Poolies are always trying to find that edge. We’re always looking for that new angle to look at statistics and twist them to our liking. We can make a player who had 15 points in 46 games look like a gem by drilling down into his ice time and pulling out his points per minute played. Or if that doesn’t work, how about his points per shift? Or his points per second of power-play time? Or his points on so-and-so’s line versus off of it? So many ways to look at it and if you find the right one, you can ‘prove’ that your guy is a future stud. Encouraging this dream world, DobberHockey now has the Frozen Pool section, where you can manipulate stats to your heart’s desire. Start analyzing and you become lost, as I was with my latest findings.

I pulled all the forwards and their points and time on the ice. I wiped out all players with fewer than three points. I then only looked at, out of that group, the 150 forwards who saw the fewest total minutes. At this point, I sorted by minutes per point and ‘voila’, what we are left with is another new way of showing how good your player will be.

We’ll remove veterans Brendan Shanahan, Mats Sundin and Joe Sakic, as they have either retired or are on the decline. We’ll remove border-line NHLers who are either in Europe or have little upside: Keith Aucoin, Steve Regier, Mike Iggulden, Boyd Devereaux, Lukas Kaspar, Landon Wilson, Jason Jaffray, Joakim Lindstrom, Jeff Hamilton, Matt Ellis, Arron Asham, Zack Stortini and Jonathan Kalinski. The above chart shows the top 32 players who remain.

The five names at the top are unsurprising, but some names grab your attention. Given that top six ice time is approximately 17 to 18 minutes or more per game, the bottom portion of this list implies a 40-point pace had that player played all 82 games in the top six. But with power-play time, maturity and experience things could certainly improve.

Observations:

-          Williams sure sticks out. Leaf fans would know that most of his points happened immediately. Williams is notorious for riding the wave of adrenalin from a call-up and then tapering off after a few games. In rotisserie leagues, he would make a fantastic midseason pickup if the Wings lost a couple of key guys to injury. Just be sure to drop him again after a week or two.

-          Brunnstrom and Leino are sure to see more ice time (and NHL games). It’s always a good sign when an unproven European produces during what little ice time he is given.

-          Lundmark looked real good when he was subbing in for an injured Daymond Langkow. If the latter gets hurt again, you know where to turn.

-          I’ve been telling everyone and their grandmother that Shannon is an excellent dark horse for this season. Of course, I said that last year too… Will he get more ice time? Not if the Sens keep Dany Heatley. The signing of Alexei Kovalev saw to that. Some roster space needs to be created first.

-          Fehr on this list is surprising. Let’s see if his role increases in training camp. Either way, he’ll be hot and cold – that’s his M.O.

-          Please Mr. Trotz – let O’Reilly be your third-line center. You won’t be disappointed (and neither will us poolies).

-          There is no room in Edmonton’s top six, so if Potulny impresses Pat Quinn enough to make the team, it will be at the expense of a big name like Robert Nilsson.

-          Conner produces when called upon. You saw this for two years in Dallas. Now he is in Pittsburgh where everyone gets rotated on the Crosby or Malkin line at some point. If the music stops and he is sitting in one of those comfy chairs, I wonder what he could do?

-          The additions of Cody Hodgson and Mikael Samuelsson, as well as the skill set that Rick Rypien offers, will see to it that Hansen will not get a chance this year. He deserves one, though, given the production here.

-          Purcell will make the team, but the acquisition of Ryan Smyth hurts his chance of building on this.

-          Lisin and Miller are in new cities. Their role could go three ways – more, less, or same. Given the above, a bigger role will mean decent numbers.

Comments (13)

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Jason Arbuthnot said:

... You have to take it with a grain of salt. Some players are limited in ice time, not because they are an "undiscovered hidden gem", but rather because they're irresponsible, inexperienced, untrustworthy and not a complete player. Coaching and seasoning has to take place in order to take it to the next level. Some guys have all the offensive talent in the world but will never reach an average of 20 minutes or even pk duties due to lack of defense. ie) Afinogenov. He is not a hidden gem. He had all the chances in the world and was exposed... plain and simple.

