The Pain Game 2013 - First Quarter Report

Injury stats update – Q1 analysis


[Editor's note: Slight revision from the tables initially published - I managed to miss Jared Cowen's absence first time around, as he's not on the Senators' NHL injury list.]

[Editor's second note: Further updated to add Theo Peckham to the Oilers' totals - reflected in the main table below, but I haven't bothered to update the other lists.]

This is my first look for the 2012/13 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 (annual) 2012/13 cap charge, 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).

Note that for reasons of comparability, players' cap hits being published as full-season equivalents and above all, laziness, I have made no attempt to adjust the calculations to account for the 48-game season.

Rather than measuring the figures at month ends, as I have done in previous seasons, I'll be cutting the shortened season into 12-game chunks. This has the positive aspect of comparing teams on a more equal footing, the negative aspect of having to wait until every team has passed the relevant games-played mark (so apologies for the data being a bit out-of-date for the Dallas Stars in particular, who appear to have finished their entire schedule before everybody else reached 12 games).

So this analysis covers every team up to what I understand should be known as the three-quarter pole, not the quarter pole, which is in fact Wojtek Wolski.

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 12 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 Flyers at the top, though to some degree an inflated figure given Chris Pronger assuming his position in the Rathje/Laperriere/Betts Flyer Who Was Never Going To Play At All This Season comfy chair.  The Red Wings have had the most man-games missed by a distance, but more from an accumulation of separate (and middling CHIP) absences - the Wings' figures also exclude Joey MacDonald's pre-waiver absence, possibly controversially (if only in the MacDonald household) since presumed regular backup, Jonas Gustavsson was out at the same time.

Vancouver are relatively high up, despite only having two players out (Kesler and Booth missing all 12 games so far). At the bottom, the Wild have had but a single injury, the unfortunate Jared Spurgeon suffering the consequences of Ryan Suter's wallet falling on his foot. Perhaps most remarkably of all, a certain bench door-opener of the Brooklyn Wangers appears to have been opening bench doors unhindered for almost an entire month.

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

A few clearly unrealistic figures in the CMIP table from having to use TOI from a previous season, sometimes with a different team in a different role.

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.

 

If you ignore the large bell with "SMALL SAMPLE SIZE" painted on it that is ringing in your head, it's clear that groin injuries caused by the shortened training camps have exploded (the number, not the groins) as many pundits expected, up from being 7% of instances and 8% of total man-games lost last year.

Similarly, the rate of injuries (instances / total games played) has increased from 0.78 per game last year (0.76 in 2010/11) to 0.89 per game so far this year.  I'd suggest this is still pretty meaningless, since I've not accounted for injuries that pre-dated when each season actually started.

Notes/Disclaimers

• Figures exclude a few minor-leaguers / marginal NHLers (usually an arbitrary judgement on my part - you tell me whether Matt Taormina is/was still an NHLer...) 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)
  
• There are undoubtedly a few inaccuracies and inconsistencies in there - I do the best I can with the information out there. Some corrections are picked up month-to-month too
  
• The cap figure obviously doesn't really correlate very well to the "worth" of a player in some cases, e.g. where rookie bonuses are included this year, where players are seeing out an old (underpaid or rookie) contract or where players are horrendously overpaid
• Also, for any player who was acquired on re-entry waivers, the cap hit will only reflect that for their current team, i.e. 50% of the player’s full cap hit (shared between his current and old teams). I guess I'll take a similar approach to a player traded where cap hit is retained by his old team, but presumably this will never happen until Brian Burke gets back in the league anyway.
• 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

Lockout over: Insider reactions

As the interminable NHL Lockout III has finally come to and end, formalities aside, of course there will be a flood of comment from league executives, players, coaches and media to keep up with for those fans who have not been turned off the NHL for good.

Not wishing to be any different, here are a small handful of reactions and insights that might have slipped though the filters of Dreger, LeBrun et al.

Steve Tambellini: “I’m excited by the opportunity to now have 14 different ways to win the draft lottery.”

Rick DiPietro: “The pensions issue was important, as I wanted other players to enjoy the security of a healthy, guaranteed income many years after they can no longer play.”

Paul Holmgren: “The amnesty buyout provisions mean I will still have enough cap space to sign Steve Mason to a 7-year, $40m deal once I let Bryz go.”

Don Cherry: “YA KNOW, THIS BECKHAMBAR FELLA COMES OVER FROM GERMANIA AND GETS ALL THE KODOS AND EVERYTHINK FROM YOU MEDIA TYPES. HOW SOON WE FORGET, EH?”

