Derek Morris through five games

As the Bruins close out their rare season-opening homestand with a meek 2-3 record, this week is sure to be rife with speculation and contrived finger-pointing. What better time to check in on that $3.3 million investment in Derek Morris... you know, the one that prevented the Kessel negotiations from getting off the ground...

Time on ice
Time on ice per game: 23:10, second behind Chara
PP time on ice per game: 5:06, second behind Savard
SH time on ice per game: 2:52, third behind Chara and Wideman

Clearly, Morris has had ample opportunity to make an impact on the ice. He has been paired mostly with Chara, arguably the best defensive partner in the league.

Offensive production
Goals: None.
Assists: 2. Both of Morris' assists were secondary, both were on the power play, and both were scored in the 7-2 rout of struggling Carolina.
Shots: 4. All shots came from a distance of at least 48 feet.

Defense
Hits: 7. This puts him in a tie for 129th leaguewide, along with guys like Saku Koivu and Alex Kovalev.
Plus/Minus: A team-worst -4. He's also -1 on special teams, though these numbers don't count in his official +/-.

Discipline
PIM: 8. Two minors and a double-minor. It was Morris' slashing penalty that led to Colorado's tie-breaking goal.
Giveaways: 3, tied for most on the team.
Takeaways: 1.

Salary
$3.3 million per season, in case you forgot.

Of course there are a lot of Bruins whose numbers look bad right now, but Morris has clearly not had a smooth landing in Boston. If he can't turn it around, this contract could end up being an albatross for Peter Chiarelli.

As long as we're throwing money around...

How about a major contract extension for Shawn Thornton?

Shots taken in 2009-10
Bruins: 92
Thornton: 11
Krejci: 7
Lucic: 2

Goals scored in 2009-10
Bruins: 9
Thornton: 1
Krejci: 0
Lucic: 0

Pens' chances are better than they seem

Today's Mainstream Media statistics du jour:

- The home team has won 12 of 14 Finals Game 7s.

- The home team has won the last 6 straight Finals Game 7s.

- The last road team to pull off the upset was Ken Dryden's 1971 Canadiens.

Obvious conclusion: The Pens are up against monumentally poor odds of winning Game 7 on the road.

"The odds of surviving a road game in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals are approximately 14 to 2!"

Or are they? Let's take a closer look at those numbers before we clear a spot in the Joe for another Cup banner.

Here are the six matchups in question since 1971:

May 30, 1987 -Edmonton (#1 Smythe) beats Philly (#1 Patrick)
June 14, 1994 - Rangers (#1 East) beat Vancouver (#7 West)
June 9, 2001 - Colorado (#1 West) beats New Jersey (#1 East)
June 9, 2003 - New Jersey (#2 East) beats Anaheim (#7 West)
June 7, 2004 - Tampa Bay (#1 East) beats Calgary (#6 West)
June 19, 2006 - Carolina (#2 East) beats Edmonton (#8 West)


In 4 of the 6 occasions, the road team was not merely an underdog but a Cinderella story -- a plucky but inferior team facing off against a heavily-loaded #1 or #2 seed. The 2-0 record in #1-vs-#1 games is relevant, but not intimidating.

Now, there's no doubt that home ice is an advantage in a one-game playoff. The home team controls line changes, faceoffs, and gets an emotional lift from the friendly crowd.

But it also helps when the home team is a star-studded juggernaut and the road team is a doormat who happened to hit a hot streak in April and May.

"Never tell me the odds!"

So, Pens fans, don't despair when the folks at NBC run the 12-2 graphic and keep talking about the 6-game streak. You're facing nothing more than a 1-2 streak over the past 38 years for legitimate contenders playing a 7th game on the road.

For a shot at immortality, those are pretty good odds.

Kryptonite for the Bruins: the middle period

Two games in a row, we've seen the Carolina Hurricanes pull the same trick: turn it on in the second period, score a couple of goals to take the lead, and cruise to victory.

