Wayne Gretzky and Mike Bossy Time on Ice
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Thanks for posting these! More support for the idea that Bossy was around 17-18 minutes per game and Gretzky was around 27 minutes per game.
It's fair to point out reasons why Bossy's individual game TOI's might have been low. I would just say that, in general, Al Arbour seemed to find reasons and take opportunities to keep Bossy's ice time down, and as far as I've seen, Glen Sather didn't do the same for Gretzky.
My read on the Islanders is that Arbour really committed to spreading out the ice time starting in the 79-80 season, after the playoff upsets of 78 and 79. I think Bossy's ice time was relatively low through the dynasty years. It may have risen somewhat late in his career when the Islanders' forward depth was no longer as effective. And he may have played more in his top goal scoring season of 78-79 than in the dynasty years.
That's what I saw as well in the three games I tracked, although some of the names varied depending on the season. The fourth line would get a couple of shifts in the first period and then Sather would shorten the bench at some point and stop playing them. Of the third liners, I noticed that Sather really trusted Mike Krushelnyski, who joined the Oilers the season after you're watching. He started on the third line with no special teams role, but he was the choice to fill in the top six if needed, at any position, and on special teams as well. And he also took defensive zone faceoffs for Gretzky.
I agree with you, in that I think Gretzky could handle the usage and was always able to go hard when needed. And it may well have been the best way to use Gretzky. I intend no criticism of Gretzky or Sather.
I think the TOI is relevant knowledge for the vast majority of hockey fans today, including me, who aren't old enough to have watched the Islanders or Oilers dynasties. If all we have to look at is the statistics, the ice time helps us contextualize the statistics. On the other hand, if you've watched these players and evaluated them without referencing the stats, the TOI may not add anything to your evaluation.
To me, I think the concept of opportunity cost is the best way to look at Gretzky's high minutes played. Those "extra" minutes that Gretzky played, and used to score goals and points, are minutes that another player could be playing and using to score goals and points. Not as efficiently as Gretzky, no, but if you're just looking at total points, you have to consider that opportunity cost where Gretzky is taking opportunity from other players.
Edmonton's bottom six centres Kevin McClelland and Craig MacTavish scored very little in the playoffs, because Gretzky and Messier played most of the minutes at centre. And the Islanders got substantial playoff contributions from right wingers all the way down the lineup. Duane Sutter, Bobby Nystrom, and Anders Kallur (who played both wings), and even 9 points in 9 games from the obscure Hector Marini. Because Bossy just played a regular shift and gave the other lines opportunity to score as well.
The net result was that the four Islanders Cup-winning teams and the four Oilers Cup-winning teams were almost identical as offensive teams. The Islanders scored 364 goals in 78 playoff games. The Oilers scored 366 goals in 76.6 playoff games. So all Gretzky's additional ice time and points scored didn't make a big difference on a team level.
Overall, I agree with the consensus that Gretzky was the better offensive player. But I'd like to put a stake in the heart of this argument that Bossy can't have been an all-time goal scorer because Gretzky scored more regular season goals in his peak seasons.
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Yes the team without a doubt would have scored more goals if Gretzky does it in half the time, so it is relevant for the conversation, my point was more in regard for the overall team success, if the GF% is higher with Gretzky on the ice than when he is not, the more he play the better.
Specially if the question is, I need a goal who is better to score it, looking at season totals tell us who is better at scoring more goals during a season, which correlated but a bit different and because of stamina-drive-will, Gretzky gain edge over everyone in total game-total season-career type of comparison.
Trottier talks about this in his book.
In 1978-79 he wins the Art Ross and Hart. Islanders lead the league in points. Potvin wins the Norris. Bossy scored 69. Resch has a strong season. Gillies sets a career high in points. The Islanders (and Trottier) felt it was their year and that they would be the ones to knock off the Canadiens en route to a Cup.
And then they didn't.
In 1979-80 Arbour began his rolling four-lines approach. Trottier feels it is what enabled them to not only win the Cup, but to win Cups 2,3,4 and almost 5.
