Quarter Season Statistical Analysis of Top 20 Point Producers

[42]

We are at the quarter mark of the season and it seems like the highest scoring season in a long time. We have 50 players producing at PPG pace or better! So let's take a look at the top 20 scorers (since I didn't feel like doing the top 50) and compare their up-to-date production against their career production and see which players are likely going to sustain their pace, improve it or see it degrade over the course of the season.

I have used ioSH% (on-ice shooting percentage) as the statistical measure. This is the percentage of shots that result in goals while a player is on the ice. In the table below, I have listed the current oiSH%, career oiSH%, games played, points so far, points predicted by the career oiSH% (that is, how many points a player would have if they had their career oiSH% this season), the difference in points, predicted PPG based on points a player would have if they had their career oiSH% and finally the predicted point totals.

Player Name	oiSH%	Career oiSH%	GP	Points	Points based on career oiSH%	Delta	Predicted PPG	Predicted Season ending points (predicted PPG*82)
Rantanen	14.5	9.7	20	32	24	-8	1.2	98
MacKinnon	13.5	9.7	20	29	21	-8	1.05	86
Marner	13.4	9.8	21	28	20	-8	0.95	78
McDavid	9.6	10.5	20	28	31	+3	1.55	127
Malkin	11.6	10.3	19	27	24	-3	1.26	104
Duchene	15.5	9.3	21	27	16	-11	0.76	62
Bergeron	12.8	8.8	19	26	18	-8	0.95	77*
Point	11.8	10.2	21	26	22	-4	1.05	86
Rielly	14.2	8.6	21	26	16	-10	0.76	62
M.Tkachuk	10.1	8.5	21	25	21	-4	1.0	82
Tavares	13.7	9.3	21	25	17	-8	0.81	66
Pastrnak	11.4	9.6	20	25	21	-4	1.05	86
P. Kane	10.9	9.6	20	25	22	-3	1.1	90
Domi	12.8	10.2	21	25	20	-5	0.95	78
Stone	13.4	10.5	21	24	19	-5	0.9	74
Monahan	11.1	9.9	21	24	21	-3	1.0	82
Kucherov	10.1	10.1	21	24	24	0	1.14	94
Kessel	12.9	9.5	19	24	18	-6	0.95	78
Giroux	10.8	8.9	20	24	20	-4	1.0	82
Gaudreau	10.7	10.5	21	24	24	0	1.14	94

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

It's interesting to note that all but three of the top producers are overachieving. At or below their career oiSH are McDavid, Kucherov and Gaudreau.

Also noteworthy is the range of career oiSH%. Lowest is 8.5 and highest is 10.5. Compare this range to the range of year-to-date oiSH% with lowest of 9.6 and highest of 15.5. You notice right away the much bigger range (5.9 vs 2 in the career oiSH%), which is explainable by the fact that we only have 20 games of sample size and numbers normalise over the course of the full season.

Top 10 predicted scorers are
McDavid- 127
Malkin - 104
Rantanen - 98
Kucherov - 94
Gaudreau - 94
Kane - 90
MacKinnon - 86
Point - 86
Pastrnak - 86
Tkachuk, Monahan and Giroux tied at 82

The one outlier in the data set is Duchene, who is having a lot of luck early on and is projected to finish the year with 67 points, a far cry from his current 100+ point pace.

Another interesting prediction was Tavares's 66 points. That really surprised me but the numbers are telling us that he really should have more points right now given his very high oiSH%. Not sure what to make of it. I would bet he finishes with more than 66 points, though

I did not look into scorers below the top 20 and I'm sure some of them will pick it up and end up in the top 20 or even top 10 in scoring.

*Obviously Bergeron will not play 82 games.

Click to read more...

 

[Hockey Crazy]

This doesn't take into account age and new linemates... interesting though

 

[42]

This doesn't take into account age and new linemates... interesting though

You are right, it doesn't. It would be impractical to incorporate these factors into the analysis above but it is a valid point. I've only considered the one factor, oiSH%.

 

[Tkachuky]

As a Flames fan I would be ecstatic if this is the outcome.

 

[Kennedys]

The sh% is up league wide (probably due to smaller goalie equipement) so the career oiSH% is not really useful.

 

[Holymakinaw]

Sorry, but this kind of analysis is so cold and sterile. It lacks the "eye test" of a real human eyeball.

The statistics say what all of these guys MIGHT get but it's pointless, really. If we lived in a vacuum, then it might be good. But we live in the real world.

What about injuries? What about trades to teams with all new line-mates? What about luck? What about too much legal weed while playing in Canada?

Yeah, this chart is cool looking and has a lot of numbers and stuff.......but the reality will be completely different. So.......pointless.

 

[AuGsY]

I'm willing to bet 90% of HF would be able to ball park the point totals more accurately than this list.

 

[Classicnamesup]

You're welcome to take no value from the analysis and leave the thread. I find the math interesting while still noting the limitations of this type of analysis.

Would be interesting to see again at 1/2, 3/4 to see how reliably these overachievers return to earth and how many of them may be setting a new standard.

