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Cambellnomics brings the “new math” to NHL scoring
by Forechecker on 11/18/08 at 11:07 AM ET
Comments (3)
Ken Campbell at the Hockey News updates his “Cambellnomics rankings” today, which are intended to isolate goals and assists which prove critical to the outcome of a given game. It puts a new spin on the typical leader board, and propels the likes of Tuomo Ruutu and Nikolai Zherdev into the ranks of the NHL elite, and discards Evgeni Malkin, the league’s scoring leader, all the way down to 16th:
We’re not interested in who scores the sixth goal in a 6-2 game, but we do want to give credit to players who score the goal that put the team up 3-2, or the player who scored the first goal of the game.
While taking a deeper look inside the numbers beyond simple goals and assists is always a good thing, I have some objections to Campbell’s methods…
The most obvious has to do with this particular aspect:
A new wrinkle on Campbellnomics this season is the comeback goal. A comeback goal can only be scored when a team is trailing by two or more goals and that goal has a direct effect on his team getting back into the game. The goal must be one of goals scored in succession that result in the game later being tied.
So if, for example, the Rangers are down 3-1, and Chris Drury scores to bring New York back to within a goal, and the team scores the next goal to tie it at 3, Drury gets credit for a Comeback goal, but if the opponent scores next, or the game ends at 3-2, he doesn’t get credit? That’s simply absurd. The circumstances surrounding Drury’s goal, and the nature of that achievement, are the same regardless. What happens afterward is an entirely separate issue.
The same logic applies to awarding points for Game Winning goals. When Jarome Iginla scored early in the 3rd a couple weeks ago to push Calgary’s lead over Nashville to 7-3, how is that a “clutch” goal? The fact that the Predators made the final score 7-6 doesn’t change what Iginla did at the time, which would normally fall under the category of Campbell’s example of someone who “scores the sixth goal in a 6-2 game.”
Perhaps a better means of looking at this issue of “important” goals and assists is to look at performance strictly when teams are tied, and the outcome of a game truly hangs in the balance. It appears that just such a tool for analyzing this might be available (dig through the comments over at mc79hockey), and I’ll take a look at this issue in the coming days.
For now, though, Campbellnomics strikes me as deeply flawed, intertwining individual goals and assists with the events that follow. The result is a muddle that confuses more than it enlightens.
Filed in: NHL Statistical Analysis | On the Forecheck | Permalink
Tags: Ken+Campbell,
Comments
This is all very interesting - and whether it is in any way useful or valid surely falls to the interpretaton of the results.
If it is to be considered a measure of “clutch"ness, which inherently implies an element of how the player reacts under pressure and to varying game momentum, whether they play better from in front or behind, etc - then, as you say, it is flawed in many cases (the Iginla goal being a perfect example) - and those game winning/game tying/make up goals that weren’t anywhere near clutch at the time they were scored should be excluded from the calculations (and Chris Drury’s goal as described should get credit). A straight “when this goal was scored were you ahead, behind or tied?” would almost be more useful (although a goal that takes a game from 4-3 to 5-3 is clearly more important than one that takes it from 9-3 to 10-3...... and a make up goal 5 minutes from the end of the 3rd when you are trailing by 5 is little more than a face saver, but much earlier in the game it could legitimately be considered the start of a fight back......)
But - if, as stated up front, the revised stats are purely devised to “isolate goals and assists which prove critical to the outcome of a given game”, with emphasis on the goals and assists themselves not on the players providing them - then I’d say the methodology stated is ok. It doesn’t really matter in this case whether or not the goal was crucial when it was scored, if it later turned out to be so.
I am at a bit of a loss as to how this information is useful in a practical sense, however
Posted by Sarah from England on 11/19/08 at 10:32 AM ET
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About On the Forecheck
Dirk Hoag is the Forechecker, churner of NHL stats and analysis. Having started over 10 years ago writing for websites like In the Crease and e-Sports, Dirk launched On The Forecheck in 2005 to cover the Nashville Predators as well as apply statistical analysis to NHL hockey.
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Penguins fans better stay away from this one, the math will confuse them and they won’t check as low as 16th to find Malkin, they’ll probably assume he was too good to be ranked. “Malkin for President!”
Posted by Animal Drew from The Mitten on 11/18/08 at 12:58 PM ET