Alex Kovalev: “True, I’m no longer an NHLer, but once he heard the sides were putting in a 16-hour shift, Mike Keenan insisted I flew down to join the talks.”

Raffi Torres: “The owners were worried about the long term financial risk of funding the players’ pensions, but we assured them that we would do everything we can as a group to keep our life expectancy really low.”

Brian Burke: “Our fans should be grateful that I have ensured the Maple Leafs will be playing games beyond the first week of April this year.”

Jay Feaster: “After the last lockout caused problems for me in fitting contracts under the cap in Tampa, it’s gratifying that my hard work and that of my predecessor has left the Flames with so much cap flexibility to go with a young, contending roster.”

Marc Bergevin: “This buyout calculator on capgeek.com is good. I only have to type ‘Sc’ and it auto-completes to ‘Welcome back, Marc. Why not just bookmark this page to save time?’”

Jim Rutherford: “So if contract term limits differ for signing your own free agents compared to others, how long can I sign Joe Corvo for the next three times I re-acquire him?”

Mike Babcock: “I’m just a coach, so I don’t worry about the cap and that stuff. It’s not like I have to replace Nick Lidstrom in the line-up with Carlo Colaiacovo or anything.”

Greg Jamison: “Thank God that embarrassing, seemingly endless dispute over money, perpetuated by excruciating posturing and tedious legal interventions is over.”

Board of the Lockout: Part Two

[Now updated to cover all 30 teams]

Much of the frustration of fans and players during the ongoing NHL work stoppage / owners' lockout / "lack of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement" has been that while players have been entirely free to express their opinions and put their names to in-no-way-at-all-coordinated social media commentary on their league adversaries, the NHL's gag order on team executives leaves everyone in the dark about whether there is a split among owners or what Lou Lamoriello would put on his Instagram account.

As the NHL Board of Governors prepares to meet later this week in order to decide exactly what to select next from their vast menu of P.R. screw ups, little is known about many of the diverse individuals rich, old, white men that sit on the Board.

Here is a brief snippet of information on these people, resulting from several months of investigative journalism (bolstered by 10-15 minutes skimming Wikipedia and bios on team websites):

Anaheim Ducks: Henry Samueli
After acquiring the team from the Walt Disney Company and changing its name from the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, to avoid being associated with a Mickey Mouse operation, Mr. Samueli is presumably recommending to the Board of Governors that the league in future be known as the National Hockey League of Mighty F***- ups for the reverse reason.

Boston Bruins: Jeremy M. Jacobs
Serving on the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board and described as "a leading advocate for tourism in the United States", Mr. Jacobs has been credited with the recent upsurge in visitors to destinations such as Providence, RI, Peoria, IL and Oklahoma City.

Buffalo Sabres: Terrence M. Pegula
After apparently telling his business partner in 1983: “If I ever have more than two nickels to my name, I’m going to buy the Buffalo Sabres one day”, Mr. Pegula has now been reprimanded by Commisioner Bettman and his fellow Governors for giving the impression to players that NHL franchises could possibly be worth in excess of 11 cents.

Calgary Flames: N. Murray Edwards
Mr. Edwards employs over 15,000 people across numerous companies, with an impressive 11,500 of these not having been acquired in lopsided trades with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Carolina Hurricanes: Peter Karmanos Jr.
69 years old and of Greek descent, Mr. Karmanos is viewed with some suspicion by his fellow Governors, who only know him as “that Chelios guy”.

Chicago Blackhawks: W. Rockwell "Rocky" Wirtz
Mr. Wirtz managed the Judge & Dolph Ltd liquor distributorship until October 2007, opting to step down thanks to the kindly suggestion of newly-drafted Patrick Kane that he could “handle it from here”.

Colorado Avalanche: Josh Kroenke
Although Mr. Kroenke’s father, Stan, is the owner of Kroenke Sports Enterprises, which includes the Avalanche as well as several other sports franchises, the Avalanche are in the name of Josh, to satisfy NFL ownership restrictions that forbid a team owner being dumb enough to also be an NHL owner.

Columbus Blue Jackets: John P. McConnell
Mr. McConnell is CEO of Worthington Industries, a company whose philosophy is "an unwavering commitment to the customer, and one of the strongest employee/employer partnerships in American industry" and majority owner of the Blue Jackets, whose philosophy isn't.