 

[Martin Skoula]

Why are you using all situations minutes for this? This is a pretty useless exercise given that many of the players on this list are going to see fluctuating PP time as a percentage of total ice time year to year. What you call luck can easily be seeing an extra minute of PP time and a minute less of ES time. One of those naturally has a 12%+ shooting rate while the other is 9%. Your overall on ice percentage will look "high" even though it is exactly what you'd expect given the change in TOI distribution.

The idea isn't bad, the execution is awful.

 

[Marshy]

Marner will be > PPG.

 

[42]

Why are you using all situations minutes for this? This is a pretty useless exercise given that many of the players on this list are going to see fluctuating PP time as a percentage of total ice time year to year. What you call luck can easily be seeing an extra minute of PP time and a minute less of ES time. One of those naturally has a 12%+ shooting rate while the other is 9%. Your overall on ice percentage will look "high" even though it is exactly what you'd expect given the change in TOI distribution.

The idea isn't bad, the execution is awful.

oiSH% is only calculated at even strength. All of the numbers in the table use even strength data only. And of course the point totals include both EV and PP points so the math isn't exact but the data for PP points is not as easily available and I didn't feel like doing the extra work.

 

[42]

Marner will be > PPG.

He very well could be but I'm not sure how you can be so certain. 78 points seems pretty good to me and is very close to PPG.

 

[TheDoldrums]

You're taking the 5v5 on-ice SH% and applying it to all points. But a large portion of these points are being generated on the PP.

 

[93LEAFS]

You are right, it doesn't. It would be impractical to incorporate these factors into the analysis above but it is a valid point. I've only considered the one factor, oiSH%.

The other is you've only looked at oiSH in one situation. You should only look at oiSH% relative to 5v5 points and then look at PP etc.

 

[42]

You're taking the on-ice SH% and applying it to all points.

But a large portion of these points are being generated on the PP.

Yes, you are right. To be more precise, I should have used the EV production only and then added the PP points. I might re-do the calc. to see what differences it produces.

 

[42]

The other is you've only looked at oiSH in one situation. You should only look at oiSH% relative to 5v5 points and then look at PP etc.

Agreed. See my reply above.

 

[PepsiCenterMagic]

(Any machine learning here?) - my original comment

But has machine learning been used and documented anywhere in predicting points?

 

[Marshy]

He very well could be but I'm not sure how you can be so certain. 78 points seems pretty good to me and is very close to PPG.

Since he was taken off the Bozak and JVR line and put with Kadri and Marleau in January last season his numbers spiked up. They have spiked even more with Tavares. Those 2 are deadly together and they are just getting started. Trust me PPG for Marner is a certainty.

Barring injury to him or JT, 90 points is a given also.

 

[Stamkos4life]

Yes, you are right. To be more precise, I should have used the EV production only and then added the PP points. I might re-do the calc. to see what differences it produces.

Or do one at the half way mark with the new criteria. Save you from redoing this one lol

 

[BruinsBtn]

Interesting. Cool thread despite all the shade getting thrown

 

[traparatus]

Thanks for putting this together.

It's a pretty cool way to zero in on some anomalies. Some can be explained, some can't. There are some things that I would like see and don't really know how to put together/find, such as:

Goal rate is up. Are shooting percentages up across the league or are players taking more shots? Is there any way to graph Goal Per Game vs Date? What was GPG at this point last year?

For example, if every season follows a similar pattern of shooting percentages starting off high and dropping as the season progresses, than a normalizing coefficient can be found out to account for this.

 

[shelf]

Tavares is only putting up 41 points over the next 61 games. Shoot

 

[Bozo Nicholson]

Sorry, but this kind of analysis is so cold and sterile. It lacks the "eye test" of a real human eyeball.

The statistics say what all of these guys MIGHT get but it's pointless, really. If we lived in a vacuum, then it might be good. But we live in the real world.

What about injuries? What about trades to teams with all new line-mates? What about luck? What about too much legal weed while playing in Canada?

Yeah, this chart is cool looking and has a lot of numbers and stuff.......but the reality will be completely different. So.......pointless.

Yeah I always wished Statistics had more character, it was never quite the life of the party. Now Human Eye on the other hand, man that guy is an animal!

 

[Bank Shot]

The sh% is up league wide (probably due to smaller goalie equipement) so the career oiSH% is not really useful.

This isn't the first time they have changed goalie gear or made other rule changes to increase scoring.


I've been looking at oiSH% for years and from what I can tell no one has ever finished a season over 13% in the last ten years and no one has been able to hit 12%+ over a 2-3 year span.

So if you are a fan of someone on this list that is sitting at 13-14% what you are looking at is a hot streak and they are almost certainly going to slow down.

Sorry if you are a fan of one of these players.

 

[NoName]

That is an interesting way to predict points but I don't really buy many of the final predictions. Duchene and Tavares are going to put up way more points, particularly Tavares, given his past production and his current scoring a mere 41 points over the last 61 games would be way out of line from him, especially given how rock solid his season by season production is. I would also be surprised if McDavid put up 127 points this season, that is way more then any player has scored in a season for many years and way above his previous career high.