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HOCKEY PERFORMANCE BONUSES Guaranteed salaries are too large a part of player compensation in the NHL. Don't get me wrong, I don't object to players making a lot of money. They paid their dues throughout their minor careers, with long hours of practice, and riding buses forever, for a career that may not take them to the top dollar , and may only last a few years anyway. From a fan's point of view however, I would like to see performance bonuses prohibited from individual player/team contracts, and instead be administered on a league wide basis. With linkage to league revenues, in a revenue sharing formula, a league wide system of bonuses would do a lot to improve the game at the NHL level. Bonus structures should be based on performance, measured against the performance of one's peers over the same period. Bonuses should not be tied to arbitrary numbers, like 20 goals, but instead use a percentile system, that allows for fluctuations in statistics from year to year. I guarantee one thing, the game will improve. Owners won't be dragging their feet over rule changes, and enforcement of existing rules, just to save some money on paying bonuses. No longer will there be an 'artificial lowering of scoring' to keep money in the owners' pockets. |
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Welcome - > - Wolf Den
- > - Hockey
- Performance
Bonuses - |
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PERFORMANCE
BONUSES - A FAN'S APPROACH TO PLAYER COMPENSATION
The NHL wants a salary cap. The number they are after is too low for the players. The players were fundamentally opposed to the cap as a concept. For them it was a "non-starter". (There's a phrase I've heard too much lately.) They later caved in and agreed to one just before the deadline, but their number was too high. Now the season is a "non-starter". The problem with salary caps, is that the owners regularly circumvent the cap by adding bonus clauses to contracts. This happens in the NFL. The NHL found this out the hard way with the rookie salary cap. (Entry level system) The NHL wants to drop performance bonuses altogether, and that is the first reason that any true hockey fan should not trust the league. From a fan perspective, performance bonuses are, or should be the preferred method of compensation. The better a player performs, the more he gets paid, and also the incentive is there to provide a better product on the ice. |
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The problem with bonuses, is the fact that they are usually assigned to arbitrary numbers, like 20 goals. What's so special about 20? Why not 25? Why not 15? Goal totals rise and fall with the diligence of the on-ice officials in calling the rules of the game. Another factor affecting goal scoring is the number of players in the league. There is a lower percentage of "skill" players, versus journeymen, due to expansion. I don't buy this argument completely because we now draw from a wider talent pool than we used to with fewer teams. The size of goaltending equipment has had a direct effect on goal scoring. Coaching styles, notably the trap have had a negative effect on goal scoring. Who hires these coaches? Management. Who pays management? Owners. Who benefits from reduced scoring in the league? Owners, who would rather pay a bonus to one goalie, than pay several scoring bonuses to skaters. Surely one sees the result of management directives to the coaches to prevent scoring at all costs. (at least in management's payment of scoring bonuses costs) How rules can be biased against certain statistical categories. If you think that the lack of productivity at governor's rule change meetings, and the dragging of feet on issues like obstruction fouls, and goaltender equipment, has nothing to do with performance bonuses, then I have some gold bricks to sell you. |
Take the proposed no-touch
icing rule, that is continually voted down.
