Hockey legend Igor Larionov captured the hockey news cycle on Monday with a provocative article in the Players Tribune. Larionov’s thesis is that coaches are so stuck on hockey orthodoxy or so fearful of risk that they stifle and select against “creative” players.
The pullquote: “There’s a reason why Pavel Datsyuk went undrafted in 1996 and 1997.”
I’m skeptical about that example, but I think Larionov is spot-on about conservative coaching in general. We see it in all sports, but hockey seems to have a particularly pernicious strain of Goodoldboysclubitis, wherein exciting, finesse players are considered too “European” and risky, and safe and pedestrian players are wildly overvalued. I suspect that disease is behind symptoms like Top-line Beagle.
It’s a chronic infection that takes the form of valuing of a player’s characteristics over his actual effectiveness. Adding hard-working, “spark”-y Jay Beagle to the Capitals scoring line despite an embarrassingly convincing body of evidence that he actually hinders scoring– that’s an acute case.
If the point of hockey is to win games, why do so many people care more about a player’s description than a player’s production? The only answer is Goodoldboysclubitis.
We’ve seen it create necrotized flesh on the Philadelphia blue line after an injection of Andrew MacDonald, and in coming years we will see similar morbidity with the addition of Brooks Orpik in Washington.
“The effect is not going to be in goals and assists,” Brian MacLellan said in July. “It’s going to be in culture and winning and attitude, and that’s what Brooks Orpik does.”
That quote, likely uttered in the throes of a Goodoldboysclubitis fever, sums up the affliction perfectly. It’s like the brain is not able to separate the ways we talk about players (“gritty,” “hard-working,” “last name is also a breed of dog”) from the things those players do to actually help win games.
The teams who can rid themselves of the disease are the ones who do best in this league.
The only cure is information. Let’s do the snapshot.
Previous snapshots: week 1, week 2, week 3, week 4, week 5, week 6, week 7, week 8, week 9, week 10, week 11, week 12, week 13, week 14, week 15, week 16, week 17
These are current as noon on Sunday, February 22nd, though you’re not reading this until Monday. The sample is restricted to 5v5 hockey when the score is within one goal. There’s a glossary at bottom with an explanatory video.
Player | GP | TOI | SA% | Goal% | PDO | ZS% |
Burakovsky | 45 | 409.5 | 55.1 | 61.5 | 102.7 | 65.3 |
Ovechkin | 61 | 776.0 | 54.3 | 51.5 | 99.1 | 57.5 |
Backstrom | 61 | 768.5 | 53.9 | 49.2 | 98.6 | 56.0 |
Wilson | 48 | 462.9 | 53.4 | 50.0 | 99.4 | 55.3 |
Laich | 46 | 447.1 | 52.4 | 43.3 | 97.5 | 46.4 |
Ward | 61 | 647.8 | 51.9 | 40.5 | 97.0 | 46.7 |
Latta | 40 | 272.4 | 51.7 | 61.5 | 102.4 | 44.7 |
Beagle | 56 | 498.2 | 51.0 | 55.6 | 101.9 | 46.8 |
Johansson | 61 | 582.9 | 50.5 | 46.7 | 99.1 | 57.1 |
Fehr | 57 | 588.6 | 50.5 | 47.4 | 99.2 | 45.4 |
Kuznetsov | 59 | 492.4 | 49.2 | 59.3 | 102.4 | 55.2 |
Brouwer | 61 | 561.1 | 48.7 | 52.4 | 101.5 | 57.4 |
Chimera | 56 | 503.8 | 46.2 | 48.4 | 100.4 | 46.5 |
Player | GP | TOI | SA% | Goal% | PDO | ZS% |
Schmidt | 33 | 346.6 | 53.3 | 51.9 | 100.0 | 59.3 |
Green | 52 | 593.5 | 52.8 | 52.5 | 100.8 | 59.2 |
Niskanen | 61 | 866.4 | 52.5 | 55.6 | 101.0 | 51.7 |
Alzner | 61 | 810.5 | 51.6 | 53.2 | 100.6 | 49.4 |
Carlson | 61 | 877.1 | 50.6 | 48.6 | 99.5 | 50.3 |
Orpik | 61 | 913.1 | 50.2 | 48.0 | 99.1 | 51.4 |
Hillen | 34 | 329.5 | 48.4 | 47.4 | 100.1 | 58.2 |
https://twitter.com/muneebalamcu/status/569604964328312832
1st line SA% | 2nd line SA% | |
Top-line Beagle | 43.5 | 48.2 |
No Top-line Beagle | 55.6 | 50.8 |
https://twitter.com/dbt100/status/569557855474458624
@russianmachine really wouldn't mind laich being dealt. Not just bc of the penalty obviously but he gets paid way to much to do nothing.
— Kyle Landau (@Kyle_Landau_88) February 16, 2015
@russianmachine the laich Fehr ward line has been frightful recently. The bad thing is the caps can't do anything about it either
— Chris Raine (@RainemanC) February 19, 2015
@russianmachine Is anyone ever gonna mention the absolute astonishing invisibility of Brooks Laich? Its just so disheartening at this point.
— Dom Simonetta (@dasimonetta) February 22, 2015
https://twitter.com/atwingard/status/567494243326115840
Thanks to War On Ice for the stats and being generally awesome.
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