that attempt to "make plays".

 

[Mickey Marner]

Giveaways and takeways are useless unless you only use away numbers + average give/takeaways of 2-3 home games.

For example,

NYI home games, 17.70 giveaways/60, 1st in NHL
NYI road games, 7.96 giveaways/60, 15th in NHL

Barzal home games, 6.59 giveaways/60
Barzal away games, 2.41 giveaways/60