Forum answers VII
Here is the seventh, and final, edition of the open forum answers. It's always fun to see what's on people's minds, and to answer the questions as best I can, so thanks to everyone who participated...
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Question: When DL first got hired he mentioned "Moneyball", the book about Oakland A's GM Billy Beane's managing style in the MLB, as an influence on his managerial philosophy. In the book, Beane is constantly looking trying to find players whose value is high but for a cheap price, similar to what DL has done. Also, Beane utilizes sabermetrics, which aren't the standard statistics, to evaluate a players value. Because hockey does have its own sabermetrics (behindthenet.ca), I was wondering if DL uses these or acknowledges these stats?
Answer: Good question. The answer is, yes and no. Lombardi is a big follower of the whole ``Moneyball'' thing. Lombardi asked me a lot of questions about Paul DePodesta, because I covered the Dodgers for a while and DePodesta had recently been fired as GM when Lombardi got hired. The whole ``Moneyball'' thing is based on finding players who are undervalued, and using those sabermetrics statistics to help evaluate which areas of the game are being undervalued. I asked Lombardi, very early in his tenure, how that translated to hockey, and he was sort of vague. I think his quote was, ``I've had enough of my ideas stolen,'' or something like that. Funny. In general though, I don't know how much ``Moneyball'' translates to hockey. Baseball is much more of an individual sport. Oakland tried to load up on guys with good on-base percentage, then on guys who played good defense. It's not as though the Kings can load up on guys who have a good faceoff percentage, for instance. Every player has to fit in the context of the team. Lombardi's focus has been more on identifying a part of the game (defense) and working toward building that. I'm sure he uses some statistical analysis to help him with that. It's something to explore. Interesting topic.
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Question: Where do you see Armstrong in the future? I understand he is a UFA, and with the influx of new talent that could possibly push for a spot, I don't know if the Kings will resign him (Or even if they should). It's a shame because Army is a great character guy, always nice to fans, and seems to bring alot of positive energy to the team in general. Perhaps he would fit well somewhere as a Color Commentator or something. What are your thoughts?
Answer: I don't know if this has come up or not, and I don't know how both sides would feel about it, but I could see the Kings re-signing Armstrong as that guy who serves as the veteran fill-in, either with the Kings or Manchester or both. Guys such as Marty Murray and Jon Klemm come to mind. There might still be a spot for Armstrong on the Kings. He's great in the locker room and he never, ever complains about being scratched, so if he's willing to fill that role as the veteran part-time player, he's by far the best candidate to fill that role.
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Question: Earlier in this post you mentioned the price for Ryan Smyth started with Bernier and Teubert. I was wondering from that 1)What other players did Lombardi inquire about and what were the prices for those players or the main propspects they asked for? 2)Who were any of the Kings prospects or players that were asked about and what were their prices that Lombardi asked other teams for?
Answer: I appreciate the question, but I'm really not going to get into it. Safe to say, there were dozens of players kicked around in hundreds of conversations and exchanges between GMs. I really can't give you a breakdown of every single player that the Kings inquired about and every single player other teams asked about. I threw Smyth and Gaborik out there, because those were two who were talked about in the final days before the deadline. I appreciate the fact that fans want juicy details about discussions, but it's really not possible to go in-depth about all the discussions.
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Question: Rich, have you heard anything from the Dean or Murray about Westgarth? He seems to get around the ice significantly better than Raitis and to use his body more effectively in hits as well. (Caveat, we're clearly talking a really small sample set of his play) Also, I'm curious about Richardson. I'm surprised he is so often one of the healthy scratches because he seems to get around the ice very well during games, always one of the first guys in on the forecheck and takes the body very well. Wondering why he is often the healthy scratch. (A guess, Ivanans or Westgarth get in for toughness, Harrold because he can play D on PP too, Army because he's a center?)