It has been shown that there are many serious injuries caused by the
touch-up icing. What logic is there behind players racing at full speed toward an immoveable wall, trying to be the first to touch the puck? If the defenseman wins, the whistle blows, and there is a faceoff at the other end. If the forward wins, the defensman hammers him into the boards, and there is a fifteen second scrum against the boards in the corner. It resembles nothing more than a triathlon bastard child of speedskating, wrestling and croquet as players shove each other, and kick and poke at the puck trying to somehow free it from the tangle of legs, sticks, body parts and equipment. The owners try to tell us that this is an exiting play! I can watch speedskating, and wrestling at the Olympics. I can play croquet in my backyard. What the touch-up icing does, is guarantee that the puck spends less time in front of the net, where it might be in danger of accidently entering the net, and inflating a player's goal totals to the point where the owners might have to pay a bonus. The on-again off-again calling of obstruction fouls is another example of inconsistency, and the slowing down of the game. The league talks a good game at the beginning of the season, saying that the crackdown is on, but by mid season the players just don't know anymore what will be called and what won't. The owners stand to benefit from the clutch and grab style, because there are only 2 or 3 goalies per team, versus 20 or so skaters. Awarding one or two bonuses to goalies, is more cost effective than awarding 10 bonuses to skaters for a 20 goal season. |
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Under the
current
system, the owners can offer huge bonuses as an incentive to sign, but then with the other hand vote against rule changes that would force them to pay these bonuses. The result is the dreadful hockey we see most nights at the NHL level. |
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BONUSES
AWARDED BY THE LEAGUE
INSTEAD OF THE INDIVIDUAL TEAM/PLAYER CONTRACT:
My proposal would have performance bonuses prohibited from individual player's contracts, thus lowering certain team's payrolls, and instead have these bonuses awarded annually by the league. The league would pay these bonuses from a fund levied from each team. Contribution to the league fund would incorporate a payroll tax/revenue sharing element. Teams would be taxed according to their payrolls, as well as their revenues. In fact, in an effort to put a "drag", on salary inflation, one might put a graduated "tax" on player's salaries to contribute to this fund as well. From the players point of view this would be similar to insurance. If you are a higher paid player, you would contribute more to the fund, but you should also be expected to get more out of the fund in bonuses at the end of the season. (If you are worth your higher salary.) It would be in the player's interest to have a lower base salary (to avoid the higher bonus fund tax), and hope to reap the benefit at the end of the season with some top bonuses. For the players it would be like a 50/50 draw, but a draw in which you have direct control over your chances to win. Put in a good season,and reap the rewards. This also acts as salary redistribution, in the sense that the higher paid players are putting a larger portion of their pay on the line than the lower paid players. If they do not produce the results that one would expect from such a high salary, that money would be distributed to the players who did produce. For the fan, this works. Players have a component of their pay directly tied to real results. |
Another benefit of the player's salary bonus tax is that it would take into consideration contentious issues like the Alberta tax, and some other municipal and state taxes that are levied on certain players. The player's contribution to the bonus fund would be based on his salary after these discriminatory taxes have been paid. The NHLPA is vehemently opposed to the Alberta Tax, so perhaps this would ease the pain. This alone would help with the balance of power to a degree. The fact that the bonuses are controlled by the league instead of individual owners, would also help prevent the six or seven rogue teams from causing the rampant inflation in payroll due to their ability to offer larger signing and performance bonuses. If Mr. Bettman is sincere in his resolve to reduce "guesswork" in cost certainty, then this is one of the ways to do it. The problem with bonuses is in quantifying performance with meaningful statistics, and then assigning priorities to these statistics, to arrive at an equitable payment structure. In other words, what is more important goals scored or plus/minus? How does a valuable rugged two-way, fourth line player get a bonus? Once we have arrived at a priority rating for performance measurement statistics, how do we arrive at a dollar figure? We will discuss these issues later, but first we will discuss how the bonus shares are calculated in each category. |
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| Using percentiles rather than
