The Puck Stops Here
Malkin Has Not Been A Difference Maker
by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 11:15 AM ET
Comments (33)
Last season I criticized Evgeni Malkin’s Hart trophy nomination because he had a very offensive zone start record and still gave up a lot of scoring chances to opponents. His zone and team adjusted Corsi Number was second worst in the NHL. Now that does not mean he is the second worst player in the league - or anything ridiculous like that - but it means that given his strong offensive usage, the amount of time opponents controlled the puck in the Pittsburgh zone, shows defensive weaknesses in Malkin. It certainly shows that his Hart Trophy nomination was a poor one driven only by his offensive numbers and not a look at his complete game.
During the 2010 playoffs, we are seeing that Malkin can put up reasonably good offensive numbers that overstate his importance to his team. Malkin has 11 points, good for second on the Pittsburgh Penguins. One clear problem is that only three of them are even strength points and the rest come on the power play. At even strength (the majority of his playing time), he has not been very productive. Malkin is productive on the power play, which gives him significant value, but only in those power play situations.
Malkin continues to have a significant number of offensive zone starts, while giving up puck possession to the opposing team, but it the 11 playoff games so far, there is too much variability in the signal to make a deep comment on it.
I think it is reasonable to argue that Evgeni Malkin is one of (if not the) most overrated players in the NHL. I would expect that most people would rank him among the top handful of players in hockey and he clearly does not deserve that high a ranking. Malkin is a player who puts up very good offensive numbers, but they are “hollow” numbers where they do not provide much else to his team. Most of the other indicators of his quality of play are lacklustre or negative.
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Tags: Evgeni+Malkin, Pittsburgh+Penguins,
Comments
how does this logic work when you factor in OV has won the Hart two years in a row… an obvious offense only type of player, a guy who coasts into the defensive zone, a cherry picker if there ever was one, but he gets recognition because of his amazing offensive talent (for some reason the same logic can’t be applied to Malkin, are you just a hater or do you have some other reasoning).
The time you took researching numbers that could justify a random Malkin-hating article could have been better spent finding examining why the Hart and all the other awards seem to have lost any significance and are only awarded to the flashy, media darlings.
So, you don’t like Malkin… no biggie, but lumping him in with the lower class of player because he’s had some bad defensive zone coverage and turnovers in the offensive end. According to you he is only woth talking about because he can somehow put up good offensive numbers (even though they are “hollow”) is the most insane thing I’ve read in a long while… you don’t want to name him a good two-way player, maybe I could get on board with that, although I happen to think he has improved in this area… but to just toss him out of the “one of the best in the NHL” conversation because he only scores and sometimes only on the pp is just plain dumb… there are handfuls of nhl “legends” that didn’t play fit into that category…
Hey, blog all you want, but my advice to you is to brush up on what makes a player great, and stop focussing all your attention on all the little percentages, stats and “indicators”, watch the game, watch the players… you claim to be a diehard hockey fan (I’d like to stress “HOCKEY”), really??... I’m finding it difficult to believe.
Posted by m on 05/10/10 at 12:13 PM ET
but they are “hollow” numbers where they do not provide much else to his team. Most of the other indicators of his quality of play are lacklustre or negative.
I see where you’re going with this, but there is definitely something to be said about a guy who makes the most of the chances given to him, which is what he did last year when he led the league in points.
It’s basically the same argument that people use to defend Mike Green, except I think it’s used better in Malkin’s case. Malkin probably isn’t as complete a player as many others in the league (complete in my definition being above average or excellent compared to people who play the same position in the offensive zone and defensive zone and by what kind of leadership or other intangibles they might bring). But, as far as last year’s Hart voting goes (when considered on the concept of value brought to the team overall), I think Malkin deserved to be a finalist.
The difference is that the Hart is about most valuable while the Norris is about best overall.
I would also say that some people who might have put him in the top handful of position players in hockey last year would not do the same this year. If the salary cap were not an issue and I had my choice, I’d definitely take Malkin on my team on his potential alone, even above a couple of players who I’d currently say are above him on this hypothetical depth chart (for instance, I’d probably find more use for Malkin than for Daniel Sedin).
Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 05/10/10 at 12:18 PM ET
Ovechkin is among the league leaders in Corsi Numbers repeatedly. Malkin has a problem with them. It is a problem that can be clearly seen merely by looking at his even strength scoring in the playoffs this year.
Youir comparison to Ovechkin is a very poor one. Ovechkin is a significantly better player than Malkin. Ovechkin has a bigger positive value to his team year in and year out.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 12:19 PM ET
Youir comparison to Ovechkin is a very poor one
Your right, Malkin wins playoff games, Ovechkin doesn’t… point taken. Thanks.