Answer: I haven't heard any specific criticism or praise for Westgarth, but he's been the guy they have been eyeing, for a couple years, to eventually fill that fourth-line ``enforcer'' spot. I agree that he seems to have more hockey skills than Ivanans. As for Richardson, I think this was part of a previous answer, but Hextall apparently was on the radio the other night and mentioned that the Kings wanted more offense from Richardson. I don't know if the Kings miscalculated on Richardson, but I certainly don't think they intended to swap a second-round pick for a borderline fourth-line player, which is what Richardson has been this season.
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Question: Rich or anyone who know the answer..How many people keep tract of the stats...The toi seems to be really hard to do..Is there a system on how that is done??Thanks for any input..its very interesting to me..
Answer: Every arena/team has a team of people who keep stats during the game. Stats and scoring can be reviewed and changed, after the fact, based on video.
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Question: You really think they'll get another bridge D'man or will the Kings give a long look to a guy like Hickey or Voinov?
Answer: Pehaps. Right now, you're looking at Doughty, O'Donnell, Greene, Quincey and Johnson back, for sure. After O'Donnell, the oldest of that group is 26 (Greene, in May). The point of having guys like Preissing and Gauthier around was to add a little age and stability -- I'll let you judge how well that has worked out -- so perhaps Lombardi will feel the need to add a little more experience. If you go with Hickey or Voinov, then five of your six defenseman will have a combined nine years of NHL experience. That's not a lot.
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Question: Rich, would you please explain your reasoning behind +/- being a "pretty useless stat"?
Answer: Perhaps someone can convince me otherwise, but I just don't see how it's a useful tool in terms of determining individual performance. If the same five-man units played together all the time, perhaps it would have some value in terms of judging them, but guys are constantly moving around. I think about it in two ways. One, I remember the game a couple weeks back when Quick turned the puck over behind the net, the other team made one quick pass and scored. All five skates on the ice got a minus-1, and none of them had anything to do with it. Plus, I think about baseball. Isn't it sort of like giving an error to all four infielders when the shortstop boots a grounder? In this era of statistical analysis, I have to think that we can come up with a better way to judge efficiency.
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Questions: 1. Is there any word on how management sees Azevedo, I know he is small, but looking at his stats he is almost a point a game, is there a chance he gets called up next year? 2. Any information on Martin Jones, his record is outstanding this year, can he possibly pass some of the prospect goalies the kings have now in terms of development?
Answers: 1) I haven't specifically heard anyone talking about Azevedo, but I haven't really asked either. I know there's good buzz about him, but let's keep in mind that he has only played 34 pro games, he has three points in his last nine games and he's yet to even appear in a NHL training camp. We'll see how he looks against the NHL guys in September. 2) Martin Jones is doing a fantastic job, but I'll caution you against looking at it in terms of him ``passing'' anyone. It's like when Lombardi talked about Bernier a few weeks ago. All the Kings are focused on right now is development. There's no depth chart. They will take a look at everyone in camp in September and sort out who goes where. Obviously when guys such as Quick, Erberg, Bernier, Zatkoff and Taylor already have pro expeience, they're going to have an edge from the start. That certainly doesn't mean Jones can't play himself into a role.
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Question: I know Alexander Frolov is signed through next season but are the kings talking about resigning him to a long term deal?
Answer: The Kings can't even begin those discussions until July 1.
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Question: Over the last few years, the Kings have had difficulty signing big name free agents. Do you see that changing this summer? Are the Hossa's of the world now willing to consider the Kings as a viable option?
Answer: That's one of those questions that's only really going to be answered after the fact. I think the whole thing of players not wanting to come to the Kings is/was a little overrated/overstated. This might sound obvious, but Scott Gomez's motivation to sign with the Rangers had a lot to do with the fact that the Rangers were willing to give him a seven-year contract for $51.5 million. If the Kings had been willing to do that, I bet L.A. suddenly would have looked a little more attactive. Obviously some guys, such as Hossa last summer, are motivated to win right now, but with most guys, there's a balance. The fact that the Kings have climbed out of the West cellar will help.
