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***boom*** · 02-18-2023, 08:29 PM

[1054 words plus graphs, ready for grading]

Disclaimer: I don't claim to be an expert at statistical analysis, but this was running with a joke that was in our LR this season. This is not meant to take anything away from the players who got 100+ points, they did very well and deserve to be recognized. I could be completely full of shit with this analysis, or I could be on to something. You'll have to decide for yourselves. I also admit I'm probably biased making this article, but this is more just for the fun of it than anything.

You probably read the title and burst out laughing. I get it, it's ridiculous to think a player could be "most valuable" when their team didn't go anywhere. But depending on how you look at things, it's actually possible for a player on one of the worst teams in the league to be the only reason the team went anywhere. But not only that, what if I told you there were potentially three such players? Read through this article and find out!

[Image: 4WdqhNM.png]

Starting with a quick introduction to the data, I've plotted every SHL team's leading scorer (in red) by point total compared to the second-place scorer on that team. All of these players are listed in alphabetical order of the way their teams are in the index, so Atlanta is first and Winnipeg is last. Konstantin Selich won the scoring title, while Minnesota was the only team not to have a player break 60 points on the year. This chart is messy, but don't worry, it'll get cleaner.

[Image: yLzetH2.png]

Here, the difference between 1st and 2nd place on every team has been isolated to show how much individual impact a player had on their team. This is a simplistic way to put it, but we can see some movement already. AllBran and Selich stay at the top, but 100-point scorer Gonzo Gobbledygook slides due to only being 2 points up on the Aurora's second-place player, and the Tampa Bay Barracuda were the only team to have a tie for first place (I just used Kozlov since that's what FHM had first). On the flipside, we do start to see some upward mobility from players like Sophie Bordeleau, Lord Raiden and Jimmy Larkin-Conway; while these players didn't put up the most points of the team scoring leaders, they did it with a lot less help.

While this is a decent start, there's still the factor that a team could simply have had two great players instead of just one, or had lots of depth, so I wanted to look at how each player "drove the bus" for their team's offense as a whole. Here, those same 20 players have been sorted by the percentage of their team's goals that they were involved in.

[Image: v1kXo2b.png]

This one was interesting since it started to reveal some information. Players like Selich and Cue remained at the top, but Evil AllBran slid a bit from being on a stacked Philadelphia offense while Gonzo Gobbledygook remains in 15th place, indicating that Winnipeg's offense was excellent with or without them. Things are getting interesting when it comes to some of the movers on the last chart. Both Jimmy Larkin-Conway and Raiden were involved on roughly 48% of their team's goals, indicating that their team's offenses sputtered without them on the ice to drive the play. This can also be seen when looking at possession stats, as Raiden, Bordeleau and Sarah Burke were all within the top four of CF% Rel in the league, a stat that measures a player's possession metrics relative to their team. (LAP's Yannick Svoboda, with 65 points, was the other.) Kozlov also jumps up the rankings as while he was in a tie for Tampa's scoring lead, the offense didn't do much else outside of them. I should also mention that Toronto, Baltimore and Los Angeles were the bottom three offenses in the league, so it may be that they were in on a high percentage of goals because someone had to be, but it's still impressive from these players that led their teams.

Lastly, I wanted to try and aggregate this data somewhat and try and display it in the context of team strength. Below, I've ranked these 20 players by two metrics as well as their team average TPE, all ranked from 1-20, 1 being the highest. I took the average TPE rank of every team (obtained through Asron) and subtracted from it their rank of the margin over 2nd place compared to every other team, and showed that in blue. I also subtracted from the TPE the rank of the percentage of goals that player was involved in to try and get the data all on one chart. A positive number indicates that the player had a greater relative contribution to their team compared to that team's TPE, or to say they "put the team on their back" more.

[Image: seanCPS.png]

Those names again. Lord Raiden, Jimmy Larkin-Conway, Sophie Bordeleau, Sarah Burke. Konstantin Selich remained near the top of the list and should be a favourite for MVP, while players like AllBran and Cue slid somewhat due to being on really good Atlanta and Philadelphia teams. Raiden, Larkin-Conway, Bordeleau and Selich were the only players to have a positive ranking in both metrics.

