Kingpin794
Smart A** In A Jersey
I've seen it brought up on numerous occasions by posters on the prospect threads that the CHL (and the OHL specifically) is not a league with defense or decent goaltending. That offensive stats taken from this league need to be discounted in a way because of the perceived deficiencies in preventing goals. So I got curious. Went back and looked at the last 40 years of OHL hockey to look for trends and to see if in fact the league has become an offense only, run and gun, glorified pick up league. See attached charts.
-Chart 1 you can see the average of the leagues top 10 scorers in blue. The orange is a 5 year average which smooths out any super high or low year and more clearly shows the trend of scoring. You can see that the mid 80's into the early 90's was some ridiculous scoring. Video game numbers where the average top ten scorer is averaging almost 120 pts in a season. Also a time period where you would see anywhere between 12-21 guys having 100 point seasons. You can also see exactly where the dead puck era kicks in. Where trap hockey becomes he norm along with clutch and grab defense. You can also see after the lock out in 2005 where the scoring recovers. But for the most part, after the lockout, scoring has been cyclical. Players adjust, different eras have different quality of players, and defenses gets use to new tactics and so on. Overall it seems scoring has leveled out. Might hit a slight high point with this gen of Misa, Martone, etc. Scoring this season is nothing truly outrageous. Nothing even close to the late 80's.
-Chart 2 is the average of the top 10 GAA goalies in the league (minimum 30 games played to weed out low or high GAA's without enough data behind them). Again, really high GAA in the late 80's. Exponential drop in the dead puck era. Leveling off after the lockout. Will say that there is a very gradual rising trend is the GAA over the last decade or so. I will give those harping on the goaltending that. But again, the GAA is nowhere near as bad as the late 80's. There have been several reasons given as to why Canada is having such a hard to developing goalies in the past decade. It's cost, it's investment in goaltending, its the fact the every kid wants to be McDavid or Makar and not Binnington etc etc. Either way, you likely won't see this number rise forever. This, like the scoring, should settle in time.
-Chart 3 essentially is a ratio of charts 1 and 2. It gives an idea of how well the goalies perform relative to the scoring in the league. If the number is higher in a year, then the goalies are performing better. Lower number, the shooters are dominating. Once more, mid 80's is all shooters. Funny enough we don't see the apex of goaltending until a little AFTER the dead puck era ends. But then around 2010 you get you first batch of kids that have played their entire formative years under the new rules. The advantage goes back towards shooters. Again, kind of cyclical since 2010. Things should settle unless some major new renaissance in the game happens. Maybe the new influx of talent to the OHL may make it harder to score with more top talent in place to stop other top talent? Remains to be seen.
-So is the OHL some offense only, pick up league? No. If I went through every development league. I'd hazard to guess we see very similar trends. Wouldn't matter if it was USHL, NCAA, WHL, whatever.
-Chart 1 you can see the average of the leagues top 10 scorers in blue. The orange is a 5 year average which smooths out any super high or low year and more clearly shows the trend of scoring. You can see that the mid 80's into the early 90's was some ridiculous scoring. Video game numbers where the average top ten scorer is averaging almost 120 pts in a season. Also a time period where you would see anywhere between 12-21 guys having 100 point seasons. You can also see exactly where the dead puck era kicks in. Where trap hockey becomes he norm along with clutch and grab defense. You can also see after the lock out in 2005 where the scoring recovers. But for the most part, after the lockout, scoring has been cyclical. Players adjust, different eras have different quality of players, and defenses gets use to new tactics and so on. Overall it seems scoring has leveled out. Might hit a slight high point with this gen of Misa, Martone, etc. Scoring this season is nothing truly outrageous. Nothing even close to the late 80's.
-Chart 2 is the average of the top 10 GAA goalies in the league (minimum 30 games played to weed out low or high GAA's without enough data behind them). Again, really high GAA in the late 80's. Exponential drop in the dead puck era. Leveling off after the lockout. Will say that there is a very gradual rising trend is the GAA over the last decade or so. I will give those harping on the goaltending that. But again, the GAA is nowhere near as bad as the late 80's. There have been several reasons given as to why Canada is having such a hard to developing goalies in the past decade. It's cost, it's investment in goaltending, its the fact the every kid wants to be McDavid or Makar and not Binnington etc etc. Either way, you likely won't see this number rise forever. This, like the scoring, should settle in time.
-Chart 3 essentially is a ratio of charts 1 and 2. It gives an idea of how well the goalies perform relative to the scoring in the league. If the number is higher in a year, then the goalies are performing better. Lower number, the shooters are dominating. Once more, mid 80's is all shooters. Funny enough we don't see the apex of goaltending until a little AFTER the dead puck era ends. But then around 2010 you get you first batch of kids that have played their entire formative years under the new rules. The advantage goes back towards shooters. Again, kind of cyclical since 2010. Things should settle unless some major new renaissance in the game happens. Maybe the new influx of talent to the OHL may make it harder to score with more top talent in place to stop other top talent? Remains to be seen.
-So is the OHL some offense only, pick up league? No. If I went through every development league. I'd hazard to guess we see very similar trends. Wouldn't matter if it was USHL, NCAA, WHL, whatever.