Trottier talks a lot about the physical and mental toll 5 Cup runs (and two Canada Cups) has on the team. They needed to rely to everyone since they just didn't have enough gas.
I do find it impressive though that Gretzky just goes at it though. 5 Cup runs in 6 years. 3 Canada Cups. Record after record. And he's still out there playing 25 minutes and dominating.
Well said lol.
I respect that people want to look at the stats, there's a reason the league tracks them...but then don't half-ass it.
Fred Shero's game plan in 1979 was targeted directly at Potvin, Bossy, and Trottier. Going after them physically and wearing them down. So I can understand why Arbour made that change.
It wasn't just the forward lines. They started playing three defence pairs regularly, which lightened the load on Potvin. Which is probably why he never scored 90 points or won a Norris trophy after 1979.
Agreed. I can't think of another athlete who could play so much, so hard, so consistently, without getting injured, and without his play suffering.
Unfortunately the game is no longer on YT, but Chicago had Troy Murray playing against Gretzky on all his ES shifts and he did a pretty good job shadowing him.
See this post. I used two different (but similar) approaches, both of which concluded that Lemieux was playing 29-30 minutes per game that year. Would be interested in seeing how that compares to TOI from anyone who watches a few games from that season.
Great research @overpass - will try to add some comments after I've had time to digest.
What about Bobby Orr in comparison to other defensemen?
Troy Murray also played against Gretzky in the 1985 EDM vs CHI game I tracked. And Messier played against Savard.
Nice to see this info, I know Gretzky said in his book something to the effect of “Mario and I aren’t twice as good as everyone else, we just play twice as much”.
Obviously another Gretzky being humble thing but also partly true. Then again being able to manage all those minutes effectively is a real strong point in their favour because I don’t believe that scoring increases linearly with ice time past a certain point or depending on situation or line mates.
Would love to see some of these numbers compared to the mysterious ice time estimates people were talking at face value around here years ago.
Edit - when you go into the thread @Hockey Outsider links and realize you made almost the same post there in the past already lol
Obviously another Gretzky being humble thing but also partly true. Then again being able to manage all those minutes effectively is a real strong point in their favour because I don’t believe that scoring increases linearly with ice time past a certain point or depending on situation or line mates.
Would love to see some of these numbers compared to the mysterious ice time estimates people were talking at face value around here years ago.
Edit - when you go into the thread @Hockey Outsider links and realize you made almost the same post there in the past already lol
@reckoning made a few posts on that topic. In this post, he argues (persuasively in my opinion) that Orr couldn't have possibly been averaging 40 minutes per game.
@seventieslord does a similar analysis here and reaches the same conclusion.
@Michael Farkas spot checks a few of Orr's games here. In all three games Orr is between 32 and 35 minutes. recking also spot checked a game and got 34 minutes.
I've compiled some interesting data about Bossy and Gretzky scoring while trailing, while the game was tied, and with the lead. I'll look at the 1980-1983 playoffs for Bossy, and the 1984-1988 playoffs for Gretzky. And for Bossy, I'll remove any stats from the six playoff games he missed (5 in 1980, 1 in 1983).
The Islanders spent 21% of their ice time trailing, 31% tied, and 48% leading.
The Oilers spent 20% of their ice time trailing, 30% tied, and 50% leading.
The Islanders scored 4.11 G/60 while trailing, 4.50 G/60 while tied, 4.92 G/60 while leading, and 4.62 G/60 overall.
The Oilers scored 5.01 G/60 while trailing, 4.42 G/50 while tied, 4.70 G/60 while leading, and 4.68 G/60 overall.
Really they were very similar teams when it came to scoring in the playoffs. The biggest difference regarding these stats is the Oilers were a bit more dangerous when trailing and the Islanders scored a little more with the lead.
The takeaway from the team stats is that the teams were very similar offensively. But Bossy and Gretzky were very different when it came to their individual scoring distributions.
Here's how they scored while trailing. And I'll add Mark Messier and Bryan Trottier in as well.