Posted by gretzky_to_lemieux on 05/10/10 at 12:29 PM ET
Teams win playoff games. Neither Malkin nor Ovechkin are hockey teams.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 12:34 PM ET
corsi numbers are not significant enough to base a “difference maker” type of decision on at all
Posted by m on 05/10/10 at 12:34 PM ET
M
Provide me some evidence of your point (if you have any…).
Here are some articles on Corsi Number so you can learn about them and their value:
From the rink, behind the net and objective NHL.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 12:44 PM ET
I’m not going to get into a big “corsi” number debate on a comment section of an article written by someone who thinks backing up statements with a few stats makes him a legit hockey writer. But, that being said… if you are so enamoured with the Corsi rating then you would put the likes of Crosby, Kane, Datsyuk and others behind the likes of Knuble, Wolski, Burrows and others… its a number that needs to be interpretted properly and not taken as gospel.
Posted by m on 05/10/10 at 12:52 PM ET
Right. The number like any number must be interpretted properly. It is in the interpretation that Malkin fails. He puts up a very poor number when his zone starts and team effects are taken into account. That shouldn’t be the case for somebody who is allegedly among the best handful of players on earth.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 12:55 PM ET
I think the issue here is that it seems as though you’re using Corsi numbers as both an indicator of scoring chances and time in zone, both are numbers that have their own statistical tracking (although statistical scoring chances is a very subjective stat).
It stands to reason that a better Corsi rating would mean that a team has more scoring chances and more time with possession of the puck in the offensive zone, but that’s not always the case. While a lot of the corsi opportunities might lead to that, it creates significant statistical noise in the process. Not every puck directed in the general direction of the opponent’s net is a scoring chance or indicative of an team’s zone possession (which, by the vernacular definition means the time when a team is actually being dangerous in the zone and not a black/white measure of every second the puck is on a player’s stick).
I’d be interested to see the correlation between Corsi numbers and scoring chances to see if the difference between Malkin and others is as meaningful as it seems without the adjustment.
Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 05/10/10 at 01:00 PM ET
Though I think you’re a little harsh on Malkin considering the role he is supposed to fulfill for the Penguins, the points you make are some of the reasons I smile when someone claims that Malkin is Pittsburghs best or most important player.
Posted by Moq from Denmark on 05/10/10 at 01:04 PM ET
Five Hole Fanatics shows a strong correlation between Corsi and scoring chances.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 01:05 PM ET
I would also think there must be a big QualTeam factor in this discussion. Malkin has been iffy, but he’s set up A LOT of chances at even strength that haven’t been converted. In fact, both of his ‘usual’ wingers were SCRATCHED the last game for poor play.
I don’t think this analysis takes this into account. One reason that his scoring has been higher on PP is that he is playing with the only other offensive gifted players on a regular basis. He’s setting up the same chances, but these players are converting them.
This brings up a bigger question, namely why do the Pens only have, at best, one decent set of wingers? That’s Shero’s challenge as he’s wasting Malkin’s talent at this point.
Posted by catz27 on 05/10/10 at 01:15 PM ET
This brings up a bigger question, namely why do the Pens only have, at best, one decent set of wingers? That’s Shero’s challenge as he’s wasting Malkin’s talent at this point.
Posted by catz27
The obvious reason is that we’re paying huge salaries for our core players, and we haven’t been able to develop wingers within the system. To be truthful, we haven’t had a lot of talent to work with in first place. This might be changing with Tangradi and a couple of other talents. That means we are forced to find capable and cheap wingers on the open market, which is a difficult combination and semi-random process. If we resign Gonchar at $4-5M a year, the problem persists next season, ie. a small cap window for winger acquisition. Going beyond Ukrainians and old Americans might not be that easy.
That’s why it’s imperative that Malkin and Crosby are our best players, essentially everywhere on the ice and for most of the season. There’ll be game and sets of games where either performs below expectation, that’s only natural, but I think it’s legitimate to be critcal of both players even when they’re put in difficult positions.
Posted by Moq from Denmark on 05/10/10 at 01:30 PM ET
While I do agree with the Corsi theory being a relevant assessment tool, I do think that the most important aspect of this phase of the NHL need not be overlooked: the power play.
Malkin has continued to produce copious amounts of points in this critical phase of the game. He’s currently sitting at 8 for the playoffs, and there is plenty more to come.
NHL.com has a nice breakdown of power play points by season in the playoffs going back to 1997-98. A book could be written on the radical transformation that has taken place with special teams emphasis across the league.
Penalties called have remained relatively stagnant yet point production has gone through the roof. In 1997-98, the most efficient power play operated at 18%. Last year, there were SEVEN teams that operated at 20% or better.
In my opinion, Malkin is one of THE ideal players in the NHL that best represents what is needed to win a championship in the current phase of postseason play.