absolute numbers: A fair system of performance bonuses would be based on a player's performance in a certain category, measured against his peer's performance over the same time, and not against some arbitrary figure like 20 goals. If goals are up in a particular season, then more players would be getting the 20 goal bonus, and fewer goalies would be getting their save percentage bonuses. A percentile system would reward top players regardless of the absolute numbers, but instead on their performance measured against the rest of the league. - PERCENTILES EXPLAINED - WIKIPEDIA ON PERCENTILES - The percentile system is simple enough to use,(once the league decides which of the 3 definitions of percentile to use) and gives a truer measure than absolute numbering. Simply, you take the total number of players of a certain position, and arrange them by statistical measure in a certain category. When you go down the list until 50% of the players are above a certain level, and 50% are below that level, you are at the 50th percentile. (This is not exactly an average, although it may be close to average. Averages and percentiles work differently although it isn't unusual for a 50th percentile number to be close to average.) Those in the top 50 have performed better than those in the bottom 50. |
The person on the top of the list is in the 100th percentile. 100 percent of his peers are below him in this statistical category. Obviously the players at the 100th percentile in any category would receive the largest bonus. At the 90th percentile, 10 percent of the players are above this level, while 90% are below. Interestingly the arbitrary 20 goal plateau was at the 92nd percentile last year. (approximately 8% of all skaters who played in at least one game scored 20 goals last season). In a given category one could assign a certain percentage of the bonus pot to be awarded to players finishing in a certain percentile grouping. So we see that the 90th percentile was close to the standard absolute number last season. Back in the high scoring Gretzky Oiler days, the 92nd percentile might well have been over 25 goals. (This may or may not have been so.) Further statistical analysis would be needed to determine the targets or bonus thresholds for each statistical category, but the percentile system consistently picks out the top performers regardless of the variances in absolute numbers during a given season. The other advantage of the percentile system, is that is can be applied at any point during the season. One could look in January to see that the 92nd percentile in goals was 12 goals, but regardless of the absolute number of goals, a player would know where he stood in percentiles versus the rest of the league. |
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For example using last years stats, we will award goalies bonus based on games played. This isn't one of the glamourous bonuses, but it is a simple example with easy numbers to show the basic concept. 112 goalies were listed on rosters last year, of which 94 saw ice time. The 50th percentile of games played was 21 games played. 49 goalies played in at least 21 games. At the 55th percentile was 28.15 games played. 42 goalies played 29 games or more. If we use every 5th percentile from 50 to 100 we get a chart that looks like this.
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We add the number of goalies in each percentile grouping to get a total of 266 goaltender sharewinners. Note: the top goalie gains shares from all 11 levels. The goalies in the 95th percentile group gain shares from all levels except the top level. etc. Each of the goalies in the 50th percentile wins one share. 49 goalies=49 shares. Each of the goalies in the 55th percentile wins 2 shares. 42 goalies= 84 shares. Each of the goalies in the 60th percentile wins 3 shares. 38 goalies = 114 shares. etc, etc. This works out to 1079 total shares to be awarded. A goalie in the 100th percentile wins 11 shares for that level, 10 for the previous level, 9 for the level before that, 8 for the level before that etc. In other words the top goalie will win 66 total shares. (11+10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1=66) The 5 goalies that made it into the 95th percentile(and no higher) would earn 10 shares each for that category, 9 each for the previous category etc. Each of these 5 goalies would win 55 shares. (10+9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1=55) Each of the 4 goalies making it to the 90th percentile (and no higher) would get 45 shares. (9+8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1=45) All 49 goalies that reached the 50th percentile get 1 share for that level, however for 7 of these goalies, that is all they get. (1 share each) HYPOTHETICAL DOLLAR AMOUNTS FOR THIS BONUS Let's say for the sake of arguement that the TOTAL LEAGUE BONUS POOL contained $196 million dollars. Now if this category, "Games Played by a goaltender" was assigned a value of .667% of the total bonus pool, then there would be $1,306,667.67 dollars in this category. Split between 1079 shares, that equals $1,211.00 per share. The goalie at the top of the list (Martin Brodeur) would have earned $79,925.86 bonus for playing in 75 games. The 5 goalies who made it to the 95th percentile, Turco , Vokoun, (73 games) Luongo, (72 games) -Theodore, and Osgoode (67 games) would have earned $66,604.88 each in games played bonuses. Eddie Belfour would have earned $43,595.92 in the 85th percentile group.(59 games), along with Nabokov, Cloutier, and Aebischer. |
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| ASSIGNING
VALUE TO STATISTICS We have discussed how bonuses might be calculated within an individual category, now we have to see just how many categories there would be, and what value would be placed on each category. The object of NHL hockey is (or should be) to win the Stanley Cup. To do that, a team must first make it to the playoffs. So there should be bonuses awarded to each member of a team that wins the Stanley Cup Final. There should be a lesser bonus for the team that loses the Cup Final. The 2 teams that lose in the Conference Finals would get a lesser share. Carry this on down to include all playoff teams.