Trailing
Mark Messier - 18 G, 23 A, 41 P
Wayne Gretzky - 7 G, 25 A, 32 P
Mike Bossy - 13 G, 16 A, 29 P
Bryan Trottier - 4 G, 16 A, 20 P
Putting on a per-minute basis (team minutes, because I don't have individual TOI numbers):
Mark Messier - 1.01 G, 2.31 P per team 60
Mike Bossy - 0.85 G, 1.89 P per team 60
Wayne Gretzky - 0.39 G, 1.80 P per team 60
Bryan Trottier - 0.26 G, 1.30 P per team 60
When his team was trailing, Bossy scored more than twice as many goals as Gretzky and edged him out in point production as well. And oddly enough, Mark Messier led both of them.
Tied
Wayne Gretzky - 17 G, 33 A, 50 P
Mike Bossy - 23 G, 15 A, 38 P
Mark Messier - 12 G, 19 A, 31 P
Bryan Trottier - 8 G, 21 A, 29 P
And per team minute:
Wayne Gretzky - 0.65 G/60, 1.92 P/60
Mike Bossy - 0.99 G/60, 1.64 P/60
Mark Messier - 0.46 G/60, 1.36 P/60
Bryan Trottier - 0.35 G/60, 1.25 P/60
Bossy was clearly the best goal scorer while tied. Gretzky had the edge as a point scorer, but not by that much over Bossy.
Leading
Wayne Gretzky - 31 G, 65 A, 96 P
Mark Messier - 18 G, 33 A, 51 P
Bryan Trottier - 22 G, 27 A, 49 P
Mike Bossy - 25 G, 19 A, 44 P
And per team minute:
Wayne Gretzky - 0.71 G/60, 2.21 P/60
Bryan Trottier - 0.63 G/60, 1.39 P/60
Mike Bossy - 0.71 G/60, 1.25 P/60
Mark Messier - 0.38 G/60, 1.17 P/60
With the lead, Gretzky matched Bossy as a goal scorer and nearly doubled him as a point scorer. Bossy and Messier were much less impressive as scorers with the lead as they were when trailing or tied. Bryan Trottier's playoff goal scoring was also largely with the lead, he was far behind Bossy as a goal scorer when trailing or tied.
I'll add one more thing. The Islanders scored 62 goals to give their team a 4 goal lead or more, and Bossy had a point on only 12 of them. The Oilers scored 60 such goals, and Gretzky had a point on 29 of them. So Gretzky pretty clearly had a longer leash to play and to score in blowouts.
Conclusions
As playoff point scorers in the dynasty years, Mike Bossy and Wayne Gretzky were roughly equal in the 50% of the game that their teams were tied or behind. Gretzky nearly doubled Bossy as a point scorer in the 50% of the game that their team was leading. That's a very dramatic difference!
Some of that difference was because Al Arbour's style of coaching with the lead was to lengthen his bench and rest his top players, while Sather shortened his bench, so Gretzky played more ice time with the lead than Bossy did. Some of it was because the Islanders didn't play as aggressively with the lead. Gretzky's game was also suited well to counterattacking against teams pressing to tie the game.
It's possible that Bossy might actually have been the more efficient scorer when trailing/tied if he played less ice time than Gretzky, but unfortunately we don't have those numbers.
When breaking down the numbers in this manner, it's very clear that when the Islanders were trailing or tied, Mike Bossy was the offensive leader over Trottier. Trottier only came close to Bossy in scoring because he got to play and score more with the lead, and because Bossy missed a few games. Trottier's goal scoring in particular was dependent on scoring when his team was leading.
Mark Messier's numbers when trailing are incredible, as were his linemate Glenn Anderson's. So many times when the Oilers were trailing, it was Messier's line scoring to get them back in the game. I'm not sure I know why, but it is likely one of the reason's for Messier's very high reputation as a playoff performer.
The Islanders spent 21% of their ice time trailing, 31% tied, and 48% leading.
The Oilers spent 20% of their ice time trailing, 30% tied, and 50% leading.
The Islanders scored 4.11 G/60 while trailing, 4.50 G/60 while tied, 4.92 G/60 while leading, and 4.62 G/60 overall.
The Oilers scored 5.01 G/60 while trailing, 4.42 G/50 while tied, 4.70 G/60 while leading, and 4.68 G/60 overall.