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August 31, 2009
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Sean Reichheld said:

	... The assumption is that this is a sign for future production. I wonder what the numbers were for young players coming in to the league 5-10 years ago and if there is any correlation between pts/min and their production now? This could just be a stat that shows young or marginal players play less on the PK where pts/min is lower for everyone.
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August 31, 2009
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Mike123 said:

	... Jeremy Williams (Leafs/Marlies) is a different player than Jason Williams (Red Wings).
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August 31, 2009
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tradejunkie said:

	Damn you Mabus! My Bobby Ryan manlove is now thru the roof... In limited minutes, he had a better production rate than his linemates and at 17.3 minutes/point, he would have been between Filatov and Brassard on your list. Including all names, it's interesting that as a rookie Ryan finished right behind Malkin, Parise, Crosby and Ovechkin.
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August 31, 2009
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Jason said:

	Here you go: I added a Projected button to the report generator. I had it all ready but didn't make the button. It does all the work. I also added a "Big Board" button for the same type of stats in the fantasy manager. It's scrollable so just click it and use the left/right arrow keys if the page is too long (scrollbar at bottom). http://www.dobberhockey.com/frozenpool_report.php
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August 30, 2009
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paul4 said:

Points per 20 min Typically I like to look at points per 20 min. This gives you a great indication of what a player will do if he gets top line mins. Its shocking that Bobby Ryan was left off this list. 10th highest points/min last year (in this filtered list above, he would be 4th best). Here are the two P/20 Min guys: Name P/20Min Kariya 1.51 Gaborik 1.35 Semin 1.32 Datsyuk 1.25 Filatov 1.23 Malkin 1.22 Parise 1.22 Crosby 1.22 Ovechkin 1.21 Bobby Ryan 1.15 Cammalleri 1.15 Brassard 1.12 Getzlaf 1.12 Briere 1.10 Savard 1.10 These types of list help bring every player on level ground. Doing a P/20Mins even lowers the star players who play more than 20 mins.

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August 30, 2009
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Mabus said:

... Thanks Dobber. Now I'm torn. I don't want the guys in my pool to have access to the same stats I've got. I'll send my suggestions though when the forum topic is active. Age and years in the league are two great categories I like to see. It's interesting that your method for thinning the list got rid of Bobby Ryan. I know your projections for Ryan are much less than most, so it would have been interesting to see your blurb on him. In limited minutes, he had a better production rate than his linemates and at 17.3 minutes/point, he would have been between Filatov and Brassard on your list. Including all names, it's interesting that as a rookie Ryan finished right behind Malkin, Parise, Crosby and Ovechkin.

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August 30, 2009
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Dobber said:

	... We'll get stuff like this added and fixed by puck drop, Mabus, not to worry! The goal will be to make any further data manipulation unnecessary as we will have it all We need a place for these suggestions...I'm sure we can get a ton of feedback. I'll open something up in the forum
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August 30, 2009
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Mabus said:

... Thanks Dobber. Love the attitude. I'm guilty of the same "defensive" posts, so I'm forgiving when I see one aimed at me. The person asked where he could find points and TOI and you told him to copy it into a spreadsheet and do a vlookup. I told him it was available with a single click. Don't get me wrong, I love the frozen pond - great tools, but in this particular instance, for his particular question, the info is better somewhere else. Just another note, pulling time in the mm:ss format into excel is very messy (especially when you get over 1000 minutes). There should be an option on the frozen pond to convert everything into minutes (one minute and 30 seconds is much easier to deal with as 1.5 minutes rather than 1:30). It would also be great to see PPTOI, SHTOI and ESTOI like they have at NHL.com.

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August 30, 2009
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Dobber said:

	... One-click simple TOI info can be found here: http://www.dobberhockey.com/frozenpool_report.php Just click "Time on Ice"
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August 30, 2009
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Mabus said:

	... If you want simple TOI info with a single click, this is the best spot: http://www.hockey-reference.com/leagues/NHL_2009_skaters.html
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August 30, 2009
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Dobber said:

	... You have to run TOI and then Pts - two different things. Then you have to do a VLOOKUP on Excel to match the two.
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August 30, 2009
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Ron said:

	How did Dobber do this? I am trying to do toi/pt with defensemen but cannot figure out how to do it in the frozen pool. Any help?
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August 30, 2009
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