I had a hunch that this pattern has been pretty consistent throughout the year. Whenever the Bruins lose, it usually seems to be the result of a mid-game letdown after a strong start. So I did a little research... lo and behold, the second period is an extremely strong predictor of the Bruins' fortunes. They have rallied to win only 4 games in which they lost the second period -- 4 of 58 total wins! On the other hand, of the 43 games in which they won the second period they have only gone on to lose twice. And perhaps most remarkably, they have a dead-even record of 6-7-6 in the second period in games which (you guessed it) ended up tied after regulation.

Here's the full breakdown:

In regulation wins
Won the 2nd: 35
Lost the 2nd: 4
Tied the 2nd: 12

In regulation losses
Won the 2nd: 2
Lost the 2nd: 10
Tied the 2nd: 7

In regulation ties
Won the 2nd: 6
Lost the 2nd: 7
Tied the 2nd: 6

An objective take on the Norris race

Almost every year the announcement of the Norris Trophy finalists ignites the age-old debate: should the trophy go to the highest-scoring, or the most-feared, or the most-respected defenseman in the league?

This season we have a particularly interesting trio of finalists. Mike Green is shattering scoring records but has a mediocre defensive game. Zdeno Chara is a dominant physical force, but scores fewer points for a better team. Nicklas Lidstrom is the incumbent, a future Hall of Famer and captain of the defending Cup champions.

If you're not a numbers person, skip to the bottom to find out which of these had the most Norris-worthy profile in 2008-09.

Methodology

Before we get into the numbers supporting each candidate, let's remember the vague guidelines that the NHL provides for voters:

The James Norris Memorial Trophy is an annual award given to the defense player who demonstrates throughout the season the greatest all-round ability in the position.

Much like the Second Amendment, that phrase about "all-round ability" is just vague enough to allow for a wide range of interpretations. In order to try and capture the spirit of that description, I've set up a balanced system of measurement: three general, equally-weighted categories which isolate important parts of each blueliner's game.

The idea here is that the number of categories, and the equal weight assigned to each, will compensate for specialization -- the candidate cannot simply rely on one part of his game to carry him through. Only someone with truly excellent "all-round ability" would do well in this system.

Thanks to NHL.com and behindthenet.ca for the numbers.

Defensive Ability

Hits

Chara 169, Green 86, Lidstrom 43

Blocked Shots

Chara 123, Green 110, Lidstrom 67

Takeaways

Green 49, Chara 28, Lidstrom 26

SH Time on Ice

Lidstrom 3:27, Chara 3:21, Green 2:28

Quality of Competition

Lidstrom 0.09, Chara 0.06, Green 0.00

+/-

Lidstrom +31, Green +24, Chara +23

Offensive Ability

Points

Green 31-42-73, Lidstrom 16-43-59, Chara 19-31-50

Shots

Green 243, Chara 216, Lidstrom 180

Shooting Accuracy

Green 12.8%, Lidstrom 8.9%, Chara 8.8%

Giveaways

Green 95, Chara 54, Lidstrom 46

PP Time on Ice

Green 5:22, Lidstrom 3:55, Chara 3:46

Power-play production

Green 18-20-38, Lidstrom 10-23-33, Chara 11-17-28

Leadership

Time on Ice
Chara 26:04, Green 25:45, Lidstrom 24:49

Penalties Taken

Lidstrom 14, Chara 18, Green 26

Penalties Drawn

Green 17, Chara 9, Lidstrom 4

Wears the C

Lidstrom and Chara Yes, Green No

Fights

Chara 3, Green 0, Lidstrom 0

Quality of Teammates

Chara 0.03, Green 0.12, Lidstrom 0.38

If we assign 3 points for first place, 2 for second, and 1 for third, we get the following results:

Green 39

Chara 37

Lidstrom 32

Much as it pains me to admit, it looks like Green has a legit claim as the most well-rounded defenseman in the league this season. The balance was tipped by his underrated defensive numbers, including very respectable totals in hits, blocked shots, and takeaways. Chara simply didn't produce at a high enough level offensively, especially considering his team scored more goals overall.