The other finalist would get 10 out of 57 playoff shares. The two losers of the conference finals would each get 6 out of 57 playoff shares. The 4 losers of the second round would each get 3 out of 57 playoff shares. The 8 losers of the first round would each get 1 out of 57 playoff shares. The question remains, what percentage of the total bonus pool would be alloted to playoff shares? One idea would be for playoff shares to be taken directly out of playoff revenues rather than regular season revenues, thus making this question moot. In the same way, all individual player playoff bonuses would be taken out of playoff revenues only leaving regular season money for regular season bonuses. |
Now
that we have eliminated the playoff bonuses from consideration, lets
look at the regular season and figure out how to split the pool. Hockey is a team game so there should be some team awards. 1. As stated, the object is to win games, so there should be a team bonus for games won, or total points in the regular season. Each team would have to decide how to split the money amongst it's individual players, although games played might be the place to start. 2. To win games, a team has to score goals, so there could be a team award for goals scored. 3. To win games, you have to prevent the other team from scoring, so there should be an team award for least goals against in a season. 4. A team award for +/- in a season. 5. A team award for home attendance, although this would favour teams with large buildings, so perhaps the award should be for attendance as a percentage of capacity. 6. A team award for power play efficiency. 7. A team award for penalty-killing efficiency. 8. A team award for shots on goal. 9. A team award for fewest shots allowed. 10. A team award for fewest penalty minutes. 11. A team award for road attendance as a percentage of capacity. How well a visiting team can boost attendance is important for revenue. 12. A team award for total points won on the road. This ends the list of team awards, without assigning a value to each award. |
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| There are
team bonuses, split between members of a team. There are also career bonuses, with which players are rewarded for contributions to the game over a long period. Of the individual bonuses, there are categories....
Naturally, some categories of play are more important than others as reflected in the individual league awards, such as the Art Ross Trophy, Norris Trophy, Vezina Trophy etc. These categories would be given a greater weighting factor than minor categories. If you divide the bonuses categories into groupings, and assign a weight value from 1 to 5 for each bonus, you get a chart that looks like the one below.
Using 5% of league revenues, plus the player contributions, one year might have a total bonus pool of $196,000,000. (This is a purely hypothetical number used for demonstration.) A category weighted with a 1 would have $1,306,666.67 to split between the winners, using the method discussed above. A category weighted with a 3 would have $3,920,000.00. A category weighted with a 5 would have $6,533,333.33. By attaining a relatively high standing in several categories a player could add a substantial amount of money to his base salary. I have tried to balance the categories between offensively and defensively minded stats. There are...