Posted by Leo_Racicot on 05/10/10 at 01:34 PM ET
It stands to reason that a better Corsi rating would mean that a team has more scoring chances and more time with possession of the puck in the offensive zone, but that’s not always the case. While a lot of the corsi opportunities might lead to that, it creates significant statistical noise in the process. Not every puck directed in the general direction of the opponent’s net is a scoring chance or indicative of an team’s zone possession (which, by the vernacular definition means the time when a team is actually being dangerous in the zone and not a black/white measure of every second the puck is on a player’s stick).
Exactly. If a team’s offense is based off the rush, they might get a shot every time down the ice but very little in the way of zone time.
If a team’s offense is based off the cycle, the team might get 45 seconds of zone time without a shot.
Corsi numbers chart one thing - shots. There’s no more significance to them beyond that, because from that “hard” stat it takes giant intellectual leaps of faith to take it anywhere else like the article did.
I hate stats in all sports except for baseball. Your eyes don’t lie, trust them.
Posted by HNBCTB on 05/10/10 at 01:41 PM ET
Ummm didnt Malkin lead in Takeaways last year? Right above Defensive Wiz Datsyuk? Not sure if there is a stat for it, but would be interesting to see how many takeaways translated to a goal on that shift.
Top five Takeaways Last Season
1 Evgeni Malkin PIT C 94
2 Pavel Datsyuk DET C 89
3 Mike Richards PHI C 83
4 Loui Eriksson DAL L 80
5 Nicklas Backstrom WSH C 77
Top five Giveaways Last Season
1 Alex Ovechkin WSH L 107
2 Andrei Markov MTL D 103
3 Derek Roy BUF C 100
4 Mike Green WSH D 95
5 Mike Richards PHI C 94
Now some of these stats are whatever. I dont think there is any doubt that Malkin or Ovechkin or Crosby or Datsyuk et al are Game breakers and can take the reigns of a game and dominate. So to call someone over rated because of a contrived stat is plain dumb. To actually watch a physical skilled talent on the ice and see what they do on a nightly basis I will take over any Corsi stat. Especially when calling one of the top talents of the game overrated.
And your right teams win playoff games - not individuals… but like most teams they rely on a few top tier guys that can be game changers and then you got your 2nd and 3rd tiers. In terms of the Pens - such as Crosby, Staal, Fleury, Gonchar and ummm Malkin (Conn Smyth btw).
Posted by samsaidhey on 05/10/10 at 01:54 PM ET
So the fact that Malkin led the league in takeaways last year means nothing? Did you watch game 5 between the Pens and Habs? Are you saying that Malkin was no a difference maker in that game? Did you see him rush the zone with the puck on a string shift after shift? Creating scroing chance after scoring chance? Did you see his ability to retrive the puck out of a scrum, control the puck to the top of the zone and then draw defenders to him, creating room for Letang to score the 1st goal of the game? Did you see him rush the zone and draw defenders too him while leaving Gonchar open at the point to score the winning goal? That is the play of the most overrated player in the NHL? Are you serious????
Posted by cuse on 05/10/10 at 01:54 PM ET
The obvious reason is that we’re paying huge salaries for our core players, and we haven’t been able to develop wingers within the system./quote]
The penguins continue to pick the best player available regardless of position… it just so happens that since drafting Staal, year after year, it is a player on defense.
To get a quality winger or two, they are going to have to trade away some of their talented d-men prospects.
Posted by gretzky_to_lemieux on 05/10/10 at 02:11 PM ET
To get a quality winger or two, they are going to have to trade away some of their talented d-men prospects.
They better make sure to check the corsi numbers so that dont draft or trade for overrated players!
Posted by samsaidhey on 05/10/10 at 02:13 PM ET
Five Hole Fanatics shows a strong correlation between Corsi and scoring chances.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 01:05 PM ET
To be fair, Five Hole Fanatics explains what we’re talking about by linking to an article written by Irreverent Oiler Fans, so that blog is the one that deserves the majority of credit there.
Unfortunately, the actual comparison is easily dismissed because it takes one season of play by the Edmonton Oilers and shows a correlation between their relative game-by-game corsi and their relative game-by-game scoring chances (as their percentage of the whole in each game).
Logically, it should stand to reason that the Oilers and Penguins play in the same NHL and the correlation should be the same, but it fails to take into consideration the differences of team styles, players’ styles, quality of competition, and style of competition. To be honest, I don’t know that all of those differences are real or individually significant, but I worry about the sum total of all those minor noises that skew the sample being big enough to make a dent.
For instance, you wrote a good article about the relationship between team Corsi and team plus/minus where you said you needed to further address specific discrepancies. The Penguins were something of an outlier there in that their team Corsi was 21st in the league (-285) while their team plus/minus was 7th best (+23). Where statistics fail here is that Corsi doesn’t seem to have correlated with team success as much as plus/minus did and it seems that it makes a strong argument for the concept that, over the the entire NHL, maybe Corsi differences are not as strong a correlation.
