NHL man-games lost and CHIP analysis - 30-game report

This is my third look for the 2013/14 regular season at which teams have been hit hardest by injuries by trying to place a value on the games missed by players due to injury/illness. 

The concept again - multiply each game missed by a player by his 2013/14 cap charge (including bonuses), then take the aggregate of these figures for each team and divide by 82. This indicator of value lost to a team by injury/illness is called CHIP (Cap Hit of Injured Players).

This analysis covers every team up to its 30th game. (Amazingly, this follows on from my 20-game analysis.)

For a more regular snapshot, CHIP rankings are also being fed into Rob Vollman's Team Luck calculator on a weekly basis and if I find time after figuring out how to best to incorporate a reference to Derick Brassard's injured posterior in the next update, I'll do my best to put out the same info via Twitter (@LW3H).

Alternatively...

Again, for a different indicator of player "value", I've also illustrated a similar metric based on TOI/G alongside the CHIP numbers.  Clearly, neither cap charge nor TOI/G are perfect measures of player value, since each have a number of limitations and inconsistencies, but they provide a decent comparison and the results do vary somewhat.

A quick summary of the alternative metric:

• TOI/G replaces cap charge as the measure of value in the calculation
• For goalies, TOI/G has been worked out as Total Minutes Played / Games Dressed For* - i.e. a goalie playing every minute of 75% of the games, zero in the rest, would end up with a TOI/G of 45 minutes (or close to it, once you factor in OT and so on).  [*Actually, "Games Played by Team - Games Missed by Goalie" - I'm not inclined to disentangle any three-goalie systems or minor-league conditioning stints.]
• This arguably overstates the worth of starting goalies somewhat, but it's simple and you could equally argue that a workhorse goalie is the hardest position to replace, so it's fair for them to have a much higher TOI/G figure
  
• Where a player hasn't played all year or where a player fairly clearly has a reduced TOI/G figure due to getting injured in their only game or one of very few games, I've used TOI/G from last season (or further back if necessary)
• For each player, multiply games missed by TOI/G to get (for a more palatable name) Cumulative Minutes of Injured Player (CMIP)
• Take the aggregate of CMIP for the team and divide by games played by the team to arrive at AMIP (Average Minutes of Injured Players) - it feels more understandable expressing this metric as an average per game (whereas CHIP is a running total)

The figures...
The table below shows:

• Total CHIP for each team over the first 30 games of the regular season, as well as the distribution of CHIP by position
• The player who has contributed most to the team's CHIP figure
• The number of players with a CHIP contribution of over $250,000 (think of it as being equivalent to a $1m player missing 20 games or a $4m player missing five games)
• AMIP for each team over the same period (e.g. an AMIP of 40:00 could be seen as the team missing two 20-minute per game players for every game this season) - for non-interesting reasons, average TOI figures aren't quite measured at the 30-game point this time around for a few teams, but of no great significance to the analysis

The following is a ranking of teams by CHIP over Games 21-30 only, to further illustrate some of the biggest movers since last time:

10 second analysis...

• Columbus (Horton, Gaborik, Dubinsky) and Tampa Bay (Stamkos and a bunch of not-Stamkoses) the most notable risers
• Ottawa's only significant losses remain on the scoreboard and in Eugene Melnyk's bank balance
• With only one game missed among the group, the health of the Rangers defense clearly benefitting from the shift away from the maniac Tortorella's shot-block-at-all-costs philosophy, with only Vancouver's blueline being healthier, clearly benefitting from the shift towards the maniac Tortorella's shot-block-at-all-costs philosophy (Staal and Edler injuries after Game 30 not yet showing up here)
• As you would expect, the lack of injuries in Buffalo over the 10-game period has contributed to the team's dramatic turnaround to elite status
• As you would expect, the lack of goaltender injuries in Calgary over the whole season has contributed to the team's stellar save percentage

The next lists are the top 30 individual CHIP and CMIP contributions:

As the video shows, Tim Gleason's absences have been of precisely the same value as Evgeni Nabokov's in terms of TOI, with the obvious flaw being that Gleason's save percentage is much, much better than Nabokov's.