There must be an adequate balance between positions, and there must be enough opportunity for players of different positions and strengths to gain bonus. Defensive forwards, etc. In categories that use averages, it would be possible for a player with only one or two games played to have an inflated average, so the calculations for those categories will be limited to players who are in the 50th percentile or higher in games played. The goals per game and points per game category are examples of this, but they also allow effective players who missed time due to injury to earn bonus as well. You may have found a few categories that you don't understand, or find to be questionable. I discuss some of the individual categories below, to explain my reasoning. I have created some categories that don't currently exist, although the stats are collected for them, and have included two stats that are pet peeves of mine, Penalty Killing Efficiency, and Power Play Efficiency. |
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| POWER
PLAY EFFICIENCY AND PENALTY KILLING EFFICIENCY are two stats that
really piss me off. The league uses this unrealistic measure of efficiency based on "Times shorthanded" divided by goals allowed, or "Times with the man advantage" divided by goals scored. The problem is that a "Time shorthanded" could be anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 minutes long!!!! I KNOW the league can use the seconds hand on the clock, heck they even use hundredths of a second at the end of a period. I want to know how long a team can go shorthanded without allowing a goal. What's the average? What's the best? I want to know how dangerous a team is with the man advantage. How long does it usually take them to score? Its simple really. Count the total number of seconds played shorthanded. Divide by the number of goals allowed. The team averages that length of time shorthanded before allowing a goal. It is a meaningful stat now. If a team is two men short, then each second counts as two. If a team has a two man advantage, each second counts as two. Doesn't this make a heck of a lot more sense than the current system? A very good penalty killing team may have a rating of more than 15 minutes played shorthanded per goal allowed. Never mind this fluffy, "we really don't know how long", "Times shorthanded" nonsense. In addition to the improvement discussed above, my version of PP and PK efficiency can be applied to individual players as well as teams. The league already keeps ice time stats, and it isn't a stretch for them to include power play and penalty killing ice time. They already note who was on the ice for every goal scored, whether even strength or otherwise. This stat could be useful for coaches, to help them know quantitatively rather than subjectively, which players are most efficient in these situations. Give me a real stat!!! - Welcome - > - Wolf Den - > - Hockey - Performance Bonuses - |
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OFFENSIVELY ORIENTED STATS
GOALS: Most goals in a game wins. Simple as that. This is still the most important stat there is. To win a game, you have to score at least once more than your opponent. The MAURICE RICHARD TROPHY. ASSISTS: This doesn't always reflect the work necessary to get a goal, but is a reasonably reliable indicator of value. The ability to pass the puck is an overlooked skill in hockey. This bonus should help to correct that. While I'm on the topic, when is the league going to get around to awarding an annual trophy for most assists? We all know who the trophy will be named after, and we know he deserves to have a trophy named in his honour. Here is my vote for the Wayne Gretzky Trophy. POINTS: This is a total of the above two. The league scoring leader often also leads the league in at least one of the above stats, although often a good combination of goals and assists is valuable as a separate stat. This is one of the major league awards, the ART ROSS TROPHY. POWER PLAY EFFICIENCY: This is the opposite of the PENALTY KILLING EFFICIENCY stat, acquired using the same formula. In this stat a lower number of seconds per goal scored is more desirable. SHOTS ON GOAL This will never be won by Tomas Kaberle. You can't score unless you shoot, or get extremely lucky on a bounce. Certainly not as important as the above categories, but still a measure of a player's presence in the opposing end of the rink. SHOOTING PERCENTAGE There would have to be a minimum number of shots or goals applied to this statistic. The player might have to be in the 50th percentile of shots on goal to be eligible for this bonus. This rewards the player who knows what to do with the puck when he gets it. PLUS ONLY We are all familiar with the PLUS/MINUS statistic. I have created two separate stats as well, PLUS only, and MINUS only. A player's plus/minus stats might be inflated because that player happens to be on a high scoring line, or the player's plus/minus stats might be lessened because his line doesn't score much at all. Similarly, a player might be on a line that is defensively challenged, although they also manage to score a lot, therefore the player's plus minus stats would be lower than a second line that is more balanced. The PLUS ONLY stat is purely a measure of contribution to offense