Dallas Stars: Tom Gaglardi
In talking about his organisation's teamworking philosophy, Mr. Gaglardi states that "We will all be pulling the same rope", said rope being the one used to pull Senior Adviser, Bob Gainey's hand away from the telephone when he's thinking about calling Glen Sather.

Detroit Red Wings: Mike Ilitch
Despite having little or no direct involvement in the team’s achievements, each of Mr. Ilitch’s seven children has his or her name engraved on the Stanley Cup, barely leaving any room for Chris Osgood’s name.

Edmonton Oilers: Daryl Katz
After the empty threat to move his team and the stockpiling of successive lottery pick impact forwards, Mr. Katz is believed to be considering whether his next step is to add 1,723 NHL points to his resume or to just let Nail Yakupov live in his basement.

Florida Panthers: Cliff Viner
Mr. Viner is quoted as seeking three things when interviewing potential employees: "Character, character and character." Since this is clearly only one thing, it is believed the other two things are "willingness to accept an inflated salary to get my team above the salary floor and a large ticket-buying family".

Los Angeles Kings: Timothy J. Leiweke
As President and CEO of AEG, operators of over 100 entertainment and sporting venues, including Sprint Center (Kansas City, MO), Ahoy Arena (Rotterdam) and Wukesong Arena (Beijing), Mr. Leiweke is currently sharing with the Board his vast expertise at making money out of buildings with absolutely no hockey in them.

Minnesota Wild: Craig Leipold
Mr. Leipold "first was considered a potential owner or investor in the NBA ... He attributed this interest to the fact that he knew the sport of basketball well. He became interested in ownership of a professional ice hockey franchise because there were more opportunities than in basketball." It is unknown why Mr. Leipold has such an affinity with Commissioner Bettman.

Montreal Canadiens: Geoff Molson
A 40-year-old Twitter user, Mr. Molson's personal ambition is to someday be allowed by Jeremy Jacobs to speak at a Board meeting or to be allowed to get up to use the bathroom.

Nashville Predators: Joel Dobberpuhl
After turning down applications from Warren Woo, Thomas G. Cigarran, Christopher C. Cigarran, Herbert A. Fritch, DeWitt C. Thompson V and DeWitt C. Thompson VI in the belief they were fake names, the Board of Governors finally settled on accepting Mr. Dobberpuhl to be the representative of the Predators' ownership group.

New Jersey Devils: Lou Lamoriello
Despite the obvious differences in background, team-building philosophy and harmony with league officials, Mr. Lamoriello is understood to side with Rangers’ owner James Dolan on financial issues during Board meetings, as both teams derive the majority of their revenue from the attendance of Rangers fans.

New York Islanders: Charles B. Wang
In his business career, Mr. Wang was involved in many acquisitions said to involve “the immediate termination of top management and key employees”, two things which he hasn’t had to worry about in his hockey ownership career for some reason.

New York Rangers: James L. Dolan
Universally popular with Rangers fans, Mr. Dolan has earned lavish praise for his personnel decisions, such as not hiring Isiah Thomas as Rangers G.M. and not hiring Isiah Thomas as Rangers coach.

Ottawa Senators: Eugene Melnyk
Mr. Melynk is a significant investor in biopharmaceutical research and development, as evidenced by the impressive $16m commitment to trial technology designed to keep Sergei Gonchar on the ice beyond his natural human capabilities.

Philadelphia Flyers: Ed Snider
Thanks to Mr. Snider’s vision of "Take what you do well and grow it”, the local economy continues to experience double-digit annual growth in the Horrific Goaltending and Hypocritical Long-Term Contract sectors.

Phoenix Coyotes: Nathaniel H. League
A reclusive owner, who hasn’t been seen in public since June 2012.

Pittsburgh Penguins: David Morehouse
Mr. Morehouse is credited with increasing the Penguins' commercial success due to his emphasis on branding and marketing, concepts the NHL would love to capitalise on, stymied only by the league's failure to find a Penguins player to brand and market the absolute hell out of.

San Jose Sharks: Kevin Compton
Mr. Compton assumed the role of the Sharks’ governor when fellow owner, Greg Jamison, became involved with a group looking to purchase the Phoenix Coyotes, but is due to relinquish the position back to Mr. Jamison when the Coyotes sale process finally falls through in the year 2435.