Where does it hurt?
This is another update of the crude injury-by-location analysis. Again, I’ve just used the descriptions found in the player profiles on tsn.ca, so the figures will encompass all the inaccuracies and vagueness within them. It should give a broad indication, if nothing else, though.

 

Again, as more players have come back from injuries pre-dating the season starting, the crude rate of injuries (instances / total games played) has drifted down further from 0.91 (10 games) to 0.86 (20 games) to 0.83, compared to 0.80 per game last year (0.78 in 2011/12 and 0.76 in 2010/11).

Finally, a look at the Evasiveness Index.  This is basically the proportion of injury instances for each team that have been described as either "Undisclosed" or the helpfully pointless "Upper/Lower Body" in the same TSN profiles.  I have made no judgement about whether the many instances of "Illness" (i.e. concussion), "Flu" (i.e. concussion) should also be included.

A couple of rare lapses of disclosure in Carolina.  Interestingly, the Flames have a regular injury update page on their official website, though it still doesn't preclude them from having one or two UBI/LBI cases, nor from Brian Burke firing the page so he can announce the injuries himself in a regular press conference (but not during his annual Christmas injury freeze).

Notes/Disclaimers

• Figures exclude a few minor-leaguers / marginal NHLers (usually an arbitrary judgement on my part) who had been on the NHL club’s IR since pre-season. Generally, if a minor-leaguer gets called up and then injured in an NHL game, his games missed will then count towards the CHIP though.  Minor-league conditioning stints immediately after/during a period on IR might be included in the man-games lost figures (but can't guarantee I get it right every time)
  
• For the avoidance of doubt, suspensions and absences due to "personal reasons" are not included in the figures.  However, as per previous seasons, any "retired" player still under contract (Savard, Pronger, Ohlund) is still included.
• There are undoubtedly a few inaccuracies and inconsistencies in there - I do the best I can with the information out there. Corrections might well be picked up in subsequent updates
  
• The cap figure obviously doesn't really correlate very well to the "worth" of a player in some cases, e.g. where players are seeing out an old (underpaid or rookie) contract or where players are horrendously overpaid and/or were signed by Paul Holmgren
• Also, for any player traded where cap hit is retained by his old team, the cap hit used will only reflect that for his current team.
• I've once again stuck a full team-by-team listing of games missed and CHIP/CMIP numbers by each player on the web HERE
• Injury/games/TOI info courtesy of tsn.ca and nhl.com - man-games lost info more than likely does not exactly match up with the "official" figures released by individual teams
  
• Cap info courtesy of capgeek.com

NHL man-games lost and CHIP analysis - 20-game report

This is my second look for the 2013/14 regular season looking at which teams have been hit hardest by injuries by trying to place a value on the games missed by players due to injury/illness. 

The concept again - multiply each game missed by a player by his 2013/14 cap charge (including bonuses), then take the aggregate of these figures for each team and divide by 82. This indicator of value lost to a team by injury/illness is called CHIP (Cap Hit of Injured Players).

This analysis covers every team up to its 20th game. (Amazingly, this follows on from my 10-game analysis.)

For a more regular snapshot, CHIP rankings are also being fed into Rob Vollman's Team Luck calculator on a weekly basis and I'll do my best to put out the same info via the medium known to Randy Carlyle as "that Wheatie machine or whatever" (@LW3H).

Alternatively...

Again, for a different indicator of player "value", I've also illustrated a similar metric based on TOI/G alongside the CHIP numbers.  Clearly, neither cap charge nor TOI/G are perfect measures of player value, since each have a number of limitations and inconsistencies, but they provide a decent comparison and the results do vary somewhat.

