An interesting stat for those who think Saku Koivu has been a weak number-one centre, while Vincent Lecavalier is the saviour of the Montreal Canadiens:
Koivu: 792 NHL games played. 641 points scored.
Lecavalier: 787 NHL games played. 669 points scored.
Not much of a difference when you look at the numbers.
About Me
- J.T.
- My name is Leigh Anne Power, and I am a Habs fan. I'm kind of obsessed, so even though the world doesn't need another Habs blog, I can't help it. If you choose to follow this blog on Twitter, it's at @habsloyalist. The link's below.
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The H Does Not Stand For Habs by Leigh Anne Power (J.T.) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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The H Does Not Stand For Habs by J.T./Leigh Anne Power is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The H Does Not Stand For Habs by J.T./Leigh Anne Power is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
11 comments:
That is sobering.
I love you JT.
People often scoff at Koivu's numbers, but as that stat shows, it's a pretty unfair judgement.
The only main difference is that Koivu is a number 2 center and Vinny is a number 1 center. Inches and pounds.
I love Koivu. He's awesome. If he had Lecavalier's size... watch out. He'd be putting up insane numbers.
And that is without much help as the teams Saku has played with as a Habs have been rather lacking.
Let's do the division and get points per game, shall we?
Koivu .809
Vinny .850
Compare the best Habs this past season:
Kovalev .833
Tanguay .820
Markov .820
Lang .780
Koivu .769
Also, Saku has 48 points in 65 (0.7385 ppg)playoff games and is a +11, Vinny has 33 in 45 (0.7333 ppg) playoff games and is +/- 0. So really HOW is Vinny better? I'd take Saku over Vinny any day.
Even my points-per-game calculation can be an unfair comparison, because players log different ice times. I would like to see the normalized stats for points per x minutes of ice time.
Even then it's complicated, because of power plays. Refined further we might consider, for example, a stat of points per 60 minutes of even strength playing time.
Not so easy to quantify performance, is it?
Another confounding factor is the +/- statistic. If we look at normalized PPG, it tells us about offence. But imagine how this understates the importance of a low-scoring defensive forward, forever consigned to checking the opponents' best lines. Keeping goals down is just as valuable, but again, really difficult to quantify.
I think one has to be really careful with statistics. A good coach will know how the players play, with a feel for the intangibles that numbers can't convey.
@GK:
It would actually be interesting to compare points per minute of ice time, as Lecavalier spent several seasons playing close to thirty minutes a game. I don't think Koivu ever had that much icetime.
As for stats, yes they can be manipulated. But in terms of points, a player either puts them up or he doesn't. The Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee doesn't judge how much PP time or ice per game a player has...just how many points he put up in his career.
Ok, here are the points/minute (seconds were disregarded) based only on the last 10 seasons.
Saku
EV - 0.034015282
SH - 0.017925736
PP - 0.085511741
TOT- 0.043302851
Vinny
EV - 0.037481126
SH - 0.042990654
PP - 0.076528869
TOT- 0.043981329
Not much of a difference. I have to bring up the fact that Saku's cancer year is in here as well where he only dressed for 3 games. I can't imagine paying Vinny $10 mil/year for the next 7 years to put up relatively the same numbers that OUR captain K does for under 5 mil. Vinny is overrated IMO!
Well, I never thought there'd be so many folks happy to see Vincent Lecavalier wearing a Leafs jersey, next season.
Oh heavenly Saku, pray for us...
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