But maybe Big Z has an ace in the hole...

Some Distressing Numbers

Phil Kessel since 1/6 - 22 games, 3 goals, 5 assists, 64 shots, -1

PJ Axelsson since 1/10 - 26 games, 2 goals, 6 assists, 30 shots, even

Blake Wheeler since 1/27 - 19 games, 3 goals, 5 assists, 46 shots, +5

David Krecji since 1/29 - 19 games, 3 goals, 5 assists, 38 shots, +8

Milan Lucic since 2/1 - 14 games, 2 goals, 5 assists, 20 shots, -4

Marc Savard since 2/10 - 13 games, 0 goals, 11 assists, 18 shots, -2

TOTAL: 113 games, 13 goals, 37 assists, 50 points, 216 shots, 6% shooting, +8

The goal-scoring column and shooting % are particularly scary. Now this isn't the most scientific way to look at the team's production because the timeframes aren't constant. Savard began to slump later, and less severely, than Kessel for instance.

But it does tell us something valuable: the top two lines (other than Ryder) have been struggling since the New Year, and the slumps are starting to "cascade" from one player to another. Note that Krecji's and Wheeler's production dropped almost simultaneously, as did Lucic's and Savard's.

Depth scoring is great, but stars must play like stars. For the first half of the season the Bruins looked to have taken a quantum leap into Cup-contender status. But if these lines don't find their game soon, they will look more like the same lunchpail squad couldn't score enough to beat Montreal last April.

How The Bruins Win

There are a lot of strange stats in hockey, such as Rod Brind'Amour being near the bottom of the league in +/- or Thomas Vanek leading the league in goals with only a few assists.

Here's a stat that might really surprise you:

Boston's winning percentage when outshooting the opposition: .619
Boston's winning percentage when outshot: .864

That's right, the Bruins are 30% more likely to win a game in which they take fewer shots than the other team. But they aren't alone in having this bizarre advantage. When outshot, the Sharks have a .857 rate of victory; the Rangers see a 20% increase in their likelihood of winning; Buffalo and Columbus are both at .500 only when they see more rubber than the other team.

But Anaheim takes the cake; they are more likely to lose when taking more shots, and more likely to win when being outshot.

What's going on? How is it possible for a team to gain an advantage from being dominated by their opponent? It's beyond this humble blog to try and analyze each unique data set, but we can certainly get some valuable insight from the Bruins' results this season.

Quality vs. Quantity

In a nutshell, the Bruins win because they take better shots rather than more shots. In fact, their defensive system practically invites high-powered opponents to send volleys of rubber toward the Bruins goaltender -- so long as those shots are easily stoppable.

Earlier this season, I pointed out that the Red Wings' puck-possession system struggled against the Bruins' defensive shell. This was largely the result of the Wings settling for low-percentage chances early in the game, which had the effect of cancelling out their puckhandling creativity and rebound control. The Wings outshot the Bruins 30-19 in that game, including a dominant 15-5 during the second frame, but Boston walked to an easy 4-1 win. We saw much the same from Montreal on Tuesday -- a 17-9 shots advantage early in the game translated to a 3-1 loss for the Habs.

Finding the Sweet Spot

Teams that succeed against Boston do four things:

1) Control the puck in between the circles. Not just for lazy backhands, but for bona fide scoring chances.
2) Screen the goaltenders with heavy traffic at the front of the crease.
3) Capitalize on rebounds.
4) Prevent the Bruins from doing each of these things at the other end of the ice.

On any given play, the Bruins protect the slot with hulking defensemen such as Chara, Stuart and Ward -- not to mention the defensive prowess of forwards like Axelsson, Krejci and Yelle. On offense, slick puckhandlers like Savard and Kessel can break down individual coverage while widebodied Lucic and Ryder create havoc in front of the net.

The sum of these advantages is that the Bruins can safely allow their opponents to exhaust their offensive opportunities by settling for long-range, sharp-angled shots; meanwhile Boston will pass up such shots in order to get one quality opportunity from in front. To control the slot against Boston requires a very high level of skill and discipline, which is why the Bruins have only 7 outright losses in 43 games so far.

