Henrik Sedin 60/40 split: 40 first assists, 27 second assists.
Claude Giroux 59/41 split: 38 first assists, 27 second assists
Erik Karlsson 54/46 split: 32 first assists, 27 second assists
Joe Thornton 50/50 split: 30 first assists, 29 second assists

Joe Thornton is probably the only interesting case as we'd expect him to be first-assist heavy. San Jose's Joe Pavelski (74:26) and Logan Couture (78:22) were both incredibly first-assist heavy last year. That bodes well (IMO) for their futures. Jumbo Joe & Dan Boyle racked up several second assists - possibly on the PP... not sure.

San Jose would be an interesting team to look at first & second assist distribution. I think Frozen Pools can do this (but I don't have a subscription).

Mmhmm... it was a 95/6 ratio.
That was the 2009-2010 season, where he scored 47pts in 82 games (29 first assists, 2 second assists).

Most of us had Giroux pegged for only 50-60pts for 2010-2011... including some of DobberHockey's smartest minds. I had him pegged for 62pts (end of thread) - so even I missed way low. Little higher than some others though!

If we had all been crunching these A1 vs. A2 numbers after that season, we would have ALL bought Giroux prior to his 76pt break-out season in 2010-2011. I mean, getting 29 first assists in 16min of ice-time is pretty sensational. Something that maybe should've been dug on him or noted. I certainly would increase my predictions on a player if I knew they got 29 first assists to make up their 47pts. I mean... 29 first assists, that's indeed a 70pt player most of the time.

So... just another reason why this little study might hold some value!!!

Sorry Pengwin,

I read through this a few times and I still don't get what you're trying to drive at?

Are you saying that first assists is the key to success and identifying future trends/production?

__________________
Dobber Expert Pool Champion 2011-12

This is very interesting stuff. Let me see if I understand this correctly.

I have Logan Couture pegged to have another season around 67 - 70 points. Every year in his career his numbers have always been assist heavy accept the last 2 years. I'm curious if 2010/2011 was also a year where he didn't have many 2nd assists.

Last year he had 34 assists(78:22). That works out to 26 A1 and 8 A2. If I take 45% of the assists from last year, I get 15 A2 giving me 41 assists(7 more than last year).

With this info, should I be placing him to have a 74 - 77 point year?

__________________
9 Team Keeper League. Points only. 40 player roster, dress 12 F, 6 D, 2 G.


Forwards: (G=1, A=1)
Vanek, Skinner, Ribeiro, Elias, Nugent-Hopkins, Tarasenko, Stepan, Voracek, Turris, Berglund, Perron, Hartnell, Brad Marchand, Wheeler, Sam Gagner, Mikael Granlund, Baertschi, Grigorenko, Nyquist, Schwartz, Forsberg, Atkinson


Defence: (G=1, A=1)
Enstrom, Fowler, Giordano, Kulikov, Ehrhoff, Matt Carle, Meszaros, Niskanen, Jamie McBain, Blum, Brad Stuart, Stefan Elliott, Ryan Murphy


Goalies: (W=2 + SO=2)
Quick, Ward, Crawford, Backstrom, Steve Mason

With points, we know that we look at things like ice-time (Even-Strength & PP), linemates, and maturation.

With goals, we all know that we can look at a combination of SOG & shooting percentage, and considerations to upcoming year playmaking-linemate quality.

With assists - we never really get into examining the statistics.
Maybe we should?

If a guy has 30 assists... what does it tell us?
Most of the time, I think we all just take assists and use the same number for future seasons.

But if we know a guy had 28 first assists & 2 second assists... I believe we can say "Wow, this guy must be an incredible passer to set-up goals - and perhaps he was very unlucky that he only got 2 second assists."

I think first assists is a fairly reliable stat.
It's something we should "count" on with a little more security.

I think second assists is a less reliable stat.
If a player had a high number of second assists, perhaps we should adjust his future assist totals to be a bit lower (with regard to second assists).
If a player had a low number of second assists, perhaps we should adjust his future assist totals to be a bit higher (with regard to second assists).