St. Louis Blues: Tom Stillman
As the newest member of the NHL Board of Governors, Mr. Stillman was recently subjected to a traumatic and lengthy rookie hazing ritual, by being forced to attend a meeting of the NHL Board of Governors.

Tampa Bay Lightning: Jeff Vinik
After becoming owner of the Lightning, Mr. Vinik pledged to construct a team of which fans would be proud "on and off the ice", and has taken under three years to fulfil both parts of that mission.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Larry Tanenbaum
Mr. Tanenbaum also serves as a Governor for the NBA's Toronto Raptors and MLS team, Toronto FC, thus gaining valuable insight from almost trebling his exposure to executives of sports teams more successful than his.

Vancouver Canucks: Francesco Aquilini
Mr. Aquilini is described as “both a starter and closer”, making the number of Italian-Canadian starters associated with the Canucks two / one. [Delete as appropriate depending on whether you are reading before or after one minute past the end of the lockout]

Washington Capitals: Ted Leonsis
Mr. Leonsis also serves on the board of directors of Groupon, though his ideas about making offers involving ridiculous discounts with several unattractive conditions attached are understood to be thought of as “extreme and unrealistic” by the Groupon board.

Winnipeg Jets: Mark Chipman
Long before re-locating the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers, Mr. Chipman and his ownership group moved the Moose from Minnesota to Manitoba, the remainder of his vast fortune in the Canadian logistics industry presumably earned from delivering beavers to Saskatchewan, maple syrup to Nunavut and bags of milk to Don Cherry's Eskimo farm.

Board of the Lockout: Part One (?)

Much of the frustration of fans and players during the ongoing NHL work stoppage / owners' lockout / "lack of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement" has been that while players have been entirely free to express their opinions and put their names to in-no-way-at-all-coordinated social media commentary on their league adversaries, the NHL's gag order on team executives leaves everyone in the dark about whether there is a split among owners or what Lou Lamoriello would put on his Instagram account.

As the NHL Board of Governors prepares to meet next week in order to decide exactly what to select next from their vast menu of P.R. screw ups, little is known about many of the diverse individuals rich, old white men that sit on the Board.

Here is a brief snippet of information on some of these people, resulting from several months of investigative journalism (bolstered by 10-15 minutes skimming Wikipedia and bios on team websites):

Boston Bruins: Jeremy M. Jacobs
Serving on the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Board and described as "a leading advocate for tourism in the United States", Mr. Jacobs has been credited with the recent upsurge in visitors to destinations such as Providence, RI, Peoria, IL and Oklahoma City.

Carolina Hurricanes: Peter Karmanos Jr.
69 years old and of Greek descent, Mr. Karmanos is viewed with some suspicion by his fellow Governors, who only know him as “that Chelios guy”.

Chicago Blackhawks: W. Rockwell "Rocky" Wirtz
Mr. Wirtz managed the Judge & Dolph Ltd liquor distributorship until October 2007, opting to step down thanks to the kindly suggestion of newly-drafted Patrick Kane that he could “handle it from here”.

Colorado Avalanche: Josh Kroenke
Although Mr. Kroenke’s father, Stan, is the owner of Kroenke Sports Enterprises, which includes the Avalanche as well as several other sports franchises, the Avalanche are in the name of Josh, to satisfy NFL ownership restrictions that forbid a team owner being dumb enough to also be an NHL owner.

Columbus Blue Jackets: John P. McConnell
Mr. McConnell is CEO of Worthington Industries, a company whose philosophy is "an unwavering commitment to the customer, and one of the strongest employee/employer partnerships in American industry" and majority owner of the Blue Jackets, whose philosophy isn't.

Detroit Red Wings: Mike Ilitch
Despite having little or no direct involvement in the team’s achievements, each of Mr. Ilitch’s seven children has his or her name engraved on the Stanley Cup, barely leaving any room for Chris Osgood’s name.

Edmonton Oilers: Daryl Katz
After the empty threat to move his team and the stockpiling of successive lottery pick impact forwards, Mr. Katz is believed to be considering whether his next step is to add 1,723 NHL points to his resume or to just let Nail Yakupov live in his basement.

New York Islanders: Charles B. Wang
In his business career, Mr. Wang was involved in many acquisitions said to involve “the immediate termination of top management and key employees”, two things which he hasn’t had to worry about in his hockey ownership career for some reason.

New York Rangers: James L. Dolan
Universally popular with Rangers fans, Mr. Dolan has earned lavish praise for his personnel decisions, such as not hiring Isiah Thomas as Rangers G.M. and not hiring Isiah Thomas as Rangers coach.