that may not appear in the goals and assists column. How many times have you seen a player do all the work in the corners, yet not get credit for an assist? This stat measures the pure offensive contributions of a player to a team, the ability to play in the other team's end of the ice, and make things happen. GAME WINNING GOALS(gwg) AND GAME TYING GOALS (gtg) Scoring when it counts. Game tying goals, the goal that is scored when your team is down near the end of the game. Game winning goals is not always a true indicator. You can get the second goal of the game for your team, and then go on to a 5-1 victory, so that goal doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot, but a game winning goal in a one goal game is huge. The league keeps track of the stats, lets include them. SHORT HANDED GOALS Is there any play as deflating to a team, as having a goal scored against them while they have the man advantage? On top of that, these goals are usually pretty goals, that get featured in the highlights. For my money the short handed goal is one of the prettiest plays in hockey, and more than worthy of a bonus. POWER PLAY GOALS Ok, the guy who gets this one, often gets most goals as well. But the league keeps track of it, sowe will use it. GOALS PER GAME AVERAGE ASSISTS PER GAME AVERAGE POINTS PER GAME AVERAGE These stats give players who missed some games due to injury a chance to get in on the bonuses. Mario Lemieux comes to mind, not that he needs the money. Simply put, injuries are a part of the game, and sometimes a player only gets into say 50 or 60 games. He loses out in the scoring race, but still manages to put the puck in when he is healthy. |
DEFENSIVELY ORIENTED STATS
MINUS ONLY Plus/minus stats are obviously a measure of net efficiency, and therefore a valid measurement of performance, however some plus/minus stats are grossly inflated by virtue of being on a high scoring line, and do not represent true defensive prowess. It would be interesting to isolate the minus portion, and see what names pop up to the top of the list. This is a negative stat, numbers closest to zero are the best. Higher negative numbers are worse. You might find a tough, stay-at-home defenseman, who is not a great contributor to the offense, and not likely to win any other bonuses, suddenly rise to the top of this list. This guy may not be high on the plus/minus lists, because he is on the checking line, called upon to defend against the best scorers on the other team This is as pure a defensive stat as you will find, other than goaltending stats. PENALTY KILLING EFFICIENCY This is one area that needs to be revamped in the league anyway. The way the stat is kept now does not accurately reflect a team's ability to play with a man short. A shorthanded situation could be 30 seconds, 2 minutes, or even 5 minutes. Under the current system, it still counts as one time shorthanded. In a game a team could play 11:42 minutes short handed on six penalties, whle the opponent plays 8:05 minutes on the same number of penalties. Assuming that each team gave up two goals, under the current system both teams would be credited with a 33% efficiency despite a 31 % difference in the time shorthanded. This does not take into account playing two men short, either. I propose that we measure minutes and seconds shorthanded, obviously if a team is two men short, each second would count as two seconds toward the total. The total time shorthanded is divided by the number of goals allowed to give the efficiency rating. Using the example above, one team would have played 702 seconds shorthanded, while the other played only 485 seconds. If both teams gave up two goals, then the first team's PK rating would be 351 seconds per goal (5:51 minutes), and the other team would be 242.5 seconds (4:03 minutes). A higher number reflects a better efficiency. Similarly this number could be used as each player's efficiency as a member of the penalty killing team, and in fact could be beneficial to coaches by helping them realize quantitatively rather than subjectively which players to put out on the PK. It would also be interesting to see how high the numbers could get over a season. Another benefit of using this stat for bonuses is that it rewards players who are often overlooked in the glamour categories, although their true value, in a close game, might be as great to the team as the goal scorer. HITS: The league has chosen to drop this stat, but I think it should be reinstated, with the following changes. Hits that result in penalties are not added to the totals. Hits that result in injuries have the number of games missed by the opponent due to the injury subtracted from the totals. High sticking penalties, kneeing, elbowing, cross-checking, spearing etc. are deducted at one point per minute assessed. What we are looking for are players who are a tough physical presence within the rules of the game. The cheap-shot artists need not apply here. We are looking for the players, whose mere presence on the ice, keeps the other team on tiptoes. A couple of good, hard, clean hits early in the game can be the difference between winning and losing. BLOCKED SHOTS I have seen teams win games because their players were willing to pay the price by blocking shots. A Leafs vs Senators playoff game comes to