Claude Giroux's 2009-2010 vs. 2010-2011 breakout season seems to be a glowing example of the value in assist-analysis.
In that season, Giroux had 47pts, averaging 16:37 in ice time.
16 goals, 31 assists.
Most of us pegged him for 50-60pts in 2010-2011 because there were a lot of star players in Philly eating ice-time (M.Richards, J.Carter, Briere, JVR).

Giroux went BOOM and put up 76pts in 2010-2011, in just 19:24.

Q: Should we have seen that coming?
A: No (would be the common answer), but maybe the answer should have been yes.

1. Let's start by making an assuming that Giroux was going to get 19min/game. That would have extrapolated his point totals from 47 to 54pts.

2. Let's say that we give him an extra +5% bump just for maturation. That brings him up to 57pts. That's in the 50-60pt range that most of us pegged him at.

3. But here's the thing... Giroux's 31 assists break down to 29 first assists & 2 second assists. If first assists are the more reliable, then we could expect that Giroux would put up that total again + a few more (based on the ice-time increase and maturation). Perhaps 33 first assists would be fair. What about those second assists? Well, two (for any full-time player) is far too low. Historically, I'd guess that 2 of every 3 goals scored have a second assist... which would mean Giroux should be inline for about 20 second assists (not two). That's 18 additional points!!!

4. What does this equal?
We bump his 16G up to 20G. [He actually scored 25G]
We bump his 29 first assists up to 33A. [He actually scored 34 first assists on a 66:34 A1:A2 ratio]
We bump his 2 second assists up to 20A. [He actually scored 17 second assists]
That extrapolation prediction amounts to 73points.
He actually scored 76points in that break-out year. (a few extra goals on above-average shooting percentage)


So... while we all pegged Giroux for 50-60pts... perhaps there was enough information (the strong A1:A2 ratio) to have pegged Giroux for significantly more.

Back in that thread (which I'm sure you reviewed ), nobody mentioned the ratio of first assists or second assists... so nobody predicting 70+pts for Giroux really could use this basis to justify their high predictions.

Anyways - this is a good case to examine... and perhaps (going forward) we should spend some time every off-season looking at player's A1:A2 splits.



ps. You know I love your stuff... but I have a hard time believing you really didn't understand the direction of this thread.

Well... you wouldn't want to peg him there as an "expectation".
But it's fair to say that it "could happen" (see Giroux posts).

I think we can all put pretty good predictions on players from what we've seen. Couture also benefited from being the 4th forward on the SJ PP1 last year with Havlat out for a good chunk. If SJ decideds to have Couture anchor the PP2 and promote Havlat to PP1, things change a lot.

But in general, if Couture gets 20min and PP1 time and maintains his A1 count, then yes... he could be a 75pt player because his A2 count will very likely be more than 8 in a future full season.

Rep given. Another great idea to compare similar players.

__________________
9 Team Keeper League. Points only. 40 player roster, dress 12 F, 6 D, 2 G.


Forwards: (G=1, A=1)
Vanek, Skinner, Ribeiro, Elias, Nugent-Hopkins, Tarasenko, Stepan, Voracek, Turris, Berglund, Perron, Hartnell, Brad Marchand, Wheeler, Sam Gagner, Mikael Granlund, Baertschi, Grigorenko, Nyquist, Schwartz, Forsberg, Atkinson


Defence: (G=1, A=1)
Enstrom, Fowler, Giordano, Kulikov, Ehrhoff, Matt Carle, Meszaros, Niskanen, Jamie McBain, Blum, Brad Stuart, Stefan Elliott, Ryan Murphy


Goalies: (W=2 + SO=2)
Quick, Ward, Crawford, Backstrom, Steve Mason

I wonder if your assumptions about the consistency of A1 vs. A2 differentially hold true for player situation. I could imagine a lot of interaction between, say anomalous power play production in a given year and extreme (high or low) ratios of primary to secondary assists. If a defenseman's team had unusual success on the power play last year, might that give a boost in A2 vs. A1? We likely all consider a trade from an offensive team to a defensive team when making our projections, but I could imagine I'd be more concerned if a player with a low A1:A2 ratio was traded to a lower-scoring team than if a player with a high ratio were in a similar situation, because those secondary assists may have been boosted by the team around him, while the primary assists might travel with the player if they represent in part the player's inherent passing skill.