A quick summary of the alternative metric:

• TOI/G replaces cap charge as the measure of value in the calculation
• For goalies, TOI/G has been worked out as Total Minutes Played / Games Dressed For* - i.e. a goalie playing every minute of 75% of the games, zero in the rest, would end up with a TOI/G of 45 minutes (or close to it, once you factor in OT and so on).  [*Actually, "Games Played by Team - Games Missed by Goalie" - I'm not inclined to disentangle any three-goalie systems or minor-league conditioning stints.]
• This arguably overstates the worth of starting goalies somewhat, but it's simple and you could equally argue that a workhorse goalie is the hardest position to replace, so it's fair for them to have a much higher TOI/G figure
  
• Where a player hasn't played all year or where a player fairly clearly has a reduced TOI/G figure due to getting injured in their only game or one of very few games, I've used TOI/G from last season (or further back if necessary)
• For each player, multiply games missed by TOI/G to get (for a more palatable name) Cumulative Minutes of Injured Player (CMIP)
• Take the aggregate of CMIP for the team and divide by games played by the team to arrive at AMIP (Average Minutes of Injured Players) - it feels more understandable expressing this metric as an average per game (whereas CHIP is a running total)

The figures...
The table below shows:

• Total CHIP for each team over the first 20 games of the regular season, as well as the distribution of CHIP by position
• The player who has contributed most to the team's CHIP figure
• The number of players with a CHIP contribution of over $250,000 (think of it as being equivalent to a $1m player missing 20 games or a $4m player missing five games)
• AMIP for each team over the same period (e.g. an AMIP of 40:00 could be seen as the team missing two 20-minute per game players for every game this season) 

The following is a ranking of teams by CHIP over Games 11-20 only, to further illustrate some of the biggest movers since last time:

10 second analysis...

• The Central isn't injury central
• Boston, Philadelphia and (to a lesser extent) Tampa Bay have been much healthier than it would appear if you deduct the totals from their pseudo-retired players (see below)
• San Jose lead the way in Burns injuries
• Ottawa will presumably start injuring their own players, if they run any sort of points-to-injury correlation analysis covering last season and this season only
• Among Buffalo's throng of fringe NHLers/borderline AHLers/Grigorenkos, I had originally excluded Corey Tropp's (eventual 15-game) absence from their numbers, but have now included it since he played games 16-20

The next lists are the top 30 individual CHIP and CMIP contributions:

The CMIP table is goalie heavy (insert Brodeur gag here) as is usually the case.  Carolina with four of the top 17 CHIP numbers, giving opposition team announcers something to talk about in the 30 seconds they have to spare between "Look! Two brothers on the same team!" conversation.

Where does it hurt?
This is another update of the crude injury-by-location analysis. Again, I’ve just used the descriptions found in the player profiles on tsn.ca, so the figures will encompass all the inaccuracies and vagueness within them. It should give a broad indication, if nothing else, though.

 

An impressive early season showing for UBI/LBI cases, which only (?) made up 22% of the injury instances last season.  As more players have come back from injuries pre-dating the season starting, the crude rate of injuries (instances / total games played) has drifted down from 0.91 to 0.86, compared to 0.80 per game last year (0.78 in 2011/12 and 0.76 in 2010/11).

Finally, a look at the Evasiveness Index.  This is basically the proportion of injury instances for each team that have been described as either "Undisclosed" or the helpfully pointless "Upper/Lower Body" in the same TSN profiles.  I have made no judgement about whether the many instances of "Illness" (i.e. concussion), "Flu" (i.e. concussion) should also be included.

Phoenix and Carolina no strangers to the top of this table, Edmonton and Colorado no strangers to the other end.

Notes/Disclaimers

• Figures exclude a few minor-leaguers / marginal NHLers (usually an arbitrary judgement on my part) who had been on the NHL club’s IR since pre-season. Generally, if a minor-leaguer gets called up and then injured in an NHL game, his games missed will then count towards the CHIP though.  Minor-league conditioning stints immediately after/during a period on IR might be included in the man-games lost figures (but can't guarantee I get it right every time)
  
• For the avoidance of doubt, suspensions and absences due to "personal reasons" are not included in the figures.  However, as per previous seasons, any "retired" player still under contract (Savard, Pronger, Ohlund) is still included.
• There are undoubtedly a few inaccuracies and inconsistencies in there - I do the best I can with the information out there. Corrections might well be picked up in subsequent updates
  
• The cap figure obviously doesn't really correlate very well to the "worth" of a player in some cases, e.g. where players are seeing out an old (underpaid or rookie) contract or where players are horrendously overpaid and/or were signed by Paul Holmgren
• Also, for any player traded where cap hit is retained by his old team, the cap hit used will only reflect that for his current team.
• I've once again stuck a full team-by-team listing of games missed and CHIP/CMIP numbers by each player on the web HERE
• Injury/games/TOI info courtesy of tsn.ca and nhl.com - man-games lost info more than likely does not exactly match up with the "official" figures released by individual teams
  
• Cap info courtesy of capgeek.com

NHL man-games lost and CHIP analysis - 10-game report

This is my first look for the 2013/14 regular season looking at which teams have been hit hardest by injuries by trying to place a value on the games missed by players due to injury/illness.