Philadelphia Flyers: Ed Snider
Thanks to Mr. Snider’s vision of "Take what you do well and grow it”, the local economy continues to experience double-digit annual growth in the Horrific Goaltending and Hypocritical Long-Term Contract sectors.

Phoenix Coyotes: Nathaniel H. League
A reclusive owner, who hasn’t been seen in public since June 2012.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Larry Tanenbaum
Mr. Tanenbaum also serves as a Governor for the NBA's Toronto Raptors and MLS team, Toronto FC, thus gaining valuable insight from almost trebling his exposure to executives of sports teams more successful than his.

Vancouver Canucks: Francesco Aquilini
Mr. Aquilini is described as “both a starter and closer”, making the number of Italian-Canadian starters associated with the Canucks two / one. [Delete as appropriate depending on whether you are reading before or after one minute past the end of the lockout]

Washington Capitals: Ted Leonsis
Mr. Leonsis also serves on the board of directors of Groupon, though his ideas about making offers involving ridiculous discounts with several unattractive conditions attached are understood to be thought of as “extreme and unrealistic” by the Groupon board.

Winnipeg Jets: Mark Chipman
Long before re-locating the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers, Mr. Chipman and his ownership group moved the Moose from Minnesota to Manitoba, the remainder of his vast fortune in the Canadian logistics industry presumably earned from delivering beavers to Saskatchewan, maple syrup to Nunavut and bags of milk to Don Cherry's Eskimo farm.

NHL message to the fans - breaking it down

The following message to fans was issued by the National Hockey League on Sunday:

After being scrawled on a napkin by Bill Daly on Saturday.

Despite the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement…

Let’s make it sound as serious as facing the expiration of the last yoghurt in your refrigerator.

…the National Hockey League has been…

Scott Gomez? Oh, that doesn't read “National Hockey League has-been”.

…and remains…

Chelios?

…committed to negotiating around the clock…

This clock just seems to be situated in an entirely different location to wherever the Players are negotiating.

…to reach a new CBA that is fair to the Players and to the 30 NHL teams.

But to paraphrase Mike Milbury, all CBAs are created fair to the Players, but some are more fair than others.

Thanks to the conditions fostered by seven seasons under the previous CBA…

Which, ergo, was an unmitigated disaster for the League from the start.

…competitive balance has created arguably the most meaningful regular season in pro sports…

Just think how much more arguably meaningful we can make it by slashing it in half!

…a different team has won the Stanley Cup every year…

Though Vegas oddsmakers are strongly tipping the 2004/05 winners to triumph again this year.

…fans and sponsors have agreed the game is at its best…

Look, another group of faceless, wealth generators that you fans clearly have natural empathy with.

…and the League has generated remarkable growth and momentum.

Matched only by the League’s impending generation of remarkable stagnation and regression.

While our last CBA negotiation resulted in a seismic change…

[Insert Dustin Byfuglien summer diet joke here]

…in the League's economic system…

i.e. Bobby Holik being restricted to only 57% of League revenues in future.

…and produced corresponding on-ice benefits…

Fans and sponsors have agreed the shootout is wonderful.

…our current negotiation is focused on a fairer and more sustainable division…

Except for the Northwest Division, which will be garbage forever at this rate.

…of revenues with the Players as well as other necessary adjustments…

[Insert Dustin Byfuglien tailor joke here]

…consistent with the objectives of the economic system…

Lining Ed Snider’s caviar-plated pockets.

…we developed jointly with the NHL Players' Association seven years ago.

Whatever did happen to that lovely Mr Saskin?

Those adjustments are attainable through sensible, focused negotiation -- not through rhetoric.

That includes rhetorical questions such as: “These idiots can’t be stupid enough to cause another lockout, right?”

This is a time of year for all attention to be focused on the ice, not on a meeting room.

Which is why the League is staggered that the Players have not seriously considered its proposal to hold the playoffs across 12 Mexican cities during summer, ending in the re-branded Cancun StanCup Final in mid-September.

The League, the Clubs and the Players all have a stake in resolving our bargaining issues appropriately and getting the puck dropped as soon as possible.

Unless one Club’s fourth line Players have just iced the puck with no timeout available, where, as usual, that Club can suddenly discover several equipment problems preventing the puck from being dropped as soon as possible.

We owe it to each other…

“We” being the players, “it” being money and “each other” being the owners.