Putting everything together, it seems like an edge case could be made for JLC, Raiden or Bordeleau for MVP. All three of these players played on horrible teams deep in rebuilds and were 17th, 19th and 20th in average TPE. All three were responsible for outsized proportions of their team's offense, with Larkin-Conway and Raiden running away with it. Which one did more for their team largely depends on which metric you want to look at. Raiden and Bordeleau, being centres, had positive takeaway-giveaway ratios, with Raiden being a +24 in this regard, and both were an asset in the dot with positive numbers there. Bordeleau was the furthest above any other scorer on her team at +18 points. I think if I had to choose between these three, I would argue that Lord Raiden of the Baltimore Platoon did the most good for his team, as without him Baltimore wouldn't have been anywhere as close to the playoffs as they got, and therefore he deserves to be an MVP finalist. Do with that information what you will.

Raw Data

***luke*** · 02-18-2023, 08:55 PM

bad team = score less goals. Good player on bad team = more involved with goals = MVP?

***WannabeFinn*** · 02-18-2023, 08:59 PM

that’s one angle yeah

*Tomen* · 02-18-2023, 09:07 PM

When only 4/20 teams in this league don't make the playoffs then the case needs to be quite crazy good and record breaking for a player that is on said non playoffs teams. At least from my POV

Thank you all for the amazing sigs & player cards
Germany

3. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 5 (Maximilian Wachter, Alexis Metzler) at 16:25
5. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 6 (Steven Stamkos Jr., Brynjar Tusk) at 19:48
8. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 7 (Brynjar Tusk, Alexis Metzler) at 13:55
9. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 8 (Anton Fedorov, Mikelis Grundmanis) at 15:12
10. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 9 (Dickie Pecker) at 19:43 (Empty Net)

***Wally*** · 02-18-2023, 11:52 PM

@Grapehead for MVP is all I read. I approve.

***micool132*** · 02-19-2023, 12:02 AM

#vote4jaycue

***boom*** · 02-19-2023, 01:44 AM

02-18-2023, 09:07 PMTomen Wrote: When only 4/20 teams in this league don't make the playoffs then the case needs to be quite crazy good and record breaking for a player that is on said non playoffs teams. At least from my POV

For sure, it would definitely have to be a special performance. Selich is my serious nominee fwiw

***Citizen of Adraa*** · 02-19-2023, 07:18 AM

Lev actually got to the lead for MAN? I swear he was 3rd before the last sim lol

*Tomen* · 02-19-2023, 08:30 PM

02-19-2023, 01:44 AMboom Wrote: For sure, it would definitely have to be a special performance. Selich is my serious nominee fwiw

Oh I didn't comment coz of my own's player MVP chances, it's a general statement, if more teams would miss the playoffs I'd be way more inclined in seeing a MVP from a non playoff team.

Thank you all for the amazing sigs & player cards
Germany

3. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 5 (Maximilian Wachter, Alexis Metzler) at 16:25
5. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 6 (Steven Stamkos Jr., Brynjar Tusk) at 19:48
8. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 7 (Brynjar Tusk, Alexis Metzler) at 13:55
9. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 8 (Anton Fedorov, Mikelis Grundmanis) at 15:12
10. Buffalo Stampede , Eduard Selich 9 (Dickie Pecker) at 19:43 (Empty Net)

By-Tor · 02-20-2023, 08:48 AM

This is what I'm talking about - a great case article. Bordeleau might not end up MVP, but they get my standing ovation. No recognition to some recognition.

Ilike

Credit to enigmatic, Merica, tweedledunn, and jaypc8237 for sigs

***Jumbo*** · 02-20-2023, 09:38 AM

This might be the first time my player has been highlighted in any regard. So for that. Thank you and I appreciate the recognition.

CementHands · 02-20-2023, 02:15 PM

02-20-2023, 09:38 AMJumbobone19 Wrote: This might be the first time my player has been highlighted in any regard. So for that. Thank you and I appreciate the recognition.

You're in my highlight reel bb

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