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J.P. Hoornstra writes about NHL and IHL hockey for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. He welcomes any and all dialogue on the finer points of hockey.
E-mail J.P. at jp.hoornstra@inlandnewspapers.com.
Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at jill.painter@dailynews
.com.
Vincent Bonsignore is a sports columnist for the Los Angeles Daily News. E-mail Vinny at vincent.bonsignore
@dailynews.com.
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Another reason why +/- is a useless stat is that players can manipulate it a little bit. Let's say Greene has the puck and is skating out of the zone, and his defense partner is starting to skate off for a change. Before his partner gets to the bench, Greene passes the puck blueline to blueline on to Kopitar's stick for a breakaway. Now the defense partner sees this and turns away from the bench just enough so that if Kopitar scores, he can curl and join the celebration, thus he was on the ice and gets a + stat, even if he was skating off the ice and had nothing to do with the goal.
It also works the other way. Greene has the puck skating out of the zone so his partner changes and gets off the ice. Just as the next d is coming over the boards onto the ice Greene gives the puck away to the other team and they go in on a breakaway and score. Now the d man that just jumped onto the ice and had nothing to do with the giveaway and had no chance to get back into the play to try and stop it, gets a minus stat.
I think what a lot of people are trying to say when they talk about it being useless is that it really just says who was on the ice at the EXACT time a goal is scored, but has nothing to do with if you were responsible for the mistake made to get a minus, or if you had anything to do with the play that created a goal for a plus stat. It's pretty deceiving and I agree that people shouldn't put so much stock into it when they are looking at a players worth through his stats.
There are tons of fundamental problems with viewing +/- the way so many people do. It isn't normalized for ice time (the more time I play, the more likely the absolute value of my rating is to be larger). It doesn't account for matchups (my best defensive pair plays against top offensive players while my third pair faces the other teams fourth liners). It doesn't account for how good a team I'm on (teams with winning records that score a lot of goals are more likely to have + players while poor teams slant toward -). It doesn't account for the quality of goaltending.
It is probably reasonable for comparing similar players (same kind of player, ice time, etc) on the same team, but not even that really because that situation doesn't much exist where you are going to see differences.
Mainly it's an easy stat to keep is it's one redeeming trait that keeps it around. On it's own as a raw score, I don't really see an arguement for +/- being meaningful at all.
I think if you normalize it for both ice time and team average (start with a players raw score, divide by their individual TOI, and then figure out the team average similarly and subtract it from each individual time normalized rating), you have a somewhat more usefull number, but that still leaves out big factors like matchups (do you play your minutes against top offensive lines or fourth lines?).
i dont really agree. there is something to be said of players whom every year have a plus rating (i.e. Lindstrom). what it means is that when they are on the ice their team is more likely to be on the better side of a goal scored, whether or not that person plays great offense or defense. Not to take anything away from Kopi and his skill but that -17 means a lot and, to me, says he still has a lot of work to do. can we blame that on having to do with a learning curve in regard to starting a new system and struggling with that... sure, but i personally would like to see kopi in the plus margin next year. after all, most players on winning teams have a plus rating.
The only comment that needs to be made to illustrate the absurdity of the +/- stat is that Tom Preissing was a +40 two years ago.
Hey Rich,
I would like to thank you for answering my question on throw back uni's, but I can't since you avoided it. Thanks for everything else though.
So we can stop these "let's sign Frolov to an extension now" comments: He is signed through next year.
It is league-wide rule that players/teams cannot discuss extension until the summer leading up to the final year of the players contract. In Frolov's case, discussions cannot start until this July 1st
As of today. (according to Craphoo! Sports.)
The Kings goal differential is -17 (176/193)
Kopitar's +/- is -16.
Kopitar's even strength goal total is 16. (7 powerplay goals don't count towards +/-)
I read somewhere that the Kings have lost 25 1 goal games. I guess if it weren't for Kopitar being on the ice for 17 goals against, the Kings might be in a playoff spot right now.
