Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Peaks and Valleys- Ball Hogs part 2

If you read our posting from Tuesday, you will know that we were inspired by an article from Freakonomics to look at the relationship between volume shooters and efficient shooters. We are taking a look at the Top 15 Shots at Goal (SAG) vs Top 15 in Shooting Efficiency (eS%)and how that translates into team success. Special thanks to Dan Shirley for providing us with the date on eS% for individuals and the teams in general.

Top 15 SAG:
Player                Team        SAG    eS%    Team Win %age

Cody Jamieson   ROC        90      0.309         0.333
John Grant Jr.     COL        87      0.326         1.000
Lewis Ratcliff     WAS        84      0.201         0.200
Rhys Duch         WAS        75      0.222         0.200
Luke Wiles         BUF         74      0.299         0.333
John Tavares      BUF         62      0.371         0.333
Brendan Mundorf PHI        61      0.177         0.600
Kevin Crowley   PHI          61      0.335         0.600
Stephen Keogh  ROC        60       0.235         0.333
Jeff Shattler        CGY        59       0.256         0.600
Drew Westervelt PHI         58       0.370         0.600
Shawn Evans     CGY        56        0.227         0.600
Mike Accursi     ROC        56       0.287          0.333
Ryan Benesch    MIN         54       0.417          0.600
Dane Dobbie    CGY          53       0.214          0.600

The average Team winning %age for this group? It's .484.

Top 15 eS% (minimum 18 SAG):
Player             Team        eS%     Team Win %age

Adam Jones    COL       0.455          1.000
Johnny Powless ROC     0.441          0.333
Ryan Benesch   MIN      0.417          0.600
Jordan MacIntosh MIN  0.413          0.600
Cory Vitarelli    ROC      0.399          0.333
Corbyn Tao     MIN       0.393          0.600
John Tavares    BUF       0.371          0.333
Drew Westervelt PHI     0.370           0.600
Chad Culp        BUF      0.362           0.333
Josh Sanderson TOR      0.356           0.600
Kevin Crowley  PHI       0.335           0.600
John Grant Jr.   COL      0.326           1.000
Gavin Prout      COL      0.321           1.000
Scott Evans     EDM       0.321           0.250
Scott Ranger   CGY       0.321           0.600

The average Team Winning %age for this group? It's .585 which is a huge gap from the average for high volume shooters. I would read this as the better teams have more efficient offences. The game still comes down to the ability to outscore your opponents. If you can score on 30% of your shots at goal and your opponent only does it on 27% of their shots on goal, you are more likely to win unless you are outshot by a wide margin.

Colorado is undefeated because they have all 3 of their top Offensive players in the Top 15 in eS% including an incredible 0.455 for rookie, Adam Jones (not surprising to those of us in Ontario who knew how good Jones would be). Washington is in last place because Duch and Ratcliff are dominating the shot totals while being inefficient scorers. Efficient offence equals wins.

It was also interesting that 3 rookies are in the top 4 in eS% (MacIntosh and Powless on top of Jones) which shows how deep the past year's draft really was.

On a lark, I expanded the grouping to look at players with 10 shots or more (about an average of 2 per game)which should include more Transition players which are an important source of scoring this year. The top 3 in eS% in this expanded level would be Andrew Suitor of Minnesota (0.643 eS%), Jamie Rooney of Toronto (0.562 eS%) and Brodie Merrill of Philadelphia (0.467 eS%). It's no surprise that they all play for teams with winning records. Rooney is showing that he belongs in the Toronto lineup after being a healthy scratch in the Rock's first two games.

The Ugly side of that are Ned Crotty of Philadelphia (0.090 eS%), Joel Henry of Minnesota (0.100 eS%) and Dean Hill of Washington (0.109 eS%). Maybe those three should dish to the Offence and take less shots.

Notes:
Those who wish to hear more stats talk from Dan Shirley, follow him on Twitter @danshirley. He talks Lax and Washington State University athletics (Go Cougs)

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