Don’t Give up on Brendan Smith

Just this morning Helene St. James analytical focus was on one of this website’s namesakes, Brendan Smith. After mentioning a few of Smith’s many attributes, chief among them his skill with the puck, she finishes the piece by discussing his potential trade value. Meanwhile, in the same analysis of Danny DeKeyser she finished by describing DK as “a building block for years to come.” Her attitude towards these two players seems to reflect that of most Red Wings fans. With the Wings struggling to find elite defenders, these two have been thrust into the spotlight. Watching from a distance, we see DK’s solid defensive game, and Smith’s tendency to create offensive for both the Wings and the opposition. As an admitted Smith fan, I am somewhat troubled by these perceptions.

Howard after RBS or QS

Yesterday I looked at the goals Jimmy Howard gave up in Quality Starts and in his Really Bad Starts. The final results showed that most of the time Jimmy posts quality starts by not allowing transitional goals, leading me to the conclusion that the team defense may be a bigger factor than Jimmy himself. However, this does not tell us if Jimmy’s previous starts are affecting his confidence in the next start. To do that I did the same analysis for both the game after a Quality Start and the game following a Really Bad Start.

Howard's Goals Against in RBS and QS

Today at WingingitinMotown, JJ from Kanas took a look at Jimmy Howard's number of Quality Starts and Really Bad Starts. You can check it out here http://www.wingingitinmotown.com/2014/8/28/6068191/red-wings-goaltending-analysis-jimmy-howard-quality-starts.

For those of you who are unaware, these stats come from Rob Vollman's Hockey Abstract 2014 (which I highly suggest you purchase) and are defined as
•Quality Start (QS): A performance where the goaltender put up a .917 or better save percentage or, if the opponent failed to get more than 20 total shots, a game where he stopped 88.5% or better.
•Really Bad Start (RBS): A performance where the goaltender failed to attain even an .850 save percentage.

One theory he mentions is the possibility that “Howard gets cocky after a dominant start and lets off the gas or that he gets fired up by a loss and bears down harder on the next go.” He and I are both hesitant to agree with that claim. I am hesitant mainly because simple regression to the mean explains at least part of this effect. Also, since we are dealing with the best goaltenders in the world I assume they have the ability to focus and manage their emotions, with some extreme exceptions. Supporting my theory, it has been demonstrated that no goalie is particularly streaky, at least statistically speaking (http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/5/11/the-myth-of-the-hot-goalie-consistent-goaltenders-vs-inconsistent-goaltenders) leading me to believe this is just simple variability rather than a change in concentration.

Regardless, I have slightly more information to add to this analysis since I broke down the type of goals Howard let in last season. Based on the theory I would guess in his RBS Howard lets in more clean goals, the goals over which he has the most control. While in the QS, if it is truly Howard “baring down,” we would see the opposite as he lets in less of these controllable saves.

Reason for Optimism in the Big D

As I demonstrated when tracking the Red Wings goals last season, a large percentage of goals come from the generation of shots off the rush. This compliments nicely with the recent push from the analytics community to demonstrate the importance of winning the neutral zone battle. Thankfully, Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) has been working to track entries for every game in the past season. Once all this info has been collected, I will analyze and post the data. However, he has been kind enough to share what information he currently has (~60%) and it has been published on a few sites around the web.

Glendening vs Andersson Part 2

Sorry for the lack of activity, its been a busy week as I get back into the swing of things. Last time I looked at the battle for the 4th line center between Luke Glendening and Joakim Andersson. My conclusions concurred with one reached over at WingingitinMotown, that Andersson should take the final spot.

Glendening vs Andersson

Today Ansar Khan gave us a player profile of Joakim Andersson, you can check it out here. With good size (6' 2" 205+ lbs) and defensive awareness he seemed destined to be the teams 4th line center of the future, lining up behind Datsyuk/Zetterberg, Weiss, and Helm. However with the emergence of Riley Sheahan as a offensive threat and Glendening as the defensive workhorse, has Andersson lost a spot in the lineup?

Red Wing Goals Against

Last time I took a look at every goal the Red Wings scored last season, this time I'm breaking down all the goals given up by the Red Wings. Since the amount of zone time prior to goals was consistent with other people's results I skipped those results and will take you directly to how teams scored against the Wings.

Red Wing's Goals Part 2

                Last post I focused on when the Red Wing's scored and the answer supported results found elsewhere that teams score during transitional play. This time I broke down how the Red Wings scored, similar to the tracking done by Chris Boyle for the Shot Quality Project.

Red Wing Goals

Inspired by mc79hockey’s post a few weeks ago, I wanted to look at how the Red Wings generated goals this past season. First, I coded each goal and determined how long the puck was in the zone before the Red Wings scored to the nearest second. The distinctions were by no means exact; I defined a rush goal as any goal occurring as a result of an odd or even man rush. Every other goal was coded an in-zone goal, goals where the majority of the opposition was inside the defensive zone. After removing empty net and power play goals, which I will revisit later, I am left with 157 goals.

The Power of 13 & 40

As a Red Wing’s fan, my optimism for next season surrounds the possibility of seeing Datsyuk and Zetterberg back together again. Limited to only 45 games each, I was interested to see what exactly we should expect with those two back together. 

Predicting the Eastern Conference Standings

Last week I did a rough prediction of what I thought the Atlantic division would look like next season. This time I wanted to have a few more numbers backing up my predictions and look at the entire Eastern Conference.