BZS 3- and 4-Year-Average Leaders, 2007-08 to 2010-11
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 8:00 AM EST
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PrintHaving established expected Zone Shift over the last four years, and using that data to put together a new metric, Balanced Zone Shift or BZS, I took a little time looking at the top and bottom 20 players in that statistic in each of the four seasons from 2007-08 to 2010-11. This time, I want to do a couple of things. For one, I'm going to look at all the players that complete at least 3 seasons of 50 or more games and average out their BZS across those 3 or 4 seasons. I'm also going to include their standard deviations across those two seasons, and my reasoning is this: if a player is closely repeating their performance across three seasons or more, we are getting a pretty good idea of that player's talent. So I want to draw attention to players that are giving us the best idea of their true talent over the last four seasons.
Of all the BZS postings, I like this one the most because I think it brings us closest to seeing the players that succeed by this metric.
| Player | ZoneS% | BZS | Stdev | Player | ZoneS% | BZS | Stdev | |
| Sidney Crosby | 52.6 | 3.606 | 1.605 | Raitis Ivanans | 55.3 | -6.047 | 2.021 | |
| Pavel Datsyuk | 51 | 3.591 | 1.356 | MarcAndre Bergeron | 57.2 | -4.545 | 3.431 | |
| Patrik Berglund | 61.2 | 3.263 | 2.218 | Brian Sutherby | 54.7 | -3.999 | 2.152 | |
| Ryane Clowe | 50.9 | 3.142 | 1.915 | Kris Russell | 63.4 | -3.946 | 4.871 | |
| Paul Stastny | 50.9 | 3.12 | 1.666 | George Parros | 63.6 | -3.823 | 1.732 | |
| Manny Malhotra | 39.7 | 3.001 | 2.586 | Mike Rupp | 53.5 | -3.605 | 2.807 | |
| Brandon Dubinsky | 55.5 | 2.864 | 2.007 | Jared Boll | 52 | -3.516 | 2.08 | |
| Robert Lang | 52.7 | 2.854 | 2.906 | Jamal Mayers | 49.6 | -2.946 | 1.665 | |
| Zach Parise | 56.2 | 2.849 | 0.579 | Daniel Briere | 55.8 | -2.942 | 2.084 | |
| Tomas Holmstrom | 54.8 | 2.764 | 1.754 | Krys Barch | 57.7 | -2.871 | 2.314 | |
| Douglas Murray | 52.5 | 2.735 | 2.194 | Zack Stortini | 45.4 | -2.842 | 3.393 | |
| Milan Michalek | 54.3 | 2.693 | 3.139 | Kurtis Foster | 54.3 | -2.789 | 2.393 | |
| Mark Giordano | 57.1 | 2.676 | 2.67 | Travis Moen | 45.1 | -2.714 | 1.394 | |
| Ales Hemsky | 50.9 | 2.675 | 1.514 | Patrick Eaves | 51 | -2.635 | 2.663 | |
| Jarome Iginla | 55.1 | 2.635 | 0.742 | Colton Orr | 49.6 | -2.622 | 5.664 | |
| Joe Pavelski | 49.6 | 2.6 | 2.512 | Jody Shelley | 56.1 | -2.614 | 3.697 | |
| Mike Weaver | 43.9 | 2.57 | 1.38 | Mason Raymond | 52.1 | -2.594 | 4.043 | |
| Patrick Sharp | 59.9 | 2.5 | 1.557 | James Sheppard | 43.1 | -2.55 | 2.848 | |
| Brenden Morrow | 55.8 | 2.467 | 2.001 | Niclas Wallin | 48.8 | -2.518 | 2.112 | |
| Scott Nichol | 39.9 | 2.441 | 4.114 | Eric Boulton | 46 | -2.369 | 2.253 | |
| Blair Betts | 40.3 | 2.431 | 4.002 | Ruslan Salei | 51.5 | -2.274 | 1.903 | |
| Andrew Ladd | 48.5 | 2.408 | 1.429 | Erik Christensen | 48.7 | -2.199 | 2.377 | |
| Joe Thornton | 53.4 | 2.343 | 1.748 | Jack Johnson | 50.7 | -2.191 | 0.54 | |
| Kevin Klein | 45.6 | 2.341 | 0.182 | Richard Park | 40.7 | -2.177 | 2.811 | |
| Nicklas Lidstrom | 51.7 | 2.341 | 0.467 | Steven Stamkos | 54.9 | -2.186 | 0.53 | |
| Adam Foote | 43.8 | 2.315 | 4.435 | Petteri Nokelainen | 52 | -2.172 | 1.796 | |
| David Krejci | 50.4 | 2.238 | 2.66 | Jeff Halpern | 41.8 | -2.123 | 1.523 | |
| Dan Boyle | 52.3 | 2.235 | 1.057 | Derek Dorsett | 47.4 | -2.116 | 2.536 | |
| Henrik Zetterberg | 51.1 | 2.21 | 1.226 | Guillaume Latendresse | 46.7 | -2.114 | 1.271 | |
| Marc Staal | 51.3 | 2.198 | 2.193 | David Moss | 54 | -2.064 | 2.625 |
| Player | BZS | Stdev |
| Mike Mottau | -0.484 | 0.121 |
| Wade Redden | -0.077 | 0.159 |
| Kevin Klein | 2.341 | 0.182 |
| Glen Metropolit | 0.079 | 0.248 |
| Dion Phaneuf | 0.038 | 0.265 |
| Eric Staal | 1.445 | 0.276 |
| Dan Carcillo | 1.129 | 0.317 |
| Jason Strudwick | 0.947 | 0.332 |
| Dave Steckel | -1.115 | 0.343 |
| Tom Poti | 2.062 | 0.347 |
| Steve Bernier | -1.75 | 0.368 |
| Bobby Ryan | -1.941 | 0.389 |
