I thought I'd take a look at the statistical leaders in some very slightly advanced metrics. First, for some perspective, the league leaders in Points per 60 Minutes of 5v5 Ice Time over the last three seasons:
| 2009-10 | 5v5 P/60 | 2008-09 | 5v5 P/60 | 2007-08 | 5v5 P/60 |
| Ovechkin | 4.12 | R. Bourque | 3.20 | Crosby | 3.38 |
| H. Sedin | 3.79 | Semin | 3.16 | Malkin | 3.20 |
| D. Sedin | 3.77 | Malkin | 3.07 | Stastny | 3.12 |
| Crosby | 3.35 | Crosby | 3.00 | Alfredsson | 3.12 |
| Semin | 3.33 | Savard | 2.99 | Ovechkin | 3.00 |
| Backstrom | 3.01 | D. Sedin | 2.97 | Heatley | 2.95 |
| Kovalchuk | 2.89 | Krejci | 2.95 | Spezza | 2.93 |
| Gaborik | 2.88 | Parise | 2.93 | Dumont | 2.88 |
| Knuble | 2.85 | Datsyuk | 2.91 | Radulov | 2.86 |
| Erkisson | 2.84 | Havlat | 2.89 | Roy | 2.86 |
Raise your hand if you knew Rene Bourque was one of the most efficient players in the NHL last season. Here are the 11th-40th players in that category this seasons:
| Player | P/60 | Player | P/60 | Player | P/60 |
| Marleau | 2.83 | Parise | 2.62 | Ponikoraovsky | 2.46 |
| Thornton | 2.82 | Horton | 2.61 | Wolski | 2.46 |
| Kane | 2.76 | Antropov | 2.61 | Sharp | 2.42 |
| Malkin | 2.75 | Lecavalier | 2.56 | Upshall | 2.42 |
| B. Richards | 2.73 | Neal | 2.52 | Heatley | 2.40 |
| C. Stewart | 2.70 | Fleischmann | 2.51 | Parse | 2.39 |
| Fehr | 2.70 | Stamkos | 2.51 | R. Bourque | 2.38 |
| Burrows | 2.69 | Simmonds | 2.48 | Asham | 2.36 |
| Getzlaf | 2.63 | Van Riemsdyk | 2.47 | Stastny | 2.35 |
| St. Louis | 2.62 | E. Staal | 2.46 | J. Jokinen | 2.34 |
A lot of good lines, good offensive players, and a few guys, like Scott Parse, who you’ve probably never heard of. And, of course, Rene Bourque. What about On-Ice/Off-Ice +/-, which I’ve called a player’s “Rating”:
| NAME | RATING | NAME | RATING | NAME | RATING |
| Ovechkin | 2.83 | H. Sedin | 1.86 | Cammalleri | 1.52 |
| Parise | 2.80 | C. Franson | 1.85 | Holmstrom | 1.5 |
| D. Sedin | 2.55 | J. Jokinen | 1.81 | Knuble | 1.49 |
| Fistric | 2.38 | Lidstrom | 1.79 | E. Staal | 1.49 |
| Downie | 2.34 | Bailey | 1.74 | Backstrom | 1.47 |
| Zajac | 2.24 | Brookbank | 1.65 | Smyth | 1.46 |
| Antropov | 2.16 | Schultz | 1.64 | Rafalski | 1.46 |
| Foligno | 2.04 | Smid | 1.61 | Simmonds | 1.45 |
| Gaborik | 1.99 | Vrbata | 1.59 | Prust | 1.44 |
| Penner | 1.87 | Wolski | 1.52 | Hornqvist | 1.41 |
It's a real mixed bag, mostly because players draw widely-varying matchups and don't line up against similar opponents. In that vein, the league leaders in Quality of Competition:
| NAME | QoC | NAME | QoC | NAME | QoC |
| Ward | 1.931 | Jovanovski | 1.655 | Heatley | 1.328 |
| Volchenkov | 1.891 | Michalek | 1.596 | Pandolfo | 1.323 |
| Seabrook | 1.831 | Smithson | 1.584 | Zanon | 1.321 |
| Jackman | 1.779 | Legwand | 1.565 | Thornton | 1.295 |
| Phillips | 1.777 | Grossman | 1.540 | Marleau | 1.288 |
| Alfredsson | 1.755 | Robidas | 1.436 | Lidstrom | 1.283 |
| Polak | 1.740 | Gleason | 1.392 | Girardi | 1.269 |
| Keith | 1.717 | Leopold | 1.360 | Thompson | 1.255 |
| Mitchell | 1.711 | Zetterberg | 1.348 | Sutton | 1.241 |
| M. Staal | 1.665 | Brown | 1.343 | Ohlund | 1.233 |
The Quality of Competition metric here is "Relative Corsi" – in other words the average opponent's Corsi number relative to his team. Quality of Competition is an imperfect metric, but using opponent shot totals reduces the role of individual scoring luck, or a tougher schedule of opponents.
There are a lot of lines and defensive pairs on this list with very few singletons – Carolina’s Tim Gleason is probably the only player on this list who doesn’t have a teammate within striking distance. The Quality of Competition leaders always pose an interesting question for me: are these players at the top of this list because their coaches send them out against the other team’s best players? Or because opposing coaches send out their best players against them.
Next time, a run through the leaders a few more obscure statistics…