The concept again - multiply each game missed by a player by his 2013/14 cap charge (including bonuses), then take the aggregate of these figures for each team and divide by 82. This indicator of value lost to a team by injury/illness is called CHIP (Cap Hit of Injured Players).

All being well, I'll be cutting the season into 10-game chunks for ease of comparability.  So this analysis covers every team up to its 10th game.  Blame the St. Louis Blues for being the last team to get there.

For a more regular snapshot, CHIP rankings are being fed into Rob Vollman's world-famous, Puck Daddy commenter approved, Team Luck calculator.  So go there, people.

Alternatively...

Again, for a different indicator of player "value", I've also illustrated a similar metric based on TOI/G alongside the CHIP numbers.  Clearly, neither cap charge nor TOI/G are perfect measures of player value, since each have a number of limitations and inconsistencies, but they provide a decent comparison and the results do vary somewhat.

A quick summary of the alternative metric:

• TOI/G replaces cap charge as the measure of value in the calculation
• For goalies, TOI/G has been worked out as Total Minutes Played / Games Dressed For* - i.e. a goalie playing every minute of 75% of the games, zero in the rest, would end up with a TOI/G of 45 minutes (or close to it, once you factor in OT and so on).  [*Actually, "Games Played by Team - Games Missed by Goalie" - I'm not inclined to disentangle any three-goalie systems or minor-league conditioning stints.]
• This arguably overstates the worth of starting goalies somewhat, but it's simple and you could equally argue that a workhorse goalie is the hardest position to replace, so it's fair for them to have a much higher TOI/G figure
  
• Where a player hasn't played all year or where a player fairly clearly has a reduced TOI/G figure due to getting injured in their only game or one of very few games, I've used TOI/G from last season (or further back if necessary)
• For each player, multiply games missed by TOI/G to get (for a more palatable name) Cumulative Minutes of Injured Player (CMIP)
• Take the aggregate of CMIP for the team and divide by games played by the team to arrive at AMIP (Average Minutes of Injured Players) - it feels more understandable expressing this metric as an average per game (whereas CHIP is a running total)

The figures...
The table below shows:

• Total CHIP for each team over the first 10 games of the regular season, as well as the distribution of CHIP by position
• The player who has contributed most to the team's CHIP figure
• The number of players with a CHIP contribution of over $250,000 (think of it as being equivalent to a $1m player missing 20 games or a $4m player missing five games)
• AMIP for each team over the same period (e.g. an AMIP of 40:00 could be seen as the team missing two 20-minute per game players for every game this season) 

10 second analysis...

The Sharks have obviously struggled badly without Marty Havlát, Raffi Torres, Adam Burish and Tomáš Hertl's sense of respect and dignity.  Meanwhile, the Kings, Blackhawks and Blues are demonstrating that they don't have enough grit and toughness to play in the gritty, tough areas needed to be successful.

The next lists are the top 30 individual CHIP and CMIP contributions:

Rick Nash aside, most of the CHIP leaders have been out all for all 10 games, which Nash tells me is "good".

Where does it hurt?
This is another update of the crude injury-by-location analysis. Again, I’ve just used the descriptions found in the player profiles on tsn.ca, so the figures will encompass all the inaccuracies and vagueness within them. It should give a broad indication, if nothing else, though.

 

Clearly very early days (and no attempt made to adjust for injuries pre-dating the season starting), but the crude rate of injuries (instances / total games played) stands at 0.91, compared to 0.80 per game last year (0.78 in 2011/12 and 0.76 in 2010/11).