The way I answer questions about how meaningful is +/- is to look at the NY Rangers’ Brian Leetch. In 96/97 he was +31 – the next year, 97/98 he was –36. Does this mean he went from a Norris Trophy candidate to a bum in just one year?
I just wanted to say that i am extremely happy to be a kings fan in OC. I frequently check the orange county register website under the ducks blog and there is no one in there. No comments no questions nothing. It just proves the bandwagon theory. And now that they are losing theres no ducks fans to be found. There was a article stating how the ducks keep losing to these teams the kings beat. I had to check the comments. The only comments were from a kings fan. LOL I happily gave him the address for this site. Thanks Rich and all the Kings Fans. DUCKS SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"i dont really agree. there is something to be said of players whom every year have a plus rating (i.e. Lindstrom)."
Well, but I think we can all tell what kind of player Lidstrom is and what kind of success he not only contributes to but also benefits from being on a team like the 'Wings without looking at his +/-. For +/- to mean something, it has to be able to tell you who the good players on bad teams and bad players on good teams are, right? That it isn't so useful for.
Show an example of a non HoFer generational talent where the stat says something verifiable. Do you think guys like Corvo and Modry were better defensively and at being on the better side of a goal scored than a player like Norstrom? That's what +/- says.
I am not saying that the team the person is on has nothing to do with it. What I am trying to get across is that the plus minus stat isn't useless. For every example you show I could show twenty saying exactly the opposite thing. How could a guy score 35 goals one year and then ten the next? There is a consistency factor that comes into play. Lindstom was an example but there are guys that put up a good plus minus on bad teams. I just think Kopi has things he needs to work on... as do all the Kings. All I am saying is that you can't completely discount a stat because it reflects negatively on one of our players.
Wow - a raging debate on +/-! If only Friday could get here more quickly it would prevent me from chiming in but we still have a long wait a head of us before the puck drops again so here I go.
Off the top of my head I can't name a single stat that would, on its own, adequately define a player. Even PIMs don't do the trick as there have been mult-dimensional players who have finished the season leading the league in PIMs. Yes these players mix it up but that doesn't mean they are void of some other skill (hey, McSorely had some skill!). Does having a lot of assists mean you are a great passer or that you play with a great goal scorer? Does having a lot of goals mean you are a great goal scorer or that you play with a great passer?
Plus/Minus, when used in conjunction with other stats can be a useful tool for assessing and conducting a comparison of a players offensive/defensive abilities and behavior.
Thanks Rich, and everybody else for your takes on +/-. I think on it's own it's not worth too much, but if you compare it to the +/- of common linemates like Frolov, Brown and until recently, O'Sullivan, it stands out a bit more. I never wanted to give the impression that I put a lot of credence into the statistic, but I think when it's quite a bit off of the team average, it says to me that he still needs some work.
Johnson sucks, and his +/- stinks too. So there. :p
Ah, +/-:
Captain Material, re "Do you think guys like Corvo and Modry were better defensively and at being on the better side of a goal scored than a player like Norstrom? That's what +/- says."
But that's not what it "says." What is says is that the player with the better +/- gets a greater integer when you subtract the number of goals against he's on the ice for from the number of goals for he's on the ice for, at even strength.
It's not a rating of a player's offensive or defensive ability. It's literally a rating of the team's offensive output in relation to its defensive ability with a given player on the ice. That's what it is. That's all it is.
Also (again for Captain Material), all the modifications to the stat you are describing already exist. See www.behindthenet.ca , etc..
As far as +/- having value or not, clearly it has a limited value. The danger is that it's so so easy for dopey pundits to report it and pontificate on it like it means something more than it does, or worse, like it's some kind of final statement of a player's value.
But how about we think of it like one tool of analysis in an arsenal. Like a blood test. A blood test might reveal a high white count. And that's useful information. But in and of itself it doesn't tell you what is wrong with the patient, without other information.
