Gomez was not the most popular Habs among the fans, to put it mildly, so there was a lot of rejoicing about this bit of news. Three explanations have been offered for that decision. The first two are that Scott Gomez had a bad attitude that would be a distraction if he remained than the team, and that the Habs are a better team without Scott Gomez than with him. They’re both easy-to-understand, and loaded with a certain vindictiveness towards Gomez due to his poor results and the successes of Ryan McDonagh, the most prominent asset he was traded for, with the Rangers. And the third, descirbed by Bergevin himself in his press conference, had Gomez sitting to guarantee he was not going to be injured playing, which could have put a planned amnesty buyout in jeopardy.

Let’s go over these potential motivations. First, eliminating a player for bad attitude. Here’s a list of the trades under Gainey and Gauthier since the lockout, that we know or can reasonably infer were aimed at eliminating a problematic attitude from the dressing room:

• July 12, 2006 – Richard Zednik traded to Washington Capitals for a 3rd round pick (Olivier Fortier) in 2007
• September 30, 2006 – Mike Ribeiro and a 6th round pick (Matthew Tassone) in 2008 traded to Dallas Stars for Janne Niinimaa and a 5th round pick (Andrew Conboy) in 2007
• July 3, 2008 – Mikhail Grabovski traded to Toronto Maple Leafs for Greg Pateryn and a 2nd round pick (Jared Knight – Boston) in 2010 which was later traded to Chicago, back to Toronto and then to Boston in the Phil Kessel deal
• November 23, 2009 – Guillaume Latendresse traded to Minnesota Wild for Benoit Pouliot
• June 29, 2010 – Sergei Kostitsyn and future considerations traded to Nashville Predators for Dan Ellis, Dustin Boyd and future considerations (two expiring UFA contracts)
• December 31, 2010 – Maxim Lapierre traded to Anaheim Ducks for Brett Festerling and a 5th Round pick in 2012 which was later traded back to Anaheim for Paul Mara (February 17, 2011)
• January 13, 2011 – Michael Cammalleri and a 5th round pick in 2012 traded to Calgary Flames for Rene Bourque and a 2nd Round pick in 2013

The very fact that the Habs have Gomez at is related to this mentality of getting rid of “bad attitudes”, in this case, because Gainey decided not to change the identity of his club by not re-signing Saku Koivu. It is this mentality that, we must hope, the change of leadership at the helm of the Habs was going to evacuate. If Bergevin is as worried about image, attitude, and distractions as his predecessors, then he’s pretty much “Gainey/Gauthier part 3, now without experience”. It would be a sad irony indeed, given how Bergevin is cast as a breath of fresh air in contrast with his two predecessors, if he were to start emulating their foremost mistake.

Then there’s the notion that removing Gomez from the lineup makes the Canadiens better. Let’s get one thing out of the way right away: Petteri Nokelainen is not a better hockey player than Scott Gomez. Nor are any of the players that may end up taking his spot in the roster, with the possible exception of Alex Galchenyuk — who, as bright as his future is, still has zero professional games to his name. Scott Gomez, for all his warts, remained a useful player in 2012-2013, able to maintain positive puck possession at even strength (52.6%) and remaining mostly neutral chance-wise (119 for, 122 against), no mean feat considering he was injured for much of Jacques Martin’s early tenure and played most of his 2012-2013 season late in the Cunneyworth era, when the team was mostly playing out the string. In fact, as we’ll remember, Gomez’s second injury coincided with the plunge that led to Jacques Martin’s firing and the final derailment of the Canadiens’ season. This is not to say that Gomez was vital to the successes of the team, or that his impact justified his massive cap hit. But compared to his replacements and without consideration of salary and cap hit, Gomez was undoubtedly a net positive.

This is not to say Bergevin’s decision to send Gomez home is unreasonable. The third explanation, the one given by the Habs GM himself, is quite sound. Due to the cap situation of the Habs for next season, the amnesty buyout of Gomez was inevitable and necessary; there’s no conceivable way in which the Habs can fit under the cap with all the players they have under contract, so they have to shed salary, and Gomez’s big paycheck and relatively small cash outlay is an obvious and natural candidate (indeed, the contract was originally structured as it was to make buying out the last couple of years easier). If Gomez had gotten injured while skating in the Habs’ employ during the season, and was on IR during the buyout period (a distinct possibility given his wonky groin), then per the CBA, the Habs would not have been allowed to buy him out. Not only would they have had to shed the salary of some other player instead (possibly even someone they’d have preferred to keep), but they would have had to carry Gomez next year as well. It’s possible they could have been able to make ends meet anyway by buying out, say, Kaberle and Bourque instead, but the savings would have been smaller and their margin for 2013-2014 would have been much narrower.

