Jakub Voracek isn't putting much value in "secondary assists"

[a mangy Meowth]

I knew someone would jump all over his comments and use them towards their argument about secondary assists. Pitiful

 

[Appleyard]

Nah. Just like at even-strength, it's common that the guy who gets the 2nd assist on the powerplay is the one who created the play by forcing or drawing defenders out of position, giving the other players space. Teams with the best powerplay tend to be teams with the most touches and passes completed, which means the puck movement prior to the shot and last pass was important.

Heck, there are often players who don't get assists despite being instrumental to a goal by gaining the zone, driving the net, screening the goalie, etc. Unless we can equitably give points out to those guys, let's not start devaluing points that are actually credited. It's a team game and the idea that only a couple of guys on the ice helped create each goal is silly. It's so rarely a case of a player going end-to-end or two guys playing give-and-go down the ice.

Yep, Backstrom and Giroux are great examples of this on the PP. They get a lot of secondary assists on the PP... but their pass was usually the most important one in terms of sending the opposition PK into breakdown mode.

In fact I have seen both of those guys (and guys like Thornton and Getzlaf) regularly make the most important play on a PP leading to a goal and being the 'tertiary' assist... ie not getting one.

A great way of showing this is for people to go and watch the highlight videos of guys like Backstrom and Giroux on youtube... the ones which show every point in a season, and see just how many of their secondary assists were unimportant. It is not many.

 

[Scrub*]

secondary assists = primary assists, AINECCCC

 

[tarheelhockey]

Was Voracek constructing an argument against secondary assists, or was he just saying he didn't feel like he dominated that game in Lemieux-esque fashion?

 

[jpchabby]

Was Voracek constructing an argument against secondary assists, or was he just saying he didn't feel like he dominated that game in Lemieux-esque fashion?

The second one.

And secondary assists do mean something. Very often the secondary assist is actually what leads the most to the goal being scored, especially, for example, when the primary assist is a slapshot that deflected on the player who scored. I give value to the slapshot, but perhaps the secondary assist was the pass that fooled the goalie and/or the defence.

 

[txpd]

Well he's not wrong. NHL in my opinion is very technical when it comes to secondary assists, when compared to European leagues, which are much stingier with awarding the secondary assist. I guess they do it so that the players' point totals look better.

I am not saying they should change their policy though, both systems have their merits and this is how it has always been historically.

they are technical. that's being fair. the second player back that touches the puck gets an assist.

who wants the official scorer from the home team making a judgement call on whether a touch is worth or not? not me.

whats next? primary assist judgement? a shot is taken. the rebound grazes a player coming off the goalie and is then scored by a teammate. that graze is a primary assist. should it be? the goalies stops the puck behind the net and the dman goes coast to coast. primary assist.

technical is better

 

[Malkin112*]

PP secondary assists >>> ES goal AINEC!!!

 

[Drew311]

Yeah.. That's not even close to being accurate. Anyone who understands the game realizes that secondary assists are a very important aspect to the eventual goal's creation.

This is simply Jakub Voracek trying to avoid an overwhelming comparison to a top 5 player all time.

Sometimes yes, but a secondary assist can be as useless as a 5-foot pass on a power play between point men. They definitely have the ability to pad a player's stats.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Counting secondary assists as if they were just as important as goals is intellectually lazy. I don't need a comment from Voracek to see that. I have data:

http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2011/3/15/2046512/simplify-scoring-drop-secondary-assists

 

[BonMorrison]

Voracek was just being funny and tongue-in-cheek.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

Exactly. When's the last time Mario played in an all star game or even scored a point...

*Cue Lemieux making a comeback and scoring 67 points in 22 games before retiring with a bad everything*

 

[Kirk Mclean]

Sometimes secondary assists are more impressive than primary assists, and sometimes they aren't much at all. It would be nice if there was a perfect way to measure which ones deserve a point or not, but its just too much trouble and stirs up too much controversy imo (players/agents in contract talks arguing a player should've had more points, etc etc.)

 

[um]

Yep, Backstrom and Giroux are great examples of this on the PP. They get a lot of secondary assists on the PP... but their pass was usually the most important one in terms of sending the opposition PK into breakdown mode.

maybe this is the case for Giroux but it isnt for Backstrom. Ovechkin is the one who breaks down the PK, the other 4 players just play there set position.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Sometimes yes, but a secondary assist can be as useless as a 5-foot pass on a power play between point men.