| Andrei Kostitsyn | 0.614 | 0.449 |
| Nicklas Lidstrom | 2.341 | 0.467 |
| Chris Pronger | -1.084 | 0.478 |
| Tomas Fleischmann | -1.462 | 0.488 |
| Pavel Kubina | 0.247 | 0.516 |
| Marc Methot | 0.039 | 0.519 |
| Shane Doan | 1.193 | 0.523 |
| Clarke MacArthur | 0.381 | 0.524 |
What really jumps out to me, outside of the interesting mix of player types, is the low opinion that this metric has for goons and offensive defensemen and the high regard it has for Kevin Klein and Mike Weaver. What I like the most, outside of the positive measure of players like Klein, Weaver, and Manny Malhotra, is that we see a player like Dan Carcillo giving us a positive value. The fact that a player can fight but still be a positive player seems to me a prediction for the future, where in a league with a higher degree of parity (as we have right now) you will want to make sure that your fighters can also play hockey. In closing, one thing I want to stress is that the players in the middle of this metric, say from +1 to -1 in BZS, could likely alter their value from the metric if they can put the puck in the net.
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Always interesting to see a list of a new metric. I really, REALLY don’t understand Berglund up there. His Corsi has always been good but not spectacular and his zone starts are massively positive. How does he end up #3 on this list?
He’s probably the weirdest guy of the bunch, but the more I think about it the more I think he’s aided by the fact that a lot of bad hockey players (read: goons) get similarly cushy minutes. The Expected Zone Shift was constructed on the performances of Zone Start cohorts, so comparatively speaking he’s not a disaster. He’s not really getting padded by QualComp, either.
The best way I can describe him is a talented offensive player held down by a position logjam. His shooting’s pretty stable, but his minutes are more 3rd line than top 2 (yet zero SH and some PP time).
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 2:44 PM EST up reply actions
I think this makes me enjoy the fact that some fans still think Dubinsky is a 3rd liner just that much more.
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question about the std deviations
they’re the stdev for each player’s 3 or 4 full year numbers, right?
if so i don’t see how how a given player’s stdev gives us any information – ie i don’t think that a player with a lower season-to-season stdev is telling us more about his true talent level than one with a higher season-to-season stdev. i mean, given that a player has performed on average at a certain level over the course of ~300 games, does how that performance was distributed over those games really affect how certain we are about his true talent? that would suggest that there’s some sort of “streakiness skill” and that for streaky players we need a bigger sample size to determine talent level. it’s been shown that in baseball there’s no such thing as a consistent or streaky player…is there evidence that streakiness is a skill in hockey?
other than that (and i know its unrelated to your main point), great work! i’m just starting to get into hockey analytics, and there seems to be a lot of interesting stuff out there. i’ve always known that boxscore stats are mostly useless, and it’s good to see there are a lot of people working on improving our knowledge of how hockey really works.
I figured it was a nice little addition for those who would ask. I didn’t mean to allude to any sort of streakiness/consistency concept, but rather let you know if there was one season that was drastically out of line from the others that might have lifted the average.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 2:57 PM EST up reply actions
..and thanks!
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 2:57 PM EST up reply actions
Ales Hemsky is too soft. You microstat people just keep making things up to support him.
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He’s inconsistent too. Also, his confidence is fragile. If he keeps it up he might even become enigmatic.
