Thank you for obliging us and completing the almost-the-end-of-the-season Happiness Survey. You were one of 1700 respondents, and you are appreciated. I have spent the last several days – non-stop – reviewing the data, scribbling inscrutable formulae in a moleskine notebook, frantically rearranging an abacus, and neglecting my personal hygiene. Now you reap the rewards.
This is the third Happiness Survey of the 2024-25 season. Here is the prompt:
On a scale from 1 to 5, how HAPPY are you to have this player on the team?
1 means VERY UNHAPPY TO HAVE THEM ON THE TEAM
2 means UNHAPPY
3 means NEITHER HAPPY NOR UNHAPPY
4 means HAPPY
5 means VERY HAPPY TO HAVE THEM ON THE TEAM
The average score for each player is listed below. I have dutifully sorted them into tiers.
Big Boys Tier
The shortest guy here is 6’2″. You love them.
- Tom Wilson 4.87 ± 0.49
- Aliaksei Protas 4.86 ± 0.50
- Alex Ovechkin 4.86 ± 0.53
- Logan Thompson 4.85 ± 0.50
- Jakob Chychrun 4.81 ± 0.52
Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas were thick-neck-and-thick-neck for top spot, but the future captain won the duel, probably on the strength of good looks. Meanwhile, Logan Thompson hasn’t saved above .900 in any of his last five appearances, but our rankings keep him near the top of the team – down just .01 from the last survey.
I’ll add that the standard deviation – basically a measurement of consensus, where smaller numbers mean you agree more – are lowest at this tier. Fours and fives, almost exclusively.
Center-ish Tier
These fellas have all been, at various times, centers.
- Dylan Strome 4.76 ± 0.56
- Pierre-Luc Dubois 4.75 ± 0.57
- Connor McMichael 4.60 ± 0.66
I cannot understand how Pierre-Luc Dubois remains outside the top tier. He’s up 0.07 from last time, but he should be even higher. He might be the team’s MVP. Meanwhile, McMichael and Strome are both terrific players whose scoring in the back half has dropped. I get it.
Meat and Potatoes Tier
Want some gravy with that?
- John Carlson 4.38 ± 0.79
- Nic Dowd 4.33 ± 0.76
- Charlie Lindgren 4.25 ± 0.75
- Martin Fehervary 4.21 ± 0.75
- Rasmus Sandin 4.15 ± 0.77
- Brandon Duhaime 4.08 ± 0.80
Charlie Lindgren is one of the biggest climbers of this session, up 0.37 from last time. The survey came in the wake of his .938 effort against Seattle, so I’d bet recency bias is to blame there. Everyone else has moved ever so slightly: Carlson up a smidge, Dowd down 0.1.
Two Defenders Tier
These two play defense.
- Matt Roy 3.90 ± 0.81
- Trevor van Riemsdyk 3.77 ± 0.85
I get it. It’s like – no one says their favorite food is under-seasoned boiled red potatoes. But sometimes you just need to eat boiled red potatoes. Just wish they had some salt or something.
(Don’t know why I’ve got potatoes on my mind. St. Patrick’s Day?)
3.5 Tier
Buncha normal Normans, buncha regular Reginalds, buncha everyday Everetts, buncha nondescript Nonagesimuses.
- Taylor Raddysh 3.55 ± 0.87
- Andrew Mangiapane 3.51 ± 0.90
- Lars Eller 3.36 ± 0.92
I see now that I have not done my job about Lars Eller. He’s mega-underrated. How he dropped (slightly at 0.03) from the last survey is nonsense. I’ll have to write about that soon. But I admit: his late era is a bit boiled red potatoe-y.
Overall, even though we’re far down the tier list, the zone around 3.5 is traditionally ambient temperature in the survey. These are not hated players.
Exceptions Tier
These scores don’t really count. Asterisks all over ’em.
- Ethen Frank 3.80 ± 0.83
- Ivan Miroshnichenko 3.35 ± 0.91
- Dylan McIlrath 3.16 ± 0.88
- Anthony Beauvillier 3.06 ± 0.67
- Alexander Alexeyev 3.02 ± 0.77
- Hendrix Lapierre 2.94 ± 0.87
- Sonny Milano 2.70 ± 0.96
Beauvillier is too fresh for anyone to have a strong opinion; even his standard deviation is low. Frank hasn’t played in a week. I’m not sure any of the others here will suit up again this season, which is good in some cases and tragic in others.
There will be one more survey at the end of the regular season. Until then, what did we get wrong?
