May 22, 2009
Mailbag
Playoff Edition

Puck Prospectus

Alon Gur: Is there a book coming out that I can purchase?

Will Carroll: Puck Prospectus is off to a great start and like the other Prospectus groups, we're looking forward to putting together a projection system, season previews, and other packages. One of those options is a book, but in this economy, book sales are down (unless you're Nate Silver!) Our sister site, Football Outsiders, is going to an online and print-on-demand model for their 2009 book, so we're watching them closely. There's advantages to either model and we're not sure yet which will work for us and for our readers.

We started mid-season as we wanted to make sure we had a team that was worthy of your time. I think we've done that. It was a "soft launch" but I'm excited about the work that we've been able to do. We've set up some great partnerships with Illegal Curve, Behind The Net, and ESPN, where we're putting up articles every week that are helping to raise the discussion. That's all very exciting and we have the base set for next year.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying there won't be a book this year. We'll keep the focus on giving you great articles, including many of the things you'd look for in a book. Behind the scenes, we're adding writers, features, and putting a lot of work into a database that will make things a lot easier for our writers to find the interesting things and for you to look things up. If you look at BP in 1998 and Puck here in 2009, you'll see a lot of similarities. We only hope we can grow the way BP has, helping to change how the game is covered and how it's played.

Nathaniel Stampe: Curtis Joseph was great as a Badger, but at a certain point don't those career losses become a concern?

Tom Awad: Hi Nathaniel,

Career losses are a strange statistics, because they’re a negative statistics that accumulate more if you have a long, successful career. In Cujo’s case, they’re the result of a rare combination: an excellent goaltender who played mostly for average teams in his career. Much has been made of the fact that Cujo now owns the losses record, but it’s instructive to look at the top of that list rather than just #1:

Rank    Goaltender        Losses
1	Curtis Joseph      352
2 	Gump Worsley	   352
3	Gilles Meloche     351
4	John Vanbiesbrouck 346
5	Sean Burke         341
6	Terry Sawchuk	   330
7	Harry Lumley	   329
8	Glenn Hall	   326
9	Ed Belfour         320
10	Patrick Roy	   315
11	Tony Esposito	   306
12	Martin Brodeur     299

With the exception of Gilles Meloche, these are all very good goaltenders, some of the best ever. Indeed, the only way to rack up a significant number of losses in your career is to play for a long time, and the only way to play for a long time is to be good.

Unfortunately, Cujo had the misfortune of having his career mostly overlap with four of the greatest goaltenders ever, and thus was always in their shadow: Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur, Dominic Hasek and Ed Belfour. All four were better than Cujo, all four won Stanley Cups (9 between them as #1 goalies, 10 if you count Hasek’s Red Wings in 2008) and all but Hasek played most of their careers on powerhouse teams. Here’s another interesting table: the caliber of the teams each of them played for, as measured by team GVT excluding the goaltender himself:

Goaltender      Career Team GVT - Career Goaltending GVT
Martin Brodeur                 443
Patrick Roy*	               355
Ed Belfour                     324
Dominic Hasek                  125
Curtis Joseph                   83

As we already knew, a goaltender’s reputation is highly influenced by the strength of the teams around them. That’s why, fifteen years from now, Chris Osgood may well be in the Hockey Hall of Fame and Roberto Luongo may not. So don’t think any less of Cujo because he’s the all-time losses leader; a lesser goaltender could never have claimed the title.

Vincent V.: I was wondering, does the fact that players drafted 21-30 are landing on some very good teams, in particular the top 10 organizations, affect the comparisons?

Richard Pollock: That's a good question Vincent. One that I'm not quite sure we're be able to determine but it certainly warrants considering. I think that on one hand, it may actually be a detriment to be drafted to good teams--at least in terms of games played and even points for--at the beginning of their careers. That is because it is generally easier to make a team (and get power play time, etc.) with far less talent. Take for example the Red Wings. Year after year they make their draft picks wait longer than most organizations to see regular NHL action. A player like Darren Helm played in the Finals last season and then couldn't even crack the Red Wings roster on a regular basis in 2009/10.

It would certainly help to be able to see the quality of each player's linemates in determining if they are aided at all by better player than say a poorer team; however, many good players play on bad teams too. Unfortunately, I don't think those statistics exist starting back in 1994. The thing is, you can still play a lot of games and score a lot of points on a poor team. Sometimes, it may even be easier to do so, if you consider the lack of depth some of the lesser teams possess and the opportunity for more playing time with those teams.

Keep in mind that'd we'd also be assuming that each player played with the team they were drafted by and were not later moved on to another organization that allowed them more opportunity.

There are definitely a myriad of factors both ways, but if I had to guess, I'd say that the factors both ways probably even out in the end and the talent of the player will stand out above all.