Crunching the numbers

All of this is fairly intuitive for those who know hockey, but it's remarkable to see it play out in the box scores. Of the Bruins' 11 total losses this season, 8 came in games in which they took the majority of shots on goal (one of the three exceptions was an SO loss to the Rangers). On the other side of the coin, the majority (19 of 32) of their wins have come in games in which the Bruins were outshot.

Let's look at a specific example: Tuesday's game against Montreal. In this analysis I'm going to use the ESPN Gamecenter feature which tracks the location and result of each shot during the game. Go ahead and click on the link to view the shot chart.

Now, time to use your imagination -- we need to define a "quality shot" (we'll call it a QS). As far as this analysis is concerned, that means a shot from the slot. We'll draw some basic boundaries to define the slot:
- Imagine a line connecting each goalpost to the nearest faceoff dot (it should run at a 45-degree angle to the goal line).
- Imagine a line from each faceoff dot to the top of the circle.
- Finally, imagine a line connecting the tops of the faceoff circles.

The resulting polygon should look a little like the "rewind" arrow on a remote control, or perhaps a sideways "house". We're going to call this the Quality Shot Zone; anything outside this area is either too far away or at too sharp an angle to pose a real threat to an unscreened goalie.

Now, click through each period of the game and look where the shots occurred. Montreal took 17 total shots in the first period, but only 6 QS; Boston had 9 total shots, with 3 Quality Shots and 3 marginally outside of the boundaries of the QSZ for a total of 6 QS. Score was 0-0 after one frame.

As the game wore on, each team pressed to get higher-quality shots. In the second period, Montreal took 8 QS, scoring once. Though outshot overall in the period, Boston took 9 QS (including Chara's borderline-QSZ shot which was deflected by a Hab at the top of the crease) and scored twice. In the final period, Boston outshot the Habs 5-4 inside the QSZ and scored another goal.

Total shots: 35-29, advantage Montreal
Quality shots: 20-18, advantage Boston
Goals inside the QSZ: 3-1, advantage Boston

This example mimics the pattern we've seen all year -- and remember, Montreal is one of the league's tougher opponents. Try the same exercise for Boston's wins against the Hurricanes and Senators; using QS analysis, the outcome of each period becomes pretty easy to predict.

More examples

At risk of overkill, here's a QS analysis for each game since the New Year:

1/1/09
Total shot advantage: Pens, 32-26
Bruins: 21 QS for 3 goals
Pens: 20 QS for 2 goals
Result: Bruins win 4-2

1/3/09
Total shot advantage: Bruins, 31-25
Bruins: 18 QS for 2 goals
Sabres: 9 QS for 4 goals
Result: Sabres win 4-2, truly a case of taking advantage of your opportunities!

1/6/09
Total shot advantage: Bruins, 28-24
Bruins: 15 QS for 0 goals
Wild: 12 QS for 0 goals
Result: Wild win 1-0

1/8/09
Total shot advantage: Sens, 30-22
Bruins: 14 QS for 5 goals
Sens: 15 QS for 3 goals
Result: Bruins win 6-4

1/10/09
Total shot advantage: Bruins, 32-30
Bruins: 16 QS for 4 goals
Canes: 15 QS for 1 goal
Result: Bruins win 5-1

1/13/09
Total shot advantage: Habs, 35-29
Bruins: 20 QS for 3 goals
Habs: 18 QS for 1 goal
Result: Bruins win 3-1

Conclusions

Of course, QS isn't a foolproof statistic. Above you can see a few games in which other factors were obviously at play -- Boston played a sloppy and uninspired game on 1/3, failing to take advantage of a 2:1 QS advantage, while Backstrom played a brilliant game on 1/6 to deny all 15 Bruins QS opportunities. And then there are power-play differentials, screened shots from the blue line, and of course the goaltending wizardry that we see on a nightly basis.