Notes/Disclaimers

• Figures exclude a few minor-leaguers / marginal NHLers (usually an arbitrary judgement on my part) who had been on the NHL club’s IR since pre-season. Generally, if a minor-leaguer gets called up and then injured in an NHL game, his games missed will then count towards the CHIP though.  Minor-league conditioning stints immediately after/during a period on IR might be included in the man-games lost figures (but can't guarantee I get it right every time)
  
• For the avoidance of doubt, suspensions and absences due to "personal reasons" are not included in the figures.  However, as per previous seasons, any "retired" player still under contract (Savard, Pronger, Ohlund) is still included.
• There are undoubtedly a few inaccuracies and inconsistencies in there - I do the best I can with the information out there. Corrections might well be picked up in subsequent updates
  
• The cap figure obviously doesn't really correlate very well to the "worth" of a player in some cases, e.g. where players are seeing out an old (underpaid or rookie) contract or where players are horrendously overpaid and/or were signed by Paul Holmgren
• Also, for any player traded where cap hit is retained by his old team, the cap hit used will only reflect that for his current team.
• I've once again stuck a full team-by-team listing of games missed and CHIP/CMIP numbers by each player on the web HERE
• Injury/games/TOI info courtesy of tsn.ca and nhl.com - man-games lost info more than likely does not exactly match up with the "official" figures released by individual teams
  
• Cap info courtesy of capgeek.com

The Pain Game 2013 - per-game breakdown (East)

Having already looked at the Western Conference, below is a graphical breakdown of man-games lost to injury/illness (MGL) and the corresponding cap-hit of each injured player (CHIP) across the entire 2013 (ir)regular season for each team in the Eastern Conference as was, along with the team's rolling/cumulative Fenwick 5v5 close.

See the link above for a marginally more comprehensive explanation.

Data sourced from extraskater.com and tsn.ca.

[Click to enlarge charts]

Boston Bruins (season aggregates - MGL: 101, CHIP: $4,252k)

Basically healthy over the first half (excluding the Savardian baseline), before a handful of injuries over the second. The dip in possession numbers over Games 36-41 does neatly coincide with Patrice Bergeron's absence.

Buffalo Sabres (MGL: 132, CHIP: $5,176k)

Game 28's OT loss to the Senators clearly the high point of the season.

Carolina Hurricanes (MGL: 167, CHIP: $6,897k) 

A generally decent possession team, enough blue ink on the right-hand side of the chart to paint "Cam Ward is our only NHL goalie" in 10-foot high letters on the side of their building.

Florida Panthers (MGL: 325, CHIP: $10,136k) 

More of a struggle over the last 10 games or so, when presumably a better quality group of overpaid third liners was out compared to the group of overpaid third liners that was out over the previous 20 games.

Montreal Canadiens (MGL: 132, CHIP: $2,654k) 

Another team pretty much healthy over most of the first half of the season, although heroically overcoming the devastating absence of Tomas Kaberle in Game 4.

New Jersey Devils (MGL: 91, CHIP: $3,641k) 

The enormous rising levels of red ink will surely begin to subside over the next season.

New York Islanders (MGL: 85, CHIP: $1,059k) 

Freakishly, the blue bars are also a near-perfect representation of the cost of the DiPietro buyout over the next 48 years.

New York Rangers (MGL: 140, CHIP: $3,708k) 

Who was injured when?  None of your damn business.  Next question.

Ottawa Senators (MGL: 229, CHIP: $10,055k) 

Very injury-hit all season, but the middle stretch particularly notable - the heaviest patch of injuries, declining possession numbers, #1 goalie out, but still relatively successful.

Philadelphia Flyers (MGL: 312, CHIP: $10,239k) 

All injury numbers subject to Pronger-inflation, but a noticeable second-half swoon/towel-throwing, in particular everyone associated with the team struggling to cope without Zac Rinaldo over the last 12 games.

Pittsburgh Penguins (MGL: 79, CHIP: $5,399k) 

Whereas the absence of possession sink-hole Sidney Crosby over the Penguins' last 12 games had no noticeable effect whatsoever.

Tampa Bay Lightning (MGL: 152, CHIP: $5,468k) 

I might have actually used the team save percentage for the red line here, on closer inspection...

