This brings me to Raffi Torres. Among Oilers forwards to play more than 10 games, only Marc-Antoine Pouliot ranks below Torres' 5.7% success rate. So let's take a look at how everyone ranks, with their career avg. in parenthesis besides them (except for rookies).
Cogliano - 18.4%
Horcoff - 18.3% (13.6)
Glencross - 14.4% (14.3)
Pisani - 13.5% (13.8)
Penner - 11.4% (12.4)
Brodziak - 11.2%
Hemsky - 10.9% (11.3)
Nilsson - 9.8% (9.4)
Reasoner - 9.7% (9.9)
Gagner - 9.6%
Moreau - 9.3% (10.4)
Stortini - 7.9%
Sanderson - 7.5% (11.6)
Stoll - 7.5% (9.0)
Torres - 5.7% (11.9)
Pouliot - 3.1% (5.5)
To start with, a difference of 1% or less between these two numbers is probably irrelevant statistically. If we remove those players and rookies from the list, we get the following group of guys straying from their career numbers:
Horcoff: +4.7%
Moreau -1.1%
Stoll -1.5%
Pouliot -2.4%
Sanderson -4.1%
Torres -6.2%
I'm also going to ignore Sanderson (a shadow of the corer he once was) and Pouliot (not enough of a career yet to see a definite trend). Starting with the negatives, this means Horcoff will probably not be as successful next year. He was on pace for 32 goals, and if he'd been at his career percentage, that would equate to 24 goals- still a career high, but much closer to his pace of the last three years. Moreau was on pace for 16 goals, and adjusting this gives him 18, a fairly minor change. Stoll moves from 14 goals to 17, more respectable, but not his career high of 22. This brings us to the photographed player, Torres. On pace for just 13 goals (his lowest ever total over a full season), adjusting his shooting percentage yields us an amazing 27 goals! (Which puts him into that vaunted 25-35 goal scorer category;) )
In short, please don't trade Torres, because he's a much better player than this years results indicate, and maybe signing Horcoff long-term might be better done at the halfway point next year (it hurts to say that; the fear being that he won't be resigned).
As for the young fellows, Cogliano will score fewer goals next year, as his percentage this season(18.4) was ahead of or tied with such pluggers as Alex Ovechkin (14.6%), Ilya Kovalchuk (18.4%), Jarome Iginla (14.8%), Evgeni Malkin (17.3%) and Henrik Zetterberg (12%). These guys just happen to be the top 5 goal-scorers in the NHL in 07-08. Brodziak may suffer a slight correction, and Gagner should improve. As for Stortini, goalies facing him had a .921 SV%, which sounds about right.
6 Comments:
Nice post, Jonathan. Your method of comparing a players Sh% against his own established rate works for me.
Things do change, e.g. Horcoff distinctly adopted much more of a "shoot first" mentality than he has displayed in the past, a very good idea given his linemate Hemsky is unlikely to ever evolve in that direction. I don't think he trusted his shot before, always thought of himself as the playmaker. Horc has matured into a new role to complement Hemsky, whose set-ups are often so good that a quick shot doesn't need to overpower the goalie to be effective. Looking ahead, the safe bet would be that next year he will come in somewhere between his career norms and the "Scorcoff" we enjoyed in 2007-08.
Same goes for Raffi in the downwards direction. I would suggest his crappy shooting percentage is a fairly direct consequence of playing with Stoll, who has been his centre fairly exclusively since the departure of Peca. In Raffi's first two years in Edmonton he scored 47 goals on 300 shots, in his last two just 20 goals on 241 shots. In two significant samples his Sh% has plummeted from 15.7% to 8.3%. The latter is closer to the "established rate" at this point, but a trial separation from Stoll would be a good experiment before writing the guy off.
As for Stortini, goalies facing him had a .921 SV%, which sounds about right.
It does. Note Stortini wasn't a rookie, he had a Sh% of 5.9% in 29 games in '06-07. Remembering how Zack looked last season, goalies facing him with a .941 Sv% also sounds about right. Moving forward, an improvement to 9 or 10% hardly seems unlikely, but I can certainly understand those bloggers who say that his line's Sh% of 14 or 15% or whatever it was down the stretch being unsustainable. But I hope we get the chance to find out.
//Looking ahead, the safe bet would be that next year he will come in somewhere between his career norms and the "Scorcoff" we enjoyed in 2007-08. //
Definitely. I think his offensive game has come along nicely, but I don't think his SH% is sustainable. Somewhere in the middle is a good bet.
//Same goes for Raffi in the downwards direction. I would suggest his crappy shooting percentage is a fairly direct consequence of playing with Stoll, who has been his centre fairly exclusively since the departure of Peca.//
I'm not sure what goes on in Raffi's head. I do believe he's closer to being a 25-goal man than being a 10-goal man, though.
//It does. Note Stortini wasn't a rookie, he had a Sh% of 5.9% in 29 games in '06-07. Remembering how Zack looked last season, goalies facing him with a .941 Sv% also sounds about right. Moving forward, an improvement to 9 or 10% hardly seems unlikely,//
I blacked the end of 06-07 out of my memory. That said, I don't see Stortini's offensive game reaching a level where goalies playing against him avg. .900SV%; those are below average numbers and I don't believe Stortini has an above-average offensive game. If he can continue to plug along at 8-9% I dare say his other attributes will keep him in the NHL for quite some time.
Don't forget Tyler's regular admonition... the other thing you want to keep an eye on here is game situation. Someone who goes from 0:45 to 3:15 per game on the PP will, all else being equal, see his Shot% go up.
The flip side of this is that EVShot% is even more predictable/consistent than overall Shot%, and thus an even better way to look for "value".
Except for the exceptions, that is... :)
I don't see Stortini's offensive game reaching a level where goalies playing against him avg. .900SV%; those are below average numbers and I don't believe Stortini has an above-average offensive game.$
Jonathan: Bear in mind that 80% of Zack's shots are likely to come from ten feet and in. Average Sv% numbers are bloated by lots of point and outside shots. For one thing, if the league average is .910, I'll bet it's closer to .890 against forwards and .940 against defence. (Anybody keep track of this?)
Even as forwards go, Stortini is not exactly a "shoot it from anywhere" type, so I would expect a relatively low number of shots but a surprisingly better Sh% than you might expect as he gains experience in the offensive zone.
//The flip side of this is that EVShot% is even more predictable/consistent than overall Shot%, and thus an even better way to look for "value".
//
//Jonathan: Bear in mind that 80% of Zack's shots are likely to come from ten feet and in. Average Sv% numbers are bloated by lots of point and outside shots. For one thing, if the league average is .910, I'll bet it's closer to .890 against forwards and .940 against defence. (Anybody keep track of this?) //
An excellent point, and another excellent point. I'm going to see if I can find EV SH% over the next few days.
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