If the Habs had removed Gomez from their lineup with the goal of improving their team, or because of Gomez’s “bad attitude”, then the decision would have led to justified questioning of the organization. But I think the premature dismissal of Gomez is exactly what Bergevin says it was: a radical, expensive risk reduction move, and as such, it speaks of a certain shrewd, uncompromising ruthlessness, one that is curiously at odds with the re-signing of an old soldier like Bouillon. The decision reflects accepting short-term pain to safeguard long-term gain. It’s sound reasoning, if one is very risk-averse vis-à-vis the cap next year, and given that situation, it’s not a bad position to take.

It does, however, suggest that the Habs brass holds no great hope, or interest, for the results of this season.

February 28, 2012; Tampa FL, USA; Montreal Canadiens left wing Max Pacioretty (67) during the first period against the Tampa Bay Lightningat Tampa Bay Times Forum. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-US PRESSWIRE

Pacioretty debutes for Ambri

Max Pacioretty is playing his first NLA game today for Ambri-Piotta against Fribourg.

Pacioretty is lining up on Ambri’s first line as the Rechts Angriff (Right Forward) on a line with former NHL players Richard Park (Center) and Jason Williams (Left).

Fribourg is one of only 3 NLA teams without a “lockout player,” their most notable player to North American audiences is their goalie Benjamin Conz who is famous for a dominant 2010 WJC performance. Many expected this to lead to him getting drafted as an overager in the 2010 entry draft but he was not selected. His relatively small size for a modern goaltender as well as his overage status were likely factors. He is now a regular starting goaltender in the top Swiss league.

The current score is 2-2 in the second period, with Fribourg managing 2 powerplay goals against Ambri’s two even strength marker by Pacioretty. Pacioretty took only 6 minutes and 18 seconds to get his first goal assisted by Park and Williams.

EDIT: Game ends in a shootout victory for Fribourg, shots 36 to 29 in favour of the winners due to a dominanting 2nd frame where they held a 16-3 shots advantage.

Gomez goes home

Word has come out that Scott Gomez has decided to tryout for his home state’s single professional ice hockey team, the ECHL’s Alaska Aces.

Gomez would join NHLers and fellow Ancorage natives Joey Crabb and Nate Thompson for Alaska. It is unclear if these PTO contracts are merely to allow these players to join formal practices with the Aces or if it will lead to the trio suiting up for the Aces in league games.

The last lockout, when Gomez suited up for the Aces he tallied 13 goals and 86 points in 61 games and was +26.

ECHL is a distant third tier in North American professional hockey, even at a shadow of his former self Gomez should dominant it. Maybe he can also figure out his shot mechanics against while playing against weaker competition.

Bulldogs Camp Begins

The 43 players invited to the Hamilton Bulldogs training camp have assembled and are going through their paces at the Canadiens Brossard training complex. Expect plenty of pictures of young men doing athletic things to circulate today.

April 5, 2012; Raleigh, NC, USA; Montreal Canadiens center David Desharnais (51) carries the puck against the Carolina Hurricanes at the PNC center. The Hurricanes defeated the Canadiens 2-1 in the shoot out. Mandatory Credit: James Guillory-US PRESSWIRE

If there is one advantage of an impending lockout, its that there is going to be plenty of time to fully understand what happened last season.

With that in mind I have new ways to break down the recent numbers for the Habs current players, in what I’m calling “Components of Offense.”

Offensive play in hockey is all about goals. The only way a player helps you offensively is if he gets your team more of them, by direct (i.e. scoring or setting up a goal) or indirect (i.e. forcing an offensive zone faceoff which allows your best line to come on and then score). But goals can be a sticky thing to work with in hockey stats. Simply put, there aren’t enough of them for accuracy. The simple behaviour of relatively small numbers (like the 15 or so goals a player might get on even strength per season) in a probabilistic system (playing a game involving a bouncing cylinder on a slippery surface qualifies) is going to be effected by random volatility because relatively good or bad fortune can have a big proportionate effect on outcomes. So hockey stats tend to break goals into its two components, shots on net and percentage of shots that go in the net. The much greater number of shots allows for better data analysis, especially given the findings that shot measurements are fairly constant in hockey while shooting% is heavily effected by chance and circumstance.