I’ve heard he’s just terrible in the locker room.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 2:27 PM EST up reply actions
The one thing I would say is with 4 Red Wings up there it’s going to be hard to judge individual contribution. A similar thing happened with the Heavy Lifter Index by Ryan Popilchak. When it comes to statistical rankings, players from the Red Wings come in groups, and usually at the top.
by Kyle Danger Anderson on Feb 25, 2011 2:35 PM EST reply actions
There’s also the possibility (wait for it, this one’s really out there) that the Red Wings are pretty good at hockey.
Okay, now that I’m done being a butthole…that’s part of the reason I included the Zone Start%. It won’t tell you much about whether a defenseman and forward were used similarly or together, but it’ll give you an idea among forwards or among defensemen.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 2:49 PM EST up reply actions
Stamkos on the bottom 20 list.
At 1st I thought it must be that he wasn’t very good his 1st year but the stdev is not that high. People were starting to say that he belonged in the conversation about who is the best player in hockey. No he doesn’t. He’s a brilliant goal scorer and a very good passer but not a great all around hockey player.
Yeah, he’s one of those guys I’m talking about in the last sentence, except in the extreme case that his scoring ability might be able to offset a -2 or worse BZS. It’s one thing to end fewer shifts than expected in your own zone; it’s another thing to do that but, in the o-zone finishes you do manage to get, you are doing so by scoring goals a higher percentage of the time than your average player.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 10:25 PM EST up reply actions
I don’t buy this at all. Stamkos was terrible his first season, ok last year and excellent this year (I’m talking about Corsi, not scoring; obviously his scoring was lights-out last year too). I think his number are just being brought down by his rookie year. Stamkos’ only issue now is that he’s not good in the circle, so his team ends up with possession less than it should off the faceoff, but otherwise he’s pretty good on possession, and a monster on finishing (obviously).
You’d be hard pressed to find a forward on TB that doesn’t have an excellent Corsi this year. What sets Stamkos apart from all the other forwards on the team is the scoring.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 28, 2011 12:39 AM EST up reply actions
Understood, but if they all have good Corsi they should also have pretty good BZS, no? Maintaining Zone Ends of 55% takes work!
That’s another weird thing about TB; despite their Corsi numbers, not one of their regular forwards (forwards with 40+ games played) has an absurdly high Zone Start. Ryan Malone is the highest at 52.5. That doesn’t change when I include forwards with at least 20 games. Stamkos is at 51.6.
TB in general is a team that’s thrown weird numbers at us this year.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
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by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 28, 2011 12:23 PM EST up reply actions
Is there somewhere where I can see the rest? I'm curious how my Isles rank relative to each other.
I’m guessing Frans Nielsen is the best and maybe Kyle Okposo and Mark Streit.
Here are the qualifying Islanders, with the categories in the same order as in the article; I added BZS rank to the end as well (it’s out of 439 players):
Radek Martinek 43.3 / 1.343 / 2.684 - 78th
Bill Guerin 53.8 / 0.660 / 2.061 - 146th
Mark Streit 51.4 / 0.213 / 2.182 - 202nd
Sean Bergenheim 48.1 / 0.138 / 2.719 - 208th
Trent Hunter 47.2 / 0.209 / 1.421 -- 259th
Frans Nielsen 43.3 / 0.231 / 1.757 -- 261st
Blake Comeau 46.0 / 0.835 / 1.895 -- 327th
Josh Bailey 47.4 / 0.859 / 0.911 -- 332nd
Bruno Gervais 44.3 / 1.641 / 1.250 -- 380th
Richard Park 40.7 / 2.177 / 2.811 -- 415th
I tried to stick to the guys that spent a good portion of the time with the Islanders. Okposo doesn’t qualify, unfortunately; I set the bar pretty high, at least 3 seasons in the last four years of 50+ games played. I can say that between his two qualifying seasons his BZS is close to 0, which would put him at 230th.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 10:54 PM EST up reply actions
Sorry about the strikeouts, those are supposed to read as BZS’s that are negative; the stdev’s are obviously positive.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Feb 25, 2011 10:56 PM EST up reply actions
great post!
have you run any correlation studies? I’m curious to how this stacks up to CORSI, +/-, any other surrogate for possesion
I had an r of .2 to Corsi and .41 to Gabe’s adjusted +/-, but I really need to smooth out my expected zone shift equation before I’m completely confident in these numbers.
Does he call it Luongo underwear?
Co-Manager at Behind the Net
by Bettman's Nightmare on Mar 1, 2011 10:57 PM EST up reply actions
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