Hockey Metrics: Assessing Bickell

[Dejo]

http://www.nhl.com/ice/m_news.htm?id=713861&navid=M_DL|NHL|home

Some interesting stuff here.

MVP: Each of the Blackhawks' six world-class players had great seasons, but captain Jonathan Toews did it all before he got hurt. He led Chicago in CF% despite also facing the toughest competition, he won 57 percent of a ton of faceoffs, and he had 28 goals and 66 points in 76 games.

Surprise: Brandon Saad took a nice step forward in his sophomore season, and he and Teuvo Teravainen are going to be nice complements to the big four up front in the next couple of seasons. Saad only has one goal since Feb. 1, but he's still been solid in possession and looks like he might develop into an elite two-way player.

Disappointment: Here's another spot where advanced statistics has an answer for a curious occurrence. Bryan Bickell had a huge postseason and scored a hefty contract in the offseason. He has 11 goals and three assists this season, and his playing time has fluctuated greatly. Bickell has not been bad this season. He's been terribly unlucky at times.

Bickell's CF% (57.8) is among the best on a roster loaded with strong possession players, but his PDO (the team's shooting percentage plus save percentage when he's on the ice) is a comically low 95.6. The team is only shooting worse when Michal Handzus is on the ice and the goalies are stopping the puck better for everyone else. That's a fluke, and don't be surprised if he magically becomes a "playoff performer" again this spring.

 

[DMelt36]

Great post and thanks for sharing.

The mention of Bickell's PDO is particularly interesting. That statistic regresses heavily to a mean of 100 in virtually all cases, so a market correction resulting in more goals for Bickell is not out of the question.

It's also worth noting that he was so good in last year's playoff while skating alongside Toews and Kane. It's hard to not be a great player on that line.

 

[ClydeLee]

Great post and thanks for sharing.

The mention of Bickell's PDO is particularly interesting. That statistic regresses heavily to a mean of 100 in virtually all cases, so a market correction resulting in more goals for Bickell is not out of the question.

It's also worth noting that he was so good in last year's playoff while skating alongside Toews and Kane. It's hard to not be a great player on that line.

He was still playing great early with his more 3rd line pairs. He didn't have the guady numbers but each of the last 3 years Bickell played great in the playoffs, he's absolutely a key performer.

The bickell-bolland-frolik lines were the best performing in the 1 and done serieses.

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