Thanks and have a great weekend.

Richard

Dan Glaser: I'm a frustrated Blackhawks fan. I don't understand how anyone is going to stop Franzen, Zetterberg and Cleary right now. Help!

Timo Seppa: There's no doubt that line is on fire. We know Zetterberg's quality, as he's the reigning Conn Smythe trophy winner and Franzen is excellent as well..but Dan Cleary? He's been a useful player that has never really fulfilled his promise until now. You have to give the Detroit organization credit for bringing in the right kinds of role players - I've raved about Darren Helm and Justin Abdelkader recently as well.

To answer your question - By putting your best defenders - Defensemen and forwards - against them, and telling them to forget about offense for their shift. They've been that good to get that much respect. The good new is that Pavel Datsyuk and Marian Hossa are in extended funks. You should be able to make some hay against those other lines.

Jimmy McGerald: I watched the insane overtime duel between the Hurricanes and the Bruins the other night. After watching the game, I thought to myself that the Hurricanes looked much deeper than the Bruins. Is this a fair statement?

Andrew Rothstein: Jimmy,

This would not be a fair statement. We can illustrate this by looking at the Bruins and Hurricanes, broken down by position, in terms of GVT. In this instance, GVT will be broken down into six categories, following PECOTA's Stars & Scrubs format, only we will be assessing players retroactively instead of prospectively. A GVT below zero represents a player that should be dropped (DROP), a GVT between 0 to 5 represents a marginal to slightly above marginal player (SCRUB), a GVT between 6 and 10 represents a borderline regular that most likely would not receive significant playing time on a good team, except if they were an enforcer (FRINGE), a GVT between 11 and 15 represents an everyday player (REGULAR), a GVT between 16 and 20 is a Star (STAR), and a GVT above 20 represents a Superstar (SUPERSTAR).

Legend:

DROP: GVT below Zero

SCRUB: GVT between 0 and 5

FRINGE: GVT between 5 and 10

REGULAR: GVT between 10 and 15

STAR: GVT between 15 and 20

SUPERSTAR: GVT above 20

Players

Boston Bruins       DROP   SCRUB   FRINGE   REGULAR   STAR   SUPERSTAR
Forwards:           6      6       2        2         3      0
Defensemen:         2      4       2        2         0      0
Goalies:            0      1       1        0         0      1

Totals:             8      11      5        4         3      1

Carolina Hurricanes DROP   SCRUB   FRINGE   REGULAR   STAR   SUPERSTAR
Forwards:           7      9       2        2         1      0 
Defensemen:         3      6       2        1         0      0
Goalies:            1      0       0        0         1      0

Totals:             11     15      4        3         2      0

Includes all 2008-2009 NHL roster promotions and demotions for both teams

Boston Bruins: 32 Players on Roster throughout year

Carolina Hurricanes: 35 Players on Roster throughout year

Percentage of Players

Boston Bruins       DROP   SCRUB   FRINGE   REGULAR   STAR   SUPERSTAR
Forwards:           19%    19%     6%       6%        9%     0%
Defensemen:         6%     13%     6%       6%        0%     0%
Goalies:            0%     3%      3%       0%        0%     3%

Totals:             25%    34%     16%      13%       9%     3%

Carolina Hurricanes DROP   SCRUB   FRINGE   REGULAR   STAR   SUPERSTAR
Forwards:           20%    26%     6%       6%        3%     0% 
Defensemen:         9%     17%     6%       3%        0%     0%
Goalies:            3%     0%      0%       0%        3%     0%

Totals:             31%    43%     11%      9%        6%     0%

Includes all 2008-2009 NHL roster promotions and demotions for both teams

Boston Bruins: 32 Players on Roster throughout year

Carolina Hurricanes: 35 Players on Roster throughout year

Totals do not necessarily matchup as all numbers are rounded to the nearest whole number

As you can see Jimmy, though both rosters are relatively close in depth, Boston had a higher quality of talent than the Hurricanes this year, with more SUPERSTAR's (3% to 0%), STAR's (9% to 6%), REGULAR's (13% to 9%) and FRINGE players (16% to 11%). On the other hand, the Hurricanes had a greater quality of poorly performing players, as they beat out the Bruins in the SCRUB category (43 % to 34 %) and the Drop category (31% to 25%). The fact of the matter is, while the Bruins team GVT categories (Offense and Goaltending in particular) might be skewed by outstanding players such as Tim Thomas and David Krejci, they still are an overall quality team that should have been able to outlast the Hurricanes, whether it be over the course of a seven game series or one overtime.

This article was authored by the staff of Puck Prospectus. You can contact the Puck Prospectus team by clicking here or click here to see the Puck Prospectus team's other articles.