Mike, re Brian Leetch -
It doesn't tell you that Brian Leetch suddenly turned to s***, but it does tell you something. The question is, what? You would have to look at the circumstances of the team.
Listen, no single stat tells you all you need to know about a player. Not even goals scored. It must be put in context. Take SV% for goaltenders. Bernier and Quick had virtually identical numbers while playing in Manchester. But Quick's SV% was better. So clearly, all things being equal, Quick is better right? Hmm. Except: Bernier is better at controlling rebounds. So he was giving up 6 or so fewer shots a game. Quick was having to make more saves to land at the same GAA, because he was creating more shots by giving up rebounds. But you would have to know that, in order to avoid a bogus interpretation of the numbers.
Anyway, you can't even look at goals scored without looking at quality of competition and quality of teammates, and aren't these adjustments we all make in our own heads anyway? I for one am glad someone is taking the time to crunch these numbers.
And it will always be annoying to see folks on TV take stats out of context and pervert them to their own idiotic and/or evil ends.
I think one of the real problems with +/- is that it does not take into account goals scored while players are on the ice for power plays. For offensive guys a huge percentage of their goals are scored on the power play so if those got counted you would really see what kind of an impact an offensive player has on the game when he is on the ice in scoring situations.
OCKINGFAN said:
I just wanted to say that i am extremely happy to be a kings fan in OC.
That makes two of us. Funny thing is, I'm starting to see more Kings fans this season in the OC than in previous years.
All statistics are properly evaluated in context--which is not apparent in the statistic. Plus/Minus seems another of those.
I think another stat they should use wld be to compare individual players to overall team plus\minus, as well as TOI. That wld provide some more information.
Over the course of a season, the flukes should somewhat even out. Baseball batting averages, for example, do nt count the opposing pitchers or who bats around the players--both factors that effect the percentages. Still, its a useful stat and a better one if you know something about the other factors.
I'd suggest that Preissing, Modry and Corvo are/were better players than a lot give them credit for, and their positioning and overall play was reflected in the plus/minus stats for them. Corvo has had good plus minus stats no matter where he played and who he played with--and also was flamed by fans, maybe b/c as a smallish defenseman his game lacks the physicality which fans love while positioning and puck skills are not so exciting or easily recognized.
Not to change the subject from sexy ol' +/-, but this quote from our friend Rob Blake in the Hockey News got my blood (if not boiling then at least) simmering.
“It’s a little different with this team” said Blake. “There’s no need to mentor them to become better players; they’re already good players. It’s a different situation than I was in last year with L.A. Many of our kids have already played in big games at an early age and they understand what it takes, so it’s just a matter of going out there and playing.”
Grrrr. Oh how many xmases would I forfeit to play this future HofF bozo in the first round...
"It's not a rating of a player's offensive or defensive ability. It's literally a rating of the team's offensive output in relation to its defensive ability with a given player on the ice. That's what it is. That's all it is."
Yeah. Thanks quisp. I was actually speaking to how the other guy was approaching +/-, but again, thanks.
It`s amazing how he mentored Johnson last year,he screwed him up so much,Jack still hasn`t recovered.
Nobody will ever be able to convince me that +/- is a useful defensive statistic so long as Wayne Gretzky once had a +127. He was in no way/shape/form a defensive player.
Awarding players a plus for scoring does not make them a good defensive player. Giving a player a minus when a goal is scored against, and most of the time they had nothing to do with that goal scored against does not make them a bad defensive player.
For a team statistic, I have no problem with it.
mrbrett7 -
Gretzky never was +127 but he was sort of close. His best was actually +98 in 84-85. The highest ever was Bobby Orr with +124 in 70-71, and a very interesting and suprising stat I found was the leader in 90-91 with a +48 was none other than our very own Marty McSorley!!!! I never would have guessed that in a million years!
re: mrbrett7 - Offense is the best defense!
I'd still rather have a plus player than a minus player all other things being equal.
Quisp- Thanks for that Rob Blake insight. I can not beleive my dad named my brother Blake after this dork. lol