Really, this post is an extension of a larger argument between those who are adamant that they were counting what really matters all along and those who have seen hockey analysis as an evolving, academic process. For the moment, the former has dominated the argument when it comes to fantasy hockey, a game that is growing and influencing what fans might define as valuable players.
What I'm doing here is taking two largely-cumulative performance indicators for 2009-10, GVT and Yahoo's fantasy hockey rankings, and seeing which players fall into the gap of disagreement between the two. I'll be taking Yahoo's default scoring system, which attributes positive value to goals, assists, PIMs, power-play points, and shots, and positive or negative value in the case of plus-minus. For a description of GVT, look here. I cut out the forwards who played fewer than half the games of the season to get rid of some of the wonkier numbers, and unfortunately if a player leaves the NHL Yahoo takes them out of their player ranking data from previous years.
As you might expect, a good number of defensive forwards get slighted when moving from GVT to Yahoo, but you also have a number of forwards that created more offense than their numbers indicated. On the flip side, Yahoo gives credit to penalty minutes, a confusing idea, and in the process vaults goon rankings way too high for GVT's liking. Yahoo also will give higher rankings to some of those heavy-offense, questionable-defense-type forwards.
Remember, I'm suggesting that the gap we're seeing here is reflective of an overall gap between what a large number of fans might consider value versus what an advanced metric like GVT (or some in the stats community) would argue.
P.S. Skaters in both categories were ranked across 574 eligible players. Thanks to Behind the Net, data version, for the numbers, as well as Tom Awad.
P.P.S. If you want to know where any other individual player fell, let me know in the comments and I'll look it up.
Largest Gap, GVT Rank Higher Than Yahoo, Top 25 in 2009-10
Rob Schremp 238 GVT Rank | 385 Yahoo Rank | -147 Difference
Jay McClement 209 | 351 | -142
Blair Betts 294 | 432 | -138
Chris Kelly 206 | 323 | -117
Pascal Dupuis 123 | 237 | -114
Lauri Korpikoski 449 | 556 | -107
Sergei Kostitsyn 368 | 473 | -105
Nikolai Kulemin 164 | 266 | -102
Gilbert Brule 160 | 260 | -100
Scott Parse 257 | 350 | -93
Jannik Hansen 411 | 504 | -93
Andrew Murray 478 | 570 | -92
Drew Miller 296 | 387 | -91
Frans Nielsen 139 | 228 | -89
Shawn Matthias 424 | 507 | -83
Michal Handzus 107 | 186 | -79
Pat Dwyer 436 | 515 | -79
Colin Fraser 284 | 359 | -75
Marc Savard 169 | 243 | -74
Ryan Jones 398 | 472 | -74
Daniel Paille 343 | 415 | -72
Kirk Maltby 460 | 531 | -71
Blake Comeau 184 | 250 | -66
Chad LaRose 253 | 318 | -65
Chris Durno 441 | 505 | -64
Average offensive GVT for these players: 1.964 – Average defensive GVT: 1.916
Largest Gap, Yahoo Rank Higher Than GVT, Top 25 in 2009-10
Zenon Konopka 562 GVT Rank | 202 Yahoo Rank | 360 Difference
Colton Orr 549 | 206 | 343
Lee Stempniak 393 | 100 | 293
Bill Guerin 360 | 78 | 282
Ales Kotalik 470 | 193 | 277
Dustin Byfuglien 402 | 128 | 274
Shawn Thornton 550 | 279 | 271
Peter Mueller 498 | 230 | 268
Brandon Prust 484 | 224 | 260
Cody McLeod 522 | 264 | 258
Zack Stortini 502 | 259 | 243
B.J. Crombeen 446 | 204 | 242
Kyle Okposo 326 | 99 | 227
Cam Janssen 555 | 339 | 216
Blake Wheeler 401 | 187 | 214
Patrick O’Sullivan 494 | 283 | 211
Derick Brassard 475 | 265 | 210
Brad Winchester 534 | 327 | 207
Michael Ryder 379 | 174 | 205
Jamal Mayers 491 | 287 | 204
Jared Boll 543 | 343 | 200
Dan Carcillo 325 | 129 | 196
Ruslan Fedotenko 463 | 269 | 194
Scott Hartnell 251 | 64 | 187
Sean Avery 297 | 110 | 187
Average offensive GVT for these players: 0.056 – Average defensive GVT: 0.852
