Ratings tips
Written by Herb Garbutt Sunday, 20 January 2008 23:26
I've put together a tip sheet, which includes some things to look for, some things to avoid and some common pitfalls. Hopefully, this will help you, especially those of you new to rating players and even some of those you who have been rating for a while.
RATING TIPS
1/ Rate by skill, not by player.Go through a team and do all the defensive ratings, then all the speed ratings etc. When you go through by skill you’re more likely to be consistent because you’ll be thinking about the differences say between a 2 and 3 for that skill, rather than jumping skill to skill
2/ Don’t be afraid to give 1s.Fringe players are fringe players for a reason. It’s usually because a skill or skills are not NHL calibre. Average ratings should not average out to 3 for the simple reason that there are more part-time, fringe players than there are stars. Most teams have about 25 players to rate. Well, they can only dress 18, which means seven of them are fringe, injury fill-in guys. 3/ Consider each rating on its own meritThis is a continuation of the above and a set up for the next point as well. Look at the rating this way. If this player had to rely solely on this skill, where would he be? Would he be a first-liner or would he be in the minors. There would be some very good players not in the league if they were to rely solely on their skating or physical play. 4/ Giving stars bad ratings/ Pluggers great ratingsA superstar can have weaknesses. Don’t be afraid to give them below average ratings on a particular skill. The tendency can be to give them 4s and 5s across the board and that if you give them a 2 they will not perform to their potential. Not so. If he’s soft as a pillow, give him a 2 physical, or better yet, a 1. Same goes for your fourth liner who skates like the wind. Give him his 5 speed. Shean Donovan is an example of a guy without great skills but can fly. 5/ Rank the players by skill and see if it makes senseThough you might not have to rank them 1-25, at least put them in groups when you’re done 5 defence, 4 defence, 3 defence, etc. and make sure they make sense. 6/ Look at skills individually not as a totalSome players, if you were add up their ratings might look like below average players. This is particularly true of some goal scorers. For instance, when rating Thomas Vanek, he got 2s and 3s across the board. This does not mean he is a below average player. His best skill is one we don’t rate. His goal scoring ability. That comes out in the hidden ratings that Dave does that looks after things like shot totals and scoring percentage. Similarly some guys may look to be above average by their ratings but they have hands of stone and can’t finish. (Todd Marchant, for many years, would be a good example of this). Again the hiddens will take care of this. 7/ Use stats in conjunction with the scouting reportLast year, Jeff Tambellini on the Islanders had 7 assists in 23 games. Sounds, OK but nothing spectacular. Scouting report said he was an outstanding passer, which at first glance the stats didn’t seem to back up. First of all over an 82-game sked that works out to 25 assists. OK, might be worth a 3 pass, I thought. But when you consider he only played 7 min per game--factor in 20 minutes of ice per game as most top line guys get, and it works out to 69 assists over a full season. Now obviously it would be hard to keep that pace but still for me it was worth a bump to a 4… it’s also a good case of point #4. 8/ Contradictions in the scouting reportYou will notice the odd contradiction in the scouting report. I use multiple sources so this does happen. Doesn’t discredit either opinion. It is no different than two coaches or two pro scouts having different opinions on a player.TIPS BY SKILL
DEFENCEOffensive defencemenI call this the Bryan McCabe syndrome (how else do you explain him getting a 4 D). A better offensive year doesn’t necessarily mean a better defensive year. There has been a tendency in past years to give defencemen who have big offensive years above average defensive ratings. This should be reflected in skills such as passing, not defence. This is where rating each skill on its own merit come into play. It is possible for an above average player to be below average defensively. This tends to be even more exaggerated if the player has a physical element to his game.Bryan Berard is another example. He got bumped up to a 3 when he had a good offensive year.The same can be true for forwards, though it hasn’t been nearly as obvious as with defencemen. The exception being…… Power forwardsAnother trend has been to overrate power forwards defensively. Being able to lay someone out doesn’t, on its own, make you a good defensive player. Most power forwards are simply average at best defensively, although there are exceptions (Iginla). Until recently Joe Thornton was a below average defensive player but usually got a 4D. Bill Guerin’s had some unwarranted 4Ds over the years, even Keith Tkachuk, considered by most to be a little lazy, gets a 4 most years. Owen Nolan’s another. In many cases, they lack the speed to be able to get back quick enough to be above average defensively.
Using +/- as a guage of defensive ability
Plus minus is one of the best and one of the worst stats all in one. It’s something you have to look at in context. First, it’s not very useful comparing team to team. A +3 on a non-playoff team is much better than a +3 on a Cup contender, simply because the latter scores far more goals than it surrenders.Second, even within the context of a team there are disparities. Some guys are assigned to check the opposition’s best players, meaning it is tougher for them to score and they are more likely to be scored upon than someone who plays against the third or fourth line on a regular basis. Good example is Detroit. Kris Draper is a Selke candidate each year. He’s +4. Jiri Hudler took years to crack Detroit’s lineup because of his lax defensive play. He’s +18. This does not mean that Hudler is better than Draper, or even that Draper is having a bad year. Draper plays against Kovalchuk/Hossa, Lecavalier/St. Louis, Heatley/Spezza. Hudler plays against Eric Boulton/Jim Slater, Andre Roy/Craig McDonald, Shean Donovan/Brian McGratton.To get an idea of who matches up against top players, look at SH ice time. Generally the leaders are the guys who face the top lines on a regular basis (Draper gets 2:51 of SH ice, Hudler 0:00). Third, you have to factor in total ice time. On the Rangers, Chris Drury, known as a good defensive player—who also happens to lead the team in SH ice—is –12 but plays 20:29 a game. Colton Orr plays 7:56 and is -11. If Orr you figure that per minute, Orr would be –28 if he played as much as Drury. PASSING Defencemen passingDon’t judge it solely on assists. There are some very good passers who don’t even crack double digits in assists. They make good outlet passes out of their own zone but don’t necessarily pick up assists. This is where you have to rely on the scouting report for a lot of the low-point defencemen.
Forwards passingGuys who take a lot of shots will get a lot of assists of rebounds rather than actually passing. Don’t be misled. Last season Jason Blake scored 40 goals, and had 29 assists, which really isn’t a lot for the ice time he got. Consider now that he took 305 shots. How many of those assists came off rebounds. He’s not known as a great passer.
Another point on passing, like +/-, it might be beneficial to do a per minute assessment of players. The Tambellini example above is a good example.
SKATINGI find this to be one of the most difficult ratings because it incorporates many things. Also sometimes skating and speed are used interchangeably which clouds the issue. Skating includes strength on the puck, ability to work through traffic and stickhandling. Again what makes this hard is some guys are easy to knock off the puck but they are excellent stickhandlers. You just have to come out with an overall.
FORECHECK
A trend I’ve noticed through the years is that goons get 4s and 5s and forechecking….which baffles me. Forechecking is most important on the penalty kill and goons don’t kill penalties. Even at even strength, 95% of the goons don’t have the skating ability to get in on a player and force him to make move the puck. Yes, there is also a physical element to forechecking but by the time most goons get to the puckcarrier to hit him, the puck is long gone.Guys who kill penalties, though they may not be worthy of penalty kill ratings, are generally the guys who are good forecheckers. Takeaways (again per minute is probably more useful) is another good indicator as is a good takeaway-to-giveaway ratio. PHYSICALHits stats team-to-team can be inconsistent but within a team should be helpful. Although this is a case again where it’s good to use the scouting report in conjunction with stats. Ryan Smyth had one of the lowest hit totals on his team but is well-known for, actually his entire game is built upon, his physical play.A per/minute calculation would probably also be helpful.
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