Corsi’s core argument is that, since it’s so incredibly hard to calculate everything that leads to goals, that those events should be treated as basically random happenstance that are related to shots directed at the net and that higher Corsi volume eliminates the noise of randomness during any brief times when the random events happen more frequently during poor predictive indicators for them (negative Corsi). Unfortunately, what it seems we may have learned last year is that it might not work; that it may just eliminate noise by creating an equal amount of white noise.
While it’s obvious that any coach or GM will want to build a team that can have a very high positive Corsi because of assumed correlation, it may not be a useful stat for declaring an individual forward on a team that bucked the trend a defensive liability.
Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 05/10/10 at 02:17 PM ET
So the fact that Malkin led the league in takeaways last year means nothing? Did you watch game 5 between the Pens and Habs? Are you saying that Malkin was no a difference maker in that game? Did you see him rush the zone with the puck on a string shift after shift? Creating scroing chance after scoring chance? Did you see his ability to retrive the puck out of a scrum, control the puck to the top of the zone and then draw defenders to him, creating room for Letang to score the 1st goal of the game? Did you see him rush the zone and draw defenders too him while leaving Gonchar open at the point to score the winning goal? That is the play of the most overrated player in the NHL? Are you serious????
But. But.. But… The Corsi numbers say he is NO GOOD !!! 
Posted by Evilpens on 05/10/10 at 02:29 PM ET
Evilpens
Offensive and defensive opportunities that may come from these takeaways are included in Malkin’s Corsi and it still doesn’t look good. Your attempt at an argument is a complete failure, but at least you think you made a joke in the way you presented it.
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 02:33 PM ET
Offensive and defensive opportunities that may come from these takeaways are included in Malkin’s Corsi and it still doesn’t look good. Your attempt at an argument is a complete failure, but at least you think you made a joke in the way you presented it.
Dude the only joke here is you. How bout you ask any of the players he plays against whether he is overrated, or scouts, or the GMs, who Im sure would salivate at having this corsi failing player on their team. Do you even watch hockey? or do you play around with stats? I’ll tell ya, I kinda wish the opposition teams and coaches feel he is overated so that he could have even more free reign out on the ice.
Posted by samsaidhey on 05/10/10 at 02:47 PM ET
Samsaidhey
Perhaps it is a good method to determine if a player is overrated to ask a bunch of people about him as you suggest. if those people do not say (unwarranted) positive things about the player in question he cannot be overrated can he?
Posted by PuckStopsHere on 05/10/10 at 02:51 PM ET
PuckStopsHere
Again I ask - do you even watch hockey? on a consistent basis? Im pretty sure most of the comments on Malkin would be positive if you ask the players and scouts and GMs, ya know, those that actually know the game. didnt the players twice now nominate him for the Lester B.?
Isnt he one of the key factors to shut down when opposition coaches draw up their strategies before the game? Unless of course they are sticking a shadow on Max Talbot or one of the Ukrainian kids that ride shotgun to him.
Are you telling me you actually honestly think Malkin is the most overrated player in the NHL?
Posted by samsaidhey on 05/10/10 at 03:18 PM ET
Puck Stops here,
Put stats aside for a second…..you really don’t think Malkin was a difference maker in game 5? You think they would’ve won that game without him?
Posted by cuse on 05/10/10 at 03:23 PM ET
Hey cuse theres no point in trying. The guy makes himself look silly saying Malkin is one of if not the most overrated players in the game. Its hard to take seriously anything he says.
enjoy tonight and heres hoping Malkin has another one of his overrated games. Maybe Crosby can chip in too with some overrated play too.
Posted by samsaidhey on 05/10/10 at 03:38 PM ET
Agreed,
I guess Shero has no idea what he’s doing…signing this bum to a 9M a year contract! Maybe PuckStopsHere should become a GM…..I will definitely enjoy tonight’s game! You as well….
Posted by cuse on 05/10/10 at 03:54 PM ET
the biggest problem i’m having with this whole thing is the notion that you can determine who is good and who isn’t based solely on stats, and ones as iffy as the corsi…could you black out the names and numbers of these guys and just choose the top five or six and say they are without a doubt the best players in the league… not likely!!! and that is what makes me angry about puckstopshere’s reasoning… a stat is great, it can be very useful but it isn’t the whole story, and jumping from a random stat to the idea that Malkin is the most overrated hockey player is beyond just reaching, it borders on complete psychosis
Posted by m on 05/10/10 at 04:15 PM ET
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Posted by gretzky_to_lemieux on 05/10/10 at 11:26 AM ET