Really they were very similar teams when it came to scoring in the playoffs. The biggest difference regarding these stats is the Oilers were a bit more dangerous when trailing and the Islanders scored a little more with the lead.
The takeaway from the team stats is that the teams were very similar offensively. But Bossy and Gretzky were very different when it came to their individual scoring distributions.
Here's how they scored while trailing. And I'll add Mark Messier and Bryan Trottier in as well.
Trailing
Mark Messier - 18 G, 23 A, 41 P
Wayne Gretzky - 7 G, 25 A, 32 P
Mike Bossy - 13 G, 16 A, 29 P
Bryan Trottier - 4 G, 16 A, 20 P
Putting on a per-minute basis (team minutes, because I don't have individual TOI numbers):
Mark Messier - 1.01 G, 2.31 P per team 60
Mike Bossy - 0.85 G, 1.89 P per team 60
Wayne Gretzky - 0.39 G, 1.80 P per team 60
Bryan Trottier - 0.26 G, 1.30 P per team 60
When his team was trailing, Bossy scored more than twice as many goals as Gretzky and edged him out in point production as well. And oddly enough, Mark Messier led both of them.
Tied
Wayne Gretzky - 17 G, 33 A, 50 P
Mike Bossy - 23 G, 15 A, 38 P
Mark Messier - 12 G, 19 A, 31 P
Bryan Trottier - 8 G, 21 A, 29 P
And per team minute:
Wayne Gretzky - 0.65 G/60, 1.92 P/60
Mike Bossy - 0.99 G/60, 1.64 P/60
Mark Messier - 0.46 G/60, 1.36 P/60
Bryan Trottier - 0.35 G/60, 1.25 P/60
Bossy was clearly the best goal scorer while tied. Gretzky had the edge as a point scorer, but not by that much over Bossy.
Leading
Wayne Gretzky - 31 G, 65 A, 96 P
Mark Messier - 18 G, 33 A, 51 P
Bryan Trottier - 22 G, 27 A, 49 P
Mike Bossy - 25 G, 19 A, 44 P
And per team minute:
Wayne Gretzky - 0.71 G/60, 2.21 P/60
Bryan Trottier - 0.63 G/60, 1.39 P/60
Mike Bossy - 0.71 G/60, 1.25 P/60
Mark Messier - 0.38 G/60, 1.17 P/60
With the lead, Gretzky matched Bossy as a goal scorer and nearly doubled him as a point scorer. Bossy and Messier were much less impressive as scorers with the lead as they were when trailing or tied. Bryan Trottier's playoff goal scoring was also largely with the lead, he was far behind Bossy as a goal scorer when trailing or tied.
I'll add one more thing. The Islanders scored 62 goals to give their team a 4 goal lead or more, and Bossy had a point on only 12 of them. The Oilers scored 60 such goals, and Gretzky had a point on 29 of them. So Gretzky pretty clearly had a longer leash to play and to score in blowouts.
Conclusions
As playoff point scorers in the dynasty years, Mike Bossy and Wayne Gretzky were roughly equal in the 50% of the game that their teams were tied or behind. Gretzky nearly doubled Bossy as a point scorer in the 50% of the game that their team was leading. That's a very dramatic difference!
Some of that difference was because Al Arbour's style of coaching with the lead was to lengthen his bench and rest his top players, while Sather shortened his bench, so Gretzky played more ice time with the lead than Bossy did. Some of it was because the Islanders didn't play as aggressively with the lead. Gretzky's game was also suited well to counterattacking against teams pressing to tie the game.
It's possible that Bossy might actually have been the more efficient scorer when trailing/tied if he played less ice time than Gretzky, but unfortunately we don't have those numbers.
When breaking down the numbers in this manner, it's very clear that when the Islanders were trailing or tied, Mike Bossy was the offensive leader over Trottier. Trottier only came close to Bossy in scoring because he got to play and score more with the lead, and because Bossy missed a few games. Trottier's goal scoring in particular was dependent on scoring when his team was leading.