Toronto Maple Leafs (MGL: 92, CHIP: $2,763k) 

A lot of gritty play causing some injuries over the first half, then a lot of gritty play to protect their teammates, play through injury and/or a significant reduction in helmet heat over the second half.

Washington Capitals (MGL: 153, CHIP: $5,173k) 

Who knows how much more successful the Capitals could have been had Tom Poti not been healthy for half the season?

Winnipeg Jets (MGL: 180, CHIP: $4,177k) 

The likelihood of injuries presumably increased by the many extra miles logged due to the Jets' brutal travel schedule in the Southeast Division and the need to walk around Dustin Byfuglien to get out of the dressing room.

The Pain Game 2013 - per-game breakdown (West)

Having seen one or two examples of trends in team performance being illustrated by charts of possession-proxy metrics at a game-by-game level (examples below), I figured I could attempt to show injury statistics in a similar way, restrospectively at least - it remains to be seen whether tracking the numbers on such a frequent basis for the upcoming season is a viable prospect or a Hugh Jessiman.

NHL Numbers: Western Conference Rolling Team Corsi

NHL Numbers: Half-Season Team Fenwick Close

Extra Skater: Team Stats (LA Kings)

So, what follows is a breakdown of man-games lost to injury/illness (MGL) and the corresponding cap-hit of each injured player (CHIP) across the entire 2013 (ir)regular season for what was once known as the Western Conference.  Hopefully self-evident, but if not, the figure inside the x-axis is the MGL for each game (i.e. number of players missing), the blue bar is CHIP for the game ($k against the right-hand axis).

I've also added the rolling/cumulative Fenwick 5v5 close (red line against the left-hand axis), if only for a broad indication of team performance trends.  Definitely not wise to place too much emphasis on the comparison between injury absences and performances, especially at an individual game level - clearly, many other factors come into play - but it adds a bit of context.  For the avoidance of doubt, absences not due to injury/illness (e.g. healthy scratches, suspensions) are not captured here and who is or isn't included in the numbers is subject to the psuedo-abitrary rulings I normally apply throughout the year.

Data sourced from extraskater.com and tsn.ca.

[Click to enlarge charts]

Anaheim Ducks (season aggregates - MGL: 70, CHIP: $1,660k)

Not much going on here, for what was a largely healthy Ducks team.

Calgary Flames (MGL: 136, CHIP: $3,383k)

The CHIP spike for Games 8-20 mostly due to Miikka Kiprusoff's absence, which obviously shouldn't feed through to possession numbers anyway.  Nice to see that the tanking/awfulness from the midpoint flourished regardless of the degree of health.

Chicago Blackhawks (MGL: 98, CHIP: $3,852k)

As you would expect, the domination of the Hawks only really got going once Dan Carcillo became available to be healthy scratched from Game 17 on.

Colorado Avalanche (MGL: 154, CHIP: $5,467k)

Well, the first few games were enjoyable...

Columbus Blue Jackets (MGL: 137, CHIP: $4,166k) 

As you would expect, the return to relative health of the Jackets only really got going once Marian Gaborik joined the roster from Game 37 on.

Dallas Stars (MGL: 93, CHIP: $2,611k) 

See Calgary's second half, only without the injuries.

Detroit Red Wings (MGL: 247, CHIP: $6,966k) 

A possibly misleading uptick over the last dozen games, unless you really think Kyle Quincey's return to the line-up was that important.

Edmonton Oilers (MGL: 217, CHIP: $5,689k) 

The absence of the vital attributes supplied by Ryan Jones, Ben Eager and Theo Peckham missing over the early stretch simply torpedoed the Oilers' season.

Los Angeles Kings (MGL: 103, CHIP: $3,900) 

Good team.  Willie Mitchell and Matt Greene injured.  Fin.

Minnesota Wild (MGL: 91, CHIP: $2,804k) 

Another generally healthy team until the late absences of former goalscorers Dany Heatley, Mike Rupp and Zenon Konopka.

Nashville Predators (MGL: 130, CHIP: $3,651k) 

Another team for which it's difficult to make the case that injuries were a major contributing factor to being out of playoff contention.

