Monday, August 10, 2009

Three Stars - Part 1 - The Basics

So to start off our look at the three stars, I'm listing (roughly) the top 10 in each of the three categories (First Star, Second Star and Third Star). Have a look at these, and see below for my thoughts.

A few quick notes about the data:
  • I wrote the software that accumulated the data, so it's possible that there are mistakes.
  • It's based off of public box scores on big sports sites.
  • There were four game where I was unable to locate the three stars of the game. Other than that, I have them all.
Here are the players who have been Third Star 8 or more times in 2008-09
R. Nash 11
S. Crosby 11
N. Backstrom (Wild) 9
I. Kovalchuk 9
J. Arnott 9
Z. Parise 9
A. Hemsky 8
D. Boyle 8
H. Lundqvist 8
P. Datsyuk 8
S. Hartnell 8

Here are the players who have been Second Star 9 or more times in 2008-09
H. Lundqvist 12
P. Datsyuk 12
M. Havlat 11
M. Savard 11
Z. Parise 11
E. Malkin 10
D. Roloson 9
M. Modano 9
M. Richards 9
P. Elias 9
R. Miller 9

Here are the players who have been First Star 10 or more times in 2008-09
A. Ovechkin 14
D. Roloson 13
M. Hossa 13
S. Crosby 13
T. Thomas 13
C. Mason 12
J. Carter 11
S. Mason 11
N. Backstrom (Wild) 10
K. Lehtonen 10
M. Kiprusoff 10
P. Marleau 10
R. Miller 10
R. Nash 10
Z. Parise 10

A few points:
  • Kind of interesting on the number of goalies, and the complete lack of defensemen, especially for First Star. Not too surprising when you think about it.
  • What was surprising was that Dwayne Roloson was the First Star 13 times last year. This is a guy that only won 28 games with just one shutout all year. Maybe they were all at home. That's something we'll look at later in the series - whether or not there's a home bias.

4 comments:

Sean said...

Interesting. Thanks for doing this! I figured that Malkin would have more #1 stars.

Cathe said...

I'll save you a bit of work on the Roloson selections. Going through his game log I count 12 first star selections (home 7, away 5) and 10 2nd star selections. The Oilers record for those 22 games was 16-3-3. They were outshot for 19 of those games by a total margin of 710 to 450. During those 19 games Roli gave up 38 goals for a .946sv% and he faced 40+ shots 7 times. The widest shot margins were vs SJS (3-2OTW, outshot 43-17)and ANA (5-3W, outshot 54-20).

He carried the team many nights and was team MVP hands down. It seemed that many nights he was the only player who cared about winning. He was tagged with losses 9 times when he gave up 2 or less goals so on a stronger team those 28 wins would have increased.

Pat said...

@sean - yeah - Malkin's relative lack of presence compared to Crosby was kind of surprising. Wait until we get to the summary and talking about MVP...

@cathe - thanks for the heads-up. I guess Roloson was either really good or really bad, and it sounds like much of that had to do with the team in front of him. His save% for the year was about .915 (if I'm remembering right)

Cathe said...

@ Pat - you are correct on the .915sv%. Not bad for a 39 year old who was 10th in TOI and faced more shots per 60min (33) than any other goalie in that group.

Roli had a few bad games but I wouldn't say he was all or nothing. He definitely won more games for the Oilers than they deserved to win as opposed to losing more games that they deserved to win. He had several strong performances that just got wasted and he was pretty steady throughout the season. The Oilers failed to score more than 2 regulation goals in nearly half of their games though.

Out of 63 games he allowed 4-6 goals 15 times (one 6 goal game) or 24% of the time. The Oilers won only 2 of those games (13%).

As a comparison, out of 62 games, both Fleury and Nabokov allowed 4-6goals 17 times (Fleury two 6 goal games, Nabby 3 6 goal games) or 27%of the time. The Pens won 7 of those games (41%) and SJS won 5 of those games (29%).

Out of 76 games, Kipper allowed 4-6goals 23 times (4 6 goal games) or 30% of the time. The Flames won 6 of those games (26%).

Every goalie has some bad games, some have teams that can support them and others don't.

Anyway, interesting analysis of the stars. I'm not surprised either at the number of goalies and the lack of D. But then again, when you don't notice the D it usually means they are doing their job and have had a strong night. When you do notice the D it usually means they've made mistakes. So I guess either way they won't get a star!