It's possible Senators GM John Muckler might have actually known what he was doing when he acquired Oleg Saprykin at the NHL trade deadline. Hey, stop laughing.It seemed all too reminiscent of last year, when Muckler fiddled around and Senators fans burned after prize pickup Tyler Arnason didn't even see the ice during another early playoff exit.
The same sentiment was held here until coming across behindthenet.ca, authored by Gabriel Desjardins, a Winnipegger who like his hometown hockey team, has relocated south of the border (in his case, northern California). Gabe, who just might be hockey's answer to Bill James in baseball, is a brilliant, brilliant guy (we knew each other a bit as Queen's undergrads about 10 years ago, and he has a master's degree from Berkeley). In his spare time, he crunches the numbers for something called On-ice vs. off-ice plus/minus.
It's just like it sounds. It compares a team's goal differential when a player is on the ice compared to when he's not on the ice. Well, Saprykin ranks 16th in the entire league in the latest edition of the "Gabe Gauge." Among players who've appeared in at least 50 games, he's 12th. The only player ranked ahead of him who changed teams at the deadline? Peter Forsberg.
Gary Roberts, whom a lot of people in Ottawa wanted to see with the Sens, is 103rd in the league. Todd Bertuzzi wasn't included in the latest rankings since he's on injured reserve, but if he was, he would be among the 10 worst out of the 600-plus skaters in the league.
Sure, Roberts has the rep — fire up the Cliché-o-Matic — of coming to play when it matters most, show up for the playoffs — but it's pretty clear that appearances to the contary, Saprykin is not Tyler Arnason, despite similar point totals. Saprykin's only had one taste of the Stanley Cup playoffs and put up modest point totals, but that was with the 2004 Calgary Flames, who came within one win of winning the Cup. (No one needs a reminder that was farther than the Senators have ever gone.)
Now, is Muckler actually aware of Desjardins' work? That seems highly dubious -- Muckler doesn't even betray that he knows they have the Internet on computers now --
but it seems like he might have improved the Sens. Saprykin not only didn't cost them a regular, but he would probably take ice time away from Antoine Vermette, whom the "Gabe gauge" shows has been one the league's least effective players.
By the way, Oleg Saprykin wore 91 in Phoenix but changed his number to 61 to avoid any association to former first overall flop Alexandre Daigle.
So if 666 is the Mark of the Beast, does that mean 91 is the Mark of the Bust in Ottawa?
(UPDATE, 4:15 p.m: This was was written before the Sens-Blackhawks game began, but some technical problems kept it from being posted. Saprykin got Ottawa's first goal today and was on the ice for its second, although it was a power-play tally, so he doesn't get a plus.)
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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2 comments:
Very interesting statistics.
However, before we anoint Gabe the next Bill James let's see what Saprykin does. He has a tendency of disappearing which may or may not become noticeable playing with a deep team like Ottawa.
The only caveat I wonder about this interesting little stat of Gabe's is how it relates to goalies. He needs a way to cumulatively add a teams players "Gabe stat" as you put it and see if it favors or hinders a goalie. Goalies win games, some say "steal" come playoff time. I wonder if Gabe can figure in goalies somehow into his math class. It's intriguing.
I don't have a mind like Mr. Desjardins', but he could probably figure out something.
Eric, your comment's pretty germane. Mirtle (the best hockey blogger going) had a chart up the other day on the best penalty killers, but he noted something like 4 of the top 7 play for Van.... so how much is that a reflection on Luongo?
Anyways, I hadn't seen anything like what Gabe's done, just like Bill James was ahead of the game on a lot of people back in the earlier days of the computer revolution.
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