So can the primary assist.

 

[Tripod]

People are so sensitive about things.

He said it because he was being compared to Lemieux and he is a humble guy.

All points are equal and calculated as such. People need to give up on the 2ndary assist thing.

And how many goals do Stamkos, Ovi and Seguin have this year that are unassisted? ONE COMBINED.

So in all their other goals, someone else had to help them get that goal.

 

[Plural]

People are so sensitive about things.

He said it because he was being compared to Lemieux and he is a humble guy.

All points are equal and calculated as such. People need to give up on the 2ndary assist thing.

And how many goals do Stamkos, Ovi and Seguin have this year that are unassisted? ONE COMBINED.

So in all their other goals, someone else had to help them get that goal.

I agree.

I have said it for a long time now, an assist from elite playmaker (like Giroux/Thornton/Getzlaf/Crosby) is often the most crucial part of the goal scored. Not always. But very often. Those assists hold the same value as goals scored by elite goal-scorers (Stamkos/Ovechkin/Kovalchuk/etc.).

It's not cut and dry. But there is a reason to assume that if Crosby gets 70 assists he more often than not created most of the play resulting in that goal.

 

[Mulletman]

Counting secondary assists as if they were just as important as goals is intellectually lazy. I don't need a comment from Voracek to see that. I have data:

http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2011/3/15/2046512/simplify-scoring-drop-secondary-assists

People should read this! Cold hard facts that secondary assists aren't based on skill!

 

[Tripod]

People should read this! Cold hard facts that secondary assists aren't based on skill!

Do you find it odd that the top skilled guys usually are the top of the 2ndary assist list as opposed to random players?

 

[Nordique]

I think it's just Voracek being modest.

this. He doesn't have to toot his own horn, his play on the ice this season has turned a lot of heads, including mine. I never thought of Jake as a true 1st line wing, but he is clearly playing at the highest level in this league................but hey, how about that Jeff Carter!!

 

[penguins2946*]

Counting secondary assists as if they were just as important as goals is intellectually lazy. I don't need a comment from Voracek to see that. I have data:

http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2011/3/15/2046512/simplify-scoring-drop-secondary-assists

Yes, 1 article with flawed logic from 4 years ago really supports your argument. Their entire argument is that the more variance in the data, the more skill it takes. That makes absolutely no sense. Just read this paragraph:

So now you're calibrated -- something with a correlation coefficient (R2) of 0.22 fluctuates about as much as goal scoring does. A correlation of 0.22 actually means quite a bit of fluctuation (just ask Alex Ovechkin), but I think we all believe that scoring goals is a talent, so this tells us that we should consider a correlation near or above 0.22 to show that something is a result of a player's talent.

That logic is completely flawed. His logic is "goal scoring is a talent, and goal scoring has a high variance, so a high variance means talent". That isn't a sound logical argument. All that data shows is that goal scoring fluctuates more than primary or secondary assists in a season.

As a matter of fact, he completely contradicts himself with this paragraph:

Here's the approach I'm going to take: I'm going to assume that if something does reflect a talent, then it should persist from year to year -- you should expect that how a player does in one year will be at least slightly predictive of how he will do in the next year. If that's true, then we'd expect to see a correlation between players' results in one year and their results the next year.

The lower value of R^2 (the closest fit to the trend line) actually shows more consistency, and secondary assists have the lowest variance. So basically, your article of support is **** and poorly reasoned.

 

[TheSituation]

Do you find it odd that the top skilled guys usually are the top of the 2ndary assist list as opposed to random players?

You can make the same argument for plus/minus.

 

[penguins2946*]

You can make the same argument for plus/minus.

That's really not true at all. Players on the teams with the best goal differential usually have the best +/-.

 

[1865]

So can the primary assist.

So can the goal. Just a case of it hitting you sometimes. Every point can be garbage.

 

[JS91]

In my opinion it's pretty much 60/40 in that 60% of the time the guy who gets the secondary assist doesn't really contribute to the play that much but 40% of the time he does. I think it would be cool if NHL.com started dividing the "assists" category to primary assists and secondary assists, but still count both of them equally to the point total. Basically it wouldn't affect a thing, just show us both of them separately.

 

[SEALBound]

Craig Adams could have had a playmaker in that gong show of a game.