Mark Messier's numbers when trailing are incredible, as were his linemate Glenn Anderson's. So many times when the Oilers were trailing, it was Messier's line scoring to get them back in the game. I'm not sure I know why, but it is likely one of the reason's for Messier's very high reputation as a playoff performer.
I agree that 40 minutes per game ended up being too high for Orr based on the work in that thread (unless you start factoring in fatigue affecting performance of players etc.). Although that specific post had problems if I recall.
Interesting to see Gretzky's numbers ticking up from the estimates and closer to some of the contemporary reports here though...
overpass, Not only the attempted data is interesting but the method, detail and presentation is perfect.
You have a question in your mind, yeah but maybe the islanders trailed more and so on, it is all there, one thought was Messier-Anderson line being so good at scoring goals in the playoff that they would have tie and get leads, but that would not explain the per team minutes numbers necessarily (maybe it does, as it is not player minutes but teams minutes)
If this is a script-code doing it using digitalized gamelog ?
There is something nice to see reputation (say Fuhr stopping pucks when it matters, Messier playoff heroes/good Smythe winner even if strange when you look at the whole playoff numbers) showing up like that.
You have a question in your mind, yeah but maybe the islanders trailed more and so on, it is all there, one thought was Messier-Anderson line being so good at scoring goals in the playoff that they would have tie and get leads, but that would not explain the per team minutes numbers necessarily (maybe it does, as it is not player minutes but teams minutes)
If this is a script-code doing it using digitalized gamelog ?
There is something nice to see reputation (say Fuhr stopping pucks when it matters, Messier playoff heroes/good Smythe winner even if strange when you look at the whole playoff numbers) showing up like that.
Thanks! I just copied the hockey-reference box scores into Excel to calculate these numbers. It took a bit of work but I knew I had something with the scoring data, so it was worth taking the time to do it right.
Agreed. Another one is Butch Goring, whose 1981 Conn Smythe is often criticized today. He led the 1981 playoffs in scoring while the game was tied.
1981 Islanders PO scoring, game tied
Butch Goring 4 G 10 P
Mike Bossy 4 G 7 P
Denis Potvin 3 G 7 P
John Tonelli 3 G 5 P
Wayne Merrick 2 G 5 P
Goring also led the 1980 and 1981 Islanders combined in playoff scoring while tied.
1980-81 Islanders PO scoring, game tied
Butch Goring 6 G 18 P
Mike Bossy 9 G 16 P
Bryan Trottier 5 G 15 P
Clark Gillies 3 G 14 P
Denis Potvin 5 G 12 P
Ya, I have seen multiple sources where Arbour/Torrey/players relate how the Isles had that big 116pt regular season filled with individual accolades but flamed out in the playoffs. They realized they needed to leave some in the tank and so they took their foot off the gas in the regular seasons from then on. They also improved some of their depth to allow the minutes to be spread around though.
The Oilers had a similar realization during their dynasty as well where they would jump out into a playoff spot and then coast the rest of the way before dialing back up in the playoffs.
A very good strategy in a time when most teams made the playoffs.
Wait, hold the phone here. Your stats actually show that Gretzky scored more points than Bossy when each team was trailing. We should probably keep that clear. The "edging out in point production" is your guess based on ice-time estimates that aren't going to be very accurate.
I don't think there's any doubt about that. When up by a few goals, Al Arbour's 1960s' style coaching was to protect the lead. Glen Sather's style was to play his best players and run up the score if possible. This kind of makes sense, though, as Edmonton wasn't as good a defensive team as the Islanders. They depended more on getting big leads. (For example, they blew a 5-0 lead in the third period of playoff game.)
Sure. I will also add that, most likely, when other clubs had a lead over Edmonton, they would tend to focus on shutting down Gretzky while getting into a defensive mode, which then opens up more ice and less defensive efficiency for the high-scoring Messier-line. By contrast, the Islanders generally didn't have a second line as prolific as Messier-Anderson, so much of the scoring (if it occured) was going to be by the top line.
But yes, there's a reason Mark Messier is a playoff legend.
Gretzky scored more based on raw points. But those points were scored in 87 playoff games and Bossy's in 72. Not apples to apples.