…to the game and, most of all, to the fans.

But we’re sure a disingenuous press release will keep you happy for a good couple of months.

The Pain Game 2011/12 - an attempt to use GVT

Throughout the regular season, my usual breakdown of the extent of injury/illness absences on NHL teams uses cap hit (CHIP) and TOI/G (AMIP) as weights to apply to each player, in an attempt to quantify the significance of any absences.  A fuller description is found with the end of year figures for 2011/12.

Both methods have more than a few imperfections (as noted) but offer a reasonable indication.  As a third - and probably final - weighting factor, I thought I'd try using GVT, as developed by Tom Awad and described at hockeyprospectus.com.  In disgracefully crude short form, this is a metric placing a relative value on a player's contribution to goals scored and conceded by his team.

So, rather than cap hit, for example, I've just used instead a player's average GVT per game (or for goalies, GVT per game available for) in the 2011/12 regular season (taken from www.hockeyabstract.com) as the weighting, producing a cumulative team figure I'll imaginatively call GVTIP.

Disclaimers:

• For players that missed the whole or the vast majority of the season, I've used the equivalent 2010/11 (or 2009/10) GVT figure.
• Unlike TOI/G used in deriving AMIP, the GVT figure does not account for any differences between the figures accrued with different teams during the season for players traded mid-season etc.
• The main drawback is sample size, in that GVT in only a single year (or part year) is likely to be a pretty volatile indicator of a player's relative value, so there are more than a few examples where a player's contribution - perhaps based on a handful of games only - to team GVTIP skews the result completely.  So I'm not guaranteeing it is foolproof by any means...

The reworked 2011/12 table, ranked by GVTIP with the other metrics for comparison:

 Thoughts:

•  Of the top three CHIP numbers, GVT is much more favourable towards the Penguins missing Crosby, Letang, Staal and Malkin (contributing about 41 goals of their deficit between them) than the Canadiens going without Gomez, Markov and Gionta and the Blue Jackets being deprived of Huselius, Martinek, Methot, Carter and Tyutin, for example
• The fact that Gomez and Markov each managed to get a negative GVT in their short periods of active duty actually imply that the Canadiens were several goals better off by them not being in the line-up for most of the year (told you there were distortions...) - believable for Gomez, perhaps not for Markov
• On a similar theme, most of the Islanders' absences are pretty insignificant in terms of GVT, except for Mr Anomaly himself, Rick DiPietro, whose stellar play in the three seconds of health he managed to muster skews the team number into strongly negative territory all by himself
• Conversely, the Blackhawks have a low CHIP number but are way up on GVTIP, largely due to Toews (fair enough) and Carcillo (okaaaayyyyy...)
• As I think would be expected - and partly expecting some of the relative movements above - the GVTIP table is more tilted towards playoff teams with higher team GVT at the top end. Perhaps an argument for using share of team GVT as the weighting of player value at a team level?

The Pain Game - 4-year analysis (2008/09 - 2011/12)

Another brief data dump of figures aggregated over the last four NHL regular seasons, surprisingly enough updated to include 2011/12.

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

2008/09

2009/10

2010/11

2011/12

3-year analysis (2008/09 - 2010/11)

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

Still no obvious correlation between playoff qualification and the degree and quantity of injuries/illnesses suffered.  The Islanders, Oilers and Wild (all long-term playoff absentees) sat in the top three positions for the table covering 2008/09 to 2010/11, but have all slipped down slightly since, mostly due to Messrs Markov and Crosby, plus the Flyers' rotating cast of retired-but-not-really-retired veterans.

The same figures grouped by division:

A bit over-simplistic, but still fairly interesting that the supposedly travel-weary Pacific has suffered both the fewest man-games lost and the lowest CHIP in each of the last four seasons (OK, two man-games away in 2008/09 from doing so), while the Atlantic has routinely been hit the hardest.  Maybe 95% due to Rick DiPietro, but interesting anyway...

The largest ten and smallest ten CHIP figures by a team in a single season over the last four:

No changes at all in the bottom 10.  The Canadiens in the year just gone comfortably surpassed the Blues' previous high watermark, although worth noting that their CHIP number was still a lower proportion of the overall cap compared to the Blues' number from three years before.

The largest ten CHIP figures accumulated by a player in a single season over the last four:

None too surprisingly, Crosby and Markov each make their second appearance here, joined by Kristian Huselius who had the good fortune to only have to play in two games for the Blue Jackets in 2011/12.