But if we're looking for a macro-scale explanation of how the Bruins can continue to win despite being outshot most of the time, this is it. By intentionally allowing opposing teams to control the non-QS areas of the ice, the Bruins can dictate the terms on which they play defense... and in turn they can transition quickly into a deadly attack which virtually ignores shots from the corners and points.

The Worst Statistic In Sports

Could any statistic in sports be less useful than the plus-minus system in hockey?

Editorial Note: Season stats used in this article are for the 2007-08 season. Career stats are current as of October 31, 2008.
For those who aren’t familiar: when a hockey player scores a goal (not counting power-play goals), everyone on the ice at the time receives a “plus one”. When a goal is scored against his team, everyone receives a “minus one”. In other words, a player on the ice for every goal in a 3-2 victory would be +1 for the game. If he was on the ice for every goal of a 6-2 loss, he would be -4.

Hockey, like other sports, has a hard time translating defensive superiority into statistical excellence. It has no sacks, steals or put-outs. So, until stats like “hits” and “takeaways” were introduced a couple of years ago, a player’s plus-minus rating was the gold standard for evaluating his defensive play.

But is plus-minus really a reflection of a player’s defensive skill? Here are three reasons to think not:

1) Typically, the league’s top players face off against one another throughout the game. First lines are often matched against first lines, especially on balanced squads like San Jose and Detroit. This spells plus-minus disaster for players like Ilya Kovalchuk (-12) and Olli Jokinen (-19), who have few high-scoring teammates. In a typical Coyotes game, Jokinen will be expected to carry his team offensively at the same time that the opposition’s highest-scoring players are on the ice; naturally, Jokinen will end up on the losing end of that equation most of the time.,. regardless of how well or poorly he plays.

2) Plus-minus reflects team play, not individual play. Teams like Tampa Bay (-46) and Los Angeles (-33) are horrid on defense, and players for those squads will naturally have low plus-minus ratings. But are we truly to believe that these teams’ defensive stalwarts are inferior to their counterparts playing for the division leaders? That is, can Jack Johnson (-19) really be that much worse Doug Murray (+20)?

3) The Dan Cloutier Effect. No matter how the defense plays, not all goalies are created equal.

What does all of this mean in real-life terms? Well, let’s look at the past few winners of the Selke Trophy, awarded to the league’s best defensive forward. I’ve matched them up with a defensively-challenged teammate for the sake of illustrating how dramatically a player’s +/ is affected by circumstances (such as defensive assignments, offensive opportunity, line selection, etc.):

Kris Draper (Selke winner): +2 vs. Valtteri Filppula: +16
Jere Lehtinen (3-time Selke winner): +9 vs. Mike Ribeiro: +21
Rod Brind’Amour (2-time Selke winner): even vs. Chad LaRose +6
Michael Peca (Selke winner): -1 vs. Sergei Fedorov (2-time Selke winner): -2 vs. Curtis Glencross: +5

Last season, of course, Pavel Datsyuk won the Selke with a remarkable +41. Datsyuk has an aggregate +110 since 2005... the previous season he was -2.

And lest we believe that these numbers are the result of statistical flukes or oddball circumstances, check out these CAREER +/ totals for a few suprises:
Wayne Gretzky: +518
Slava Kozlov: +122
Henrik Sedin: +74
Martin Straka: +67
Paul Kariya: +36
Pavel Bure: +42
Erik Cole: +9
Rod Brind’Amour: +8
Chris Drury: +7
Jay Bouwmeester: -26
Shane Doan: -29
Ed Jovanovski: -46
Trevor Linden -64
Olli Jokinen: -70

It’s pretty clear what the guys at either end of the list have in common -- their defensive ability has an inverse relationship with their career +/-.

The stats bear it out: The +/- is useless for any player-to-player comparison, even within the same pool of teammates. Career +/- is not even worth recording, because it is absolutely arbitrary.

Until the NHL can conceive of a more complex, "adjusted" statistic (the QB Rating being an example), it’s time for the NHL to ditch this dinosaur and replace it with meaningful defensive statistics such as hits, blocked shots, and takeaways.