mind. Blocking a shot is an art. We aren't talking about 'Flamingos' here. If you try to block a shot and end up deflecting it past your goalie, you lose points. Watch the 'character' players rise to the top here. TAKEAWAYS GIVEAWAYS NET TURNOVERS The league kept track of these stats, then stopped, then brought them back. I'm not sure where they stand now. Simply put, you need to have possesion of the puck to score. You need to have possession of the puck to stop the other team from scoring. If you give the puck to the other team, you can't score. If you take the puck from the other team, they can't score. This isn't rocket-science. One stat rewards those able to separate the opponent from the puck. One stat penalizes those who lack the creativity or common sense to keep the puck. The net stat rewards those who can do both. SHOTS ALLOWED This is a team stat, that measures the opposite of shots on goal. A team that knows how to prevent the other team from getting a shot on goal stands a good chance of winning. |
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GOALTENDING
STATS
These are all old standbys, that have stood the test of time.They really shouldn't need any explanation. GOALS AGAINST AVERAGE Basically, goals allowed divided by (minutes played divided by 60). This was for years, the single measure of goaltending prowess, that has been augmented more recently by save percentage. It is possible for this stat to reflect a team-approach to defense, rather than merely the goaltender's contribution, but it is still a reasonably reliable measure of goaltending skill. SAVE PERCENTAGE This stat tells the facts, where the rubber meets the road, .... er ice. Simply put saves divided by shots on goal. This is a more reliable measure of goaltender skill than goals against average. MINUTES PLAYED Goalies usually play the whole game, and your number one goalie will play in 75% of your games or more. This stat measures the coach's confidence in a goaltender as the number one guy. GOALTENDER WINS Like goals against average, this is more of a team stat, but goaltenders only have a few bonus categories, and the league already keeps track of this stat. SHUTOUTS The glory stat for a goaltender. Numbers fluctuate from season to season. A shutout is not a regular occurrence, so is worthy of a bonus. The goalie who wins money here should be taking the team out for steaks, because they share a large degree of the credit. |
NEUTRAL
STATS
PLUS/MINUS Simply put, the number of even strength goals scored by your team while you are on the ice - minus the number of even strength goals allowed by your team while you are on the ice. This stat can be skewed sometimes because you are a member of a high scoring line, but it still shows net efficiency. LEAST PENALTY MINUTES This will not be Don Cherry's favorite bonus, but the fact remains, your team stands a better chance of winning if they can play at even strength, or with the man advantage. I realize there are "good penalties", but there are often a lot of "bad penalties" as well. The bad penalties ususally outnumber the good penalties. As Butch Goring (who was no slouch physically) once said, "If I have to take a penalty, then I'm not doing my job properly." Butch was as tough a competitor as anyone else in the league, but he played tough, within the rules. The addition of Goring in a trade from the LA Kings, was the missing piece of the puzzle for the New York Islanders, on their way to 4 straight Stanley Cups. Give your team a chance to win, don't take your team out of the game, by sitting in the penalty box. MINUTES PLAYED PER GAME These are the "go-to guys". The guys the coach is always tapping on the back. Because of the number of players per position, defencemen usually are at the top of this list, so we will break it down into forwards, and defencemen. FIRST SECOND AND THIRD STAR POINTS In Toronto, they call this Molson Cup Points. Basically, the sports writers, or broadcast crew pick the top 3 players of the game. Any notable contributions are considered. While this is a subjective stat, it is valuable. FACEOFF WINNING PERCENTAGE This category speaks for itself, especially during the playoffs. There is no question that possession of the puck is crucial to team success, and winning the face-off is the first step in puck possession. ALL STAR TEAM VOTING ALL STAR GAME APPEARANCE ALL ROOKIE TEAM YOUNG STARS GAME APPEARANCE NHL AWARDS STANDINGS (non-statistical awards) These categories recognize players apart from pure statistics. Recognition by the fans, the sports writers, the coaches, the other players. The NHL awards category should likely be broken down into separate categories for each award. We aren't talking about the trophies that are awarded for purely statistical achievements, but those trophies that are the result of voting. The Hart Trophy (MVP) The Norris Trophy (best defenceman voted by sportswriters) The Bill Masterson Trophy (dedication and perseverance) The Frank Selke Trophy (defensive forward) The Lady Byng Trophy(voted by hockey writers) The Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year) The Vezina Trophy (best goalie voted by GMs) Lester B. Pearson Award (MVP as selected by players) King Clancy Trophy(humanitarian contribution) |
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