__________________
H2H 10 GMs Keeper: keep up to 4 at cost of draft pick (round in red) G, A,+/-,PIM,SOG,PPP; Wins,GAA,Sv% Start 2C 2R 2L 1 Util 4D 2G, weekly starts
C: Tomáš Plecanec (10), Jonathan Huberdeau (11)
LW: Patrik Eliáš (14), Pascal Dupuis (10) Иlлья Kovalchuk (1), Brandon Saad (10)
RW: Jarome Iginla (3), Phil Kessel (2) Jakub Voráček (9)
Util:
D:Ryan Suter (7), Mike Green (4), Brent Burns (10), Mark Streit, Justin Schultz (12)
G:Craig Anderson (6), Дeвaн Dubnyk (17) Cepгeй Bobrovsky (9), Niklas Bäckström (8)

Yup, all true.
You understand the cases all well - which is key, because any analyst has to have an understanding of ALL the criteria involved to make an educated forecast.

Everything is a case-by-case basis and there are definitely some anomalies.

For example:
Dan Boyle was very A2-heavy last year.
Am I worried? No, not really... the SJ PP moves the puck a lot and Boyle's job is just to keep it moving. He doesn't bomb a lot of shots on net, he's just trying to create the pass to shift the defense... so he's a perfect guy to be A2-heavy and yet not of concern.


Mostly, I'm focused on A2 numbers.
If they were incredibly high... I might take a deeper look at the player to see if there is a reason WHY that makes sense. (Yes, for Boyle)
If they were incredibly low... I might take a deeper look at the player to see if there is a reason WHY that makes sense. (No, for Giroux's low A2 count in 2009-2010, which was just bad luck.)

I agree this is interesting and I believe, as you say, that there's something there, but let me play devil's advocate for a moment:

In the Giroux case above, we extrapolate his production up about 10 points due to ice time and maturation effects if we don't use this assist ratio information. So far so good: more time to score, similar scoring per minute, therefore more points and a greater percentage of the team's points. But there are only so many points to be scored in the 19 minutes per game Giroux is out there - when are these extra second assists going to accrue? It seems we'd have to believe that the Flyers as a team had to have been "unlucky" when Giroux was on so that in fact the total number of assists scored while he was on ice was low, and so if that regresses to the mean then we can boost Giroux's projection (not to mention all those who spent a lot of time on ice with him as found in Frozen Pool). If that's the case, couldn't we find this more reliably and with a (IMO) less tenuos chain of reasoning by looking for anomalies in Goals-For Off-ice/60min (available at Behind the Net)?In terms of pure numbers analysis, this seems to be sufficient, and maybe as far as we can go. Of course if a player suddenly has the opportunity to play with a sniper we can factor that in, but that's in the realm of what I think of as "hockey analysis" vs. "statistical analysis."

Edit: excuse my lack of responsiveness to your post above; I'm a slow typist and you had already responded by the time I posted this.

__________________
H2H 10 GMs Keeper: keep up to 4 at cost of draft pick (round in red) G, A,+/-,PIM,SOG,PPP; Wins,GAA,Sv% Start 2C 2R 2L 1 Util 4D 2G, weekly starts
C: Tomáš Plecanec (10), Jonathan Huberdeau (11)
LW: Patrik Eliáš (14), Pascal Dupuis (10) Иlлья Kovalchuk (1), Brandon Saad (10)
RW: Jarome Iginla (3), Phil Kessel (2) Jakub Voráček (9)
Util:
D:Ryan Suter (7), Mike Green (4), Brent Burns (10), Mark Streit, Justin Schultz (12)
G:Craig Anderson (6), Дeвaн Dubnyk (17) Cepгeй Bobrovsky (9), Niklas Bäckström (8)