So I calculated the actual ice time that each team spent trailing, from the box scores. It's not an estimate at all, it's as much a fact as any hockey stat you could ask for. I invite you to show otherwise.
And Bossy scored more goals and points per minute that his team trailed than Gretzky did in the same situation.
Okay, so (assuming @overpass's calculation of minutes played in various situations and scoring of Bossy/Gretzky is correct), we have the following idea based on the team-Dynasty period of each player. (Correct me if I'm wrong):
-- When Isles/Oilers were tied: Advantage Gretzky
-- When Isles/Oilers were ahead: Advantage Gretzky
-- When Isles/Oilers were behind: Advantage Bossy in points-per-minute
Do I have this correct?
Now, is it not possible that Gretzky's large number of points when 'ahead' actually contributed rather a lot to the Oilers' not being behind? That is, if the team builds up a big lead, they aren't going to get behind.
Another point might be: How many of the respective points-scored-when-behind were relevant in a team victory? I mean, is it not possible (I'm just asking) that one player scored a lot when down, but his team usually lost those games (i.e., kind of empty points, in the end)?
To put it another way, scoring points to add to a 2-0 and 3-0 lead and then winning are actually more valuable points than scoring two points when down 6-2 and losing 6-4.
There are various ways to look at these things...
-- When Isles/Oilers were tied: Advantage Gretzky
-- When Isles/Oilers were ahead: Advantage Gretzky
-- When Isles/Oilers were behind: Advantage Bossy in points-per-minute
Do I have this correct?
Now, is it not possible that Gretzky's large number of points when 'ahead' actually contributed rather a lot to the Oilers' not being behind? That is, if the team builds up a big lead, they aren't going to get behind.
Another point might be: How many of the respective points-scored-when-behind were relevant in a team victory? I mean, is it not possible (I'm just asking) that one player scored a lot when down, but his team usually lost those games (i.e., kind of empty points, in the end)?
To put it another way, scoring points to add to a 2-0 and 3-0 lead and then winning are actually more valuable points than scoring two points when down 6-2 and losing 6-4.
There are various ways to look at these things...
I don’t think it works that way, because in games where they played more it’s usually because they already weren’t scoring enough, hence the team was usually in need of goals and playing them more.
This is the kind of analysis we need more of!
I don't know if you did all this manually or if you used some sort of script to scrape the data, but I wonder if it could be further refined to situational time, since we know what penalties were called and when.
I mean, I guess I know that the answer is yes it can be further refined, but whether you did this manually or with a script, it would make collecting the data significantly more difficult.
Further, from among these four players one of them spent a lot more time in the box than the other three, and that time he spent in the box isn't being removed. The nature of the data you presented doesn't necessarily demand that those minutes be excluded, but if it was possible to present these numbers situationally I would imagine further consideration would be given to eliminating time spent in the penalty box.
Depending on how labour intensive collecting this data is, there are all kinds of possibilities this opens up with respect to Win Probability Added (WPA) models.
Currently all goals scored are being placed into three buckets - behind, ahead, and tied. But those are generalizations. For example, a goal scored when you're one ahead is more important than one scored when you are three behind.
And the time remaining in the game is really important to consider as well - The goal scored when three behind is more important the more time is remaining in the game, and the goal scored when one ahead is more important the less time is remaining (to an extent).
And this is all data that is available. Without knowing how it's collected, I just don't know how realistic it is to hope it can be collected for numerous players over a period of many years.
Currently all goals scored are being placed into three buckets - behind, ahead, and tied. But those are generalizations. For example, a goal scored when you're one ahead is more important than one scored when you are three behind.
And the time remaining in the game is really important to consider as well - The goal scored when three behind is more important the more time is remaining in the game, and the goal scored when one ahead is more important the less time is remaining (to an extent).
And this is all data that is available. Without knowing how it's collected, I just don't know how realistic it is to hope it can be collected for numerous players over a period of many years.
Reminds me of Victory-Important RBI that Bill James explores in his 1984 Baseball Abstract:
Beginning on page 42.
Beginning on page 42.
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