As the NHL season winds down and we head into the playoffs, talk shifts to debates surrounding the NHL awards. Analytics have begun to to frame discussion around player value, defensive impact, and player contribution to winning. With that in mind, let us take a look at who the analytics suggest the top candidates are for the big four awards.
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Vezina Trophy
Given how the season is gone, Carey Price is the odds-on favorite for the Vezina. By virtually every measure, he’s head and shoulders above the competition, leading all of the traditional goaltending categories: save percentage, wins, GAA and shutouts.
Go a little deeper with metrics like Adjusted Save Percentage or Goals Saved Above Replacement and Price also has a healthy lead. There is really no debate. But Cory Schneider deserves far more credit for his play behind an atrocious New Jersey Devils side than he has been getting and Devan Dubnyk’s revival in Minnesota is also worthy of votes.
Analytics say: Price, Schneider, Dubnyk
Norris Trophy
Traditionalists look to the blueliner playing the biggest minutes, against the toughest competition, producing the most points on the best team. For a lot of fans and voters that description fits with names like Shea Weber, Drew Doughty or Ryan Suter.
From an analytics perspective though, none of those guys rank near the top of the NHL in terms of impact by a defender. Using dCorsi—which measures possession impacts that accounts for a skater’s difficulty of usage and the team he plays for—there are very few elite defenders making a large impact at both ends of the ice. There are only five who averaged over 15 minutes of 5v5 ice time per game in 70 games played, who had a Shot Attempts For Impact of +30 or higher and a Shot Attempts Against Impact of -30 or lower.
Seth Jones made the lowest impact of the five, and is part of a ridiculously deep defensive corps. He actually makes a smaller overall impact via dCorsi than teammates Mattias Ekholm, Ryan Ellis and Cody Franson, they just don’t make the list due to having most of their impact on the defensive side of things. Thus he shouldn’t rank as a choice for best blueliner.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson has scored an amazing 23 goals and leads all NHL defenders in dCorsi Impact. Specifically, he makes the largest impact in terms of shot suppression in the league. Unfortunately, playing for a team in full tank mode in Arizona negates many of the positives. He is another unlikely nominee for the Norris.
Thus we are left with three top-pair D-men who make massive possession impacts on NHL teams that are making the playoffs. P.K. Subban already has a Norris, and I see no reason he shouldn’t be considered for his second—he clearly leads Montreal’s defense corps both defensively and offensively, and ranks 3rd in the NHL in defenceman scoring.
Nick Leddy—along with his partner Johnny Boychuk—has made Garth Snow look like a genius for his off-season maneuvering. Despite fairly pedestrian top-pair offensive numbers, Leddy’s possession impacts are massive. He has been instrumental in one of the largest turnarounds in recent NHL history, helping turn the New York Islanders into a legitimate contender for the Stanley Cup.
Anton Stralman also deserves attention. He got a sizeable contract last summer from Tampa Bay after helping the Rangers to the Stanley Cup final, and has done nothing but continue his impressive career of outperforming expectations. Stralman is far from flashy, but he is easily one of the most consistently effective blueliners in the league.
Analytics say: Subban, Leddy, Stralman
Selke Trophy
The award for the NHL’s top defensive forward was won last year by Patrice Bergeron. The analytics aligned with that choice perfectly, and probably would again this year. Bergeron consistently makes a larger impact on possession than any skater in the NHL.
Most of the names on the list above won’t surprise anyone, but Joe Thornton definitely stands out because of the perception that he’s an offence-first player. But this isn’t some flash-in-the-pan, random year for Thornton—he ranked second to Bergeron in the same category last year.
It is surprising that at this late stage of the season that Henrik Sedin may end up as the only player on this list in the playoffs. Should that happen, it throws a bit of a wrench into the works of what voters will look for in terms of defensive impacts.
Analytics say: Bergeron, Thornton, H. Sedin
Hart Trophy
The award for the NHL’s MVP is going to be interesting this season. Ice time is being balanced more evenly and parity is at an all-time high. As a result, most top scorers in the NHL are producing fewer points.
Price’s numbers are other-worldly and an argument will be made that he is singlehandedly responsible for lifting Montreal to the top of the Eastern Conference standings (for the sake of argument we can ignore the fact Subban is having another Norris worthy season). But, when compared to his peers historically, Price’s seasonally adjusted SV% isn’t in the top 20 results since 1982.
Sidney Crosby may very well lead the league in scoring, but his Pittsburgh Penguins are caught in a late-season tail spin. Maybe his value isn’t enough to push the Penguins over the hump? People will inevitably question his contributions if his team fails to make the post-season.
Alex Ovechkin has posted yet another 50 goal season—the sixth of his career—becoming an all-time great in the process. His goal-scoring numbers, when adjusted for era, put his name alongside legends like Maurice Richard, Bobby Hull, Phil Esposito, Mario Lemieux and Wayne Gretzky.
An interesting development in this debate is the recent posting of war-on-ice.com’s Wins Above Replacement measure for all NHL players. Using comparisons to replacement-level players in categories such as faceoffs, penalty differential, goal scoring and prevention, and shot generation and suppression, we can compare their value within the year. Here are this season’s top-five players in terms of Goals Above Replacement via their measure:
Analytics Say: Price, Ovechkin, Tarasenko