Phoenix Coyotes (MGL: 115, CHIP: $3,323k) 

Lines and bars that stubbornly refuse to move north, however much everybody expects them to.

San Jose Sharks (MGL: 96, CHIP: $2,626k) 

The last of the relatively healthy Pacific Division teams - looks like they did benefit from this over the last 15-16 games.

St. Louis Blues (MGL: 122, CHIP: $3,873k) 

Clearly a much healthier first half than second, but also some serious mean-reversion going on with the possession numbers.

Vancouver Canucks (MGL: 160, CHIP: $6,500k) 

Ryan Kesler played Games 13-19 and 39-48, FYI. 

The Pain Game: 5-year analysis (2008/09 - 2012/13) - Part II

This is the second of what will undoubtedly be a brief series of data dumps and inconclusive-yet-attractive charts aggregated over the last five (four and a bit...) NHL regular seasons, updated to include the bit that was the 2013 bit of a season.

Analyses of individual seasons (including explanations of the CHIP figures and their limitations) plus my previous aggregate analysis (aggreganalysis?) are at the following links:

2008/09

2009/10

2010/11

2011/12

2013 

4-year analysis (2008/09 - 2011/12)

5-year analysis (2008/09 - 2012/13) - Part I

Firstly, an updated ranking of teams by aggregate CHIP over the last five seasons (playoff teams highlighted; click to enlarge image):

Again, no obvious strong correlation between playoff qualification and the degree and quantity of injuries/illnesses suffered (see Part I for a more detailed representation of this).  Clearly still some quite wide differences in aggregate CHIP and MGL between top and bottom over the whole period.

As touched on in my end of season analysis, no great evidence to suggest that the incidence of injuries in the compressed season was greater than in previous years and the aggregate league CHIP figure as a proportion of the pro-rated cap was actually marginally the lowest of the five year sample.

The same figures grouped by division:

As was notable last year, the Pacific still appears to have suffered significantly fewer and less costly injuries (the four teams at the bottom of the aggregate CHIP table are all Pacific teams), the gap widening further since last year.  Just attributable to random variation over a relatively short period or a sign of better injury management or prevention by those teams (despite the complaining about travel schedules)?

The Pain Game: 5-year analysis (2008/09 - 2012/13) - Part I

This is the first of what will undoubtedly be a brief series of data dumps and inconclusive-yet-attractive charts aggregated over the last five (four and a bit...) NHL regular seasons, updated to include the bit that was the 2013 bit of a season.

Analyses of individual seasons (including explanations of the CHIP figures and their limitations) plus my previous aggregate analysis (aggreganalysis?) are at the following links:

2008/09

2009/10

2010/11

2011/12

2013 

4-year analysis (2008/09 - 2011/12)

 Is there a correlation between injuries and a team's performance?

This is a plot of standings points per game against CHIP per game for each team over the last five seasons (click to enlarge):

 

By no means a comprehensive or detailed analysis - I suspect there are more than a few confounding variables creating a lot of noise - but this does at least suggest the correlation might not be as strong as you might initially expect (the R-squared coefficient is only 0.057, for what it's worth).

Do injuries increase with age?

Again, a reasonably crude measure, but the following chart shows total man-games lost to injury/illness over the last five seasons, distributed by the age of the player (as at the 1 January during each season - or before the 2013 season), plus the total number of games played by all players.

I've not attempted to make any adjustment for the fact that some of the games missed are attributable to season-long or career-ending absences, or that the games played number for goalies doesn't reflect the number of games they were available and dressed for.

A fairly useful illustration of the age profile of the NHL player population and the distribution of injury absences, but to make this a bit clearer, the next chart shows the crude proportion of games missed by each age cohort, expressed as MGL / (MGL + GP):

Sample sizes get pretty sketchy below age 20 and towards the late-30s, unsurprisingly, but enough here I think to support the ultra-controversial hypothesis that old people get stashed on LTIR by the Flyers when not wanted hurt more for longer.

Part II may well include another big fat grid of MGL and CHIP numbers by team and division over the five-year period, perhaps including an adjustment for distorting season-long absences.  Hold your breath.