Per a great suggestion in the comments for Part I, I want to take a more robust data set for this study from NHL.com, which like Yahoo Sports gives the opportunity to "Like" a player (in addition to the ability to "unlike" them). Before I jump into that, I want to talk briefly about the differences in the data sets. The correlation between the Yahoo "Likes" and the NHL.com "Likes" was pretty strong (0.74), and it was consistent across the positions, with forwards and defensemen at 0.74, and goaltenders at 0.73. In both data sets, the ratio of "Likes" from goaltenders, forwards, to defensemen was roughly 3:2:1, so it looks like there wasn't an extraordinary difference in the perception of positional value when going from one to the other.
Of course, there were individual case disparities, as you'll see here. First, the Yahoo "Like" Rankings, with accompanying NHL.com "Like" Rankings…
| Y! Rank | Player | Team | Y! Likes | NHL.com Rank |
| 1 | Sean Avery | NYR | 163 | 35 |
| 2 | Sidney Crosby | PIT | 157 | 2 |
| 3 | Steven Stamkos | TBL | 122 | 7 |
| 4 | Alex Ovechkin | WSH | 112 | 1 |
| 5 | Patrick Sharp | CHI | 84 | 21 |
| 6 | Claude Giroux | PHI | 75 | 30 |
| 7 | Tim Thomas | BOS | 67 | 24 |
| 8 | Jaroslav Halak | STL | 63 | 16 |
| 9 | Dustin Byfuglien | ATL | 60 | 56 |
| 9 | Jeff Skinner | CAR | 60 | 15 |
| 11 | Jonathan Toews | CHI | 57 | 3 |
| 12 | Ilya Kovalchuk | NJD | 55 | 29 |
| 13 | Pavel Datsyuk | DET | 54 | 12 |
| 14 | P.K. Subban | MTL | 53 | 6 |
| 15 | Kris Letang | PIT | 50 | 31 |
| 16 | Patrick Kane | CHI | 47 | 3 |
| 16 | Teemu Selanne | ANH | 47 | 19 |
| 18 | Dany Heatley | SJS | 46 | 88 |
| 18 | Alexander Semin | WSH | 46 | 58 |
| 20 | Evgeni Malkin | PIT | 45 | 14 |
| 20 | Antti Niemi | SJS | 45 | 104 |
| 22 | Kris Versteeg | PHI | 43 | 368 |
| 22 | Wojtek Wolski | NYR | 43 | 325 |
| 24 | Marc-Andre Fleury | PIT | 42 | 20 |
| 24 | Nicklas Lidstrom | DET | 42 | 25 |
Yeah, Versteeg and Wolski, get out of there. Then, the NHL.com "Like" Rankings, with accompanying Yahoo "Like" Rankings…
| NHL.com Rank | Player | Team | NHL.com Likes | Y! Rank |
| 1 | Alex Ovechkin | WSH | 10351 | 4 |
| 2 | Sidney Crosby | PIT | 6412 | 2 |
| 3 | Jonathan Toews | CHI | 5683 | 11 |
| 3 | Patrick Kane | CHI | 5683 | 16 |
| 5 | Roberto Luongo | VAN | 5197 | 39 |
| 6 | P.K. Subban | MTL | 5137 | 14 |
| 7 | Steven Stamkos | TBL | 4826 | 3 |
| 8 | Carey Price | MTL | 4807 | 28 |
| 9 | Alexandre Burrows | VAN | 4496 | 142 |
| 10 | Henrik Sedin | VAN | 4413 | 91 |
| 11 | Mike Cammalleri | MTL | 3809 | 74 |
| 12 | Pavel Datsyuk | DET | 3733 | 13 |
| 13 | Mats Zuccarello | NYR | 2937 | 42 |
| 14 | Evgeni Malkin | PIT | 2829 | 20 |
| 15 | Jeff Skinner | CAR | 2805 | 9 |
| 16 | Jaroslav Halak | STL | 2736 | 8 |
| 17 | Ryan Miller | BUF | 2506 | 32 |
| 18 | Tyler Seguin | BOS | 2457 | 47 |
| 19 | Teemu Selanne | ANH | 2454 | 16 |
| 20 | Marc-Andre Fleury | PIT | 2308 | 24 |
| 21 | Patrick Sharp | CHI | 2284 | 5 |
| 22 | Ryan Kesler | VAN | 2267 | 142 |
| 23 | Henrik Zetterberg | DET | 2144 | 28 |
| 24 | Tim Thomas | BOS | 2102 | 7 |
| 25 | Nicklas Lidstrom | DET | 2065 | 24 |
The most marked difference I see is the larger number of Canadian teams on the latter list. Contrary to popular belief, Canadians do have computers. Kind of funny to see Burrows and Seguin up there…
Other fun facts: the entire country of Norway voted for Zuccarello, and Daniel Sedin has about half the number of “Likes” that Henrik received. Unnamed sources have told me that women find Henrik far more attractive.
And now, the team-by-team leaders, Yahoo and NHL.com…
| Team | Y! Leader | # | NHL.com Leader | # |
| ANA | Teemu Selanne | 47 | Selanne | 2454 |
| ATL | Dustin Byfuglien | 60 | Byfuglien | 1206 |
| BOS | Tim Thomas | 67 | Seguin | 2457 |
| BUF | Ryan Miller | 38 | Miller | 2506 |
| CAL | Jarome Iginla | 25 | Iginla | 1636 |
| CAR | Jeff Skinner | 60 | Skinner | 2805 |
| CHI | Patrick Sharp | 84 | Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews | 5683 |
| CLB | Rick Nash | 25 | Nash | 987 |
| COL | Matt Duchene | 25 | Duchene | 1681 |
| DAL | Jamie Benn, Alex Goligoski | 23 | Brad Richards | 635 |
| DET | Pavel Datsyuk | 54 | Datsyuk | 3733 |
| EDM | Taylor Hall | 29 | Hall | 1981 |
| FLA | Marty Reasoner | 26 | Tomas Vokoun | 254 |
| LAK | Anze Kopitar | 28 | Kopitar | 1518 |
| MIN | Martin Havlat | 18 | Cal Clutterbuck | 701 |
| MON | P.K. Subban | 53 | Subban | 5137 |
| NJD | Ilya Kovalchuk | 55 | Kovalchuk | 1951 |
| NSH | Mike Fisher | 28 | Shea Weber | 845 |
| NYI | Doug Weight | 19 | John Tavares | 1052 |
| NYR | Sean Avery | 163 | Mats Zuccarello | 2937 |
| OTT | Erik Karlsson | 14 | Karlsson | 824 |
| PHI | Claude Giroux | 75 | Giroux | 1928 |
| PHX | Ilya Bryzgalov | 21 | Bryzgalov | 461 |
| PIT | Sidney Crosby | 157 | Crosby | 6412 |
| SJS | Dany Heatley | 46 | Joe Pavelski | 1168 |
| STL | Jaroslav Halak | 63 | Halak | 2736 |
| TBL | Steven Stamkos | 122 | Stamkos | 4826 |
| TOR | Phil Kessel | 27 | James Reimer | 1687 |
| VAN | Roberto Luongo | 36 | Luongo | 5197 |
| WSH | Alex Ovechkin | 112 | Ovechkin | 10351 |
Reimer love runs deep. And apparently the NHL.com crowd is not yet smitten with Fisherwood. Next intstallment we'll look at teams a bit more.