Simple right? Well, with all ideas that are both simple and useful, in execution simple becomes a lot more complicated. There are natural differences in players and lines shooting percentage according to talent and style of play that can throw off shots based analysis. Figuring out exactly how to compensate for that while retaining the core power of shots based analysis would be a big step forward for the hockey analytical community.

So with that in mind I have looked at breaking down individual and team on ice shots to better understand what goes into the creating offense. To this end I’ve run the 3 year averages of player personal and team shots per minute rate to work out the relationships that go into aggregate goals scored.

First we should establish what is typical performance for a position. Last year on 5 on 5 play forwards take 73.1% of the shots and 87.3% of the goals, while defensemen take 26.9% of the shots and 12.7% of the goals. For individuals this means forwards take a average of 29.1% of the team’s on ice goals and 24.4% of the shots while a defenseman 13.4% of on ice shots and 6.3 of the goals. Forwards get goals on 9.61% of their shots while defense get goals on 4.01% of shots, with an overall average on ice shooting percentage of 8.17%. From these results we can derive a positional player’s typical team-mate shooting percentage, 7.62% for forwards, 8.74% for defensemen.

Today we use this method to look at the Canadiens centers:

The most dangerous goal scorer of the bunch is obviously Plekanec by a considerable margin, bolstered by a very respectable shot rate. Eller and Desharnais are pretty much on par for goal scoring, Desharnais low shot rate compensated for by a sky high personal shooting percentage. Maintaining a ~14% shooting percentage is relatively rare, but Desharnais is a low volume shooter that passes up shooting opportunities which is similar to two established high % shooters in Alex Tanguay and Sergei Kostitsyn. Shot creation tends to peak by 23, so Eller is the only player here expected to up his rate on talent progression and not by much. He’s played shutdown minutes with generally poor offensive linemates however so we may see some progression due to more favourable circumstances. Gomez’s vanishing ability to get the puck in the net has been the downfall of his goal totals, although he more that 3 years ago his shot taking rate was similar to Plekanec’s.

For team-mate shots we can see a sharp distinction between the playmaking (Gomez and Desharnais) and two-way centermen (Eller and Plekanec). With that high a rate for Gomez and Desharnais it looks like those two really are increasing shooting chances for their linemates. With average on ice shooting, the 6 shots per hour more would be worth about .45 goals per hour. However, keep in mind that Desharnais most common linemates have been Pacioretty and Cole, two very high volume shooters before they played with Desharnais. How much of Desharnais or Gomez’s increased on ice shot production is them and how much is their linemates is a fair question. Gionta’s shot rate per 60 improved by .45 or 5% when coming to Montreal and playing with Gomez the next two seasons. Cole’s shot rate improved by 1.36 per 60 or 17% after coming to Montreal and Pacioretty’s improved by 1.00 or 9.3% in 2011-12 primarily with Desharnais rather than 2010-11 primarily with Gomez. This kind of smaller improvements suggest to me that the playmakers are improving teammate shots but a big component is quality of linemate.

I think its no coincidence that the highest team-mate shots centers played with the very high volume shooters in Cole, Pacioretty and Gionta, while the lowest team-mate shots center in Eller’s top linemate was the offensively inept Travis Moen.

That said, we could also take this to mean that Desharnais is a slightly superior playmaking center to Gomez and Eric Staal. That’s no mean feat. While I don’t think he’s the driver on the bus of last year’s 1st line, providing comparable ability to set up plays to two veteran centers with high career assist totals would be nothing to sneeze at. But if he was a real 1st line center like some of his proponents are claiming it would have to be either attached to some above average native goal scoring talents of his own or be so good as a set up man he’s drowning in assists.

Teammate shooting percentage is a big cause for the spread in on ice offense as well with Desharnais’s 8.46 carrying him to the highest on-ice scoring and Gomez and Eller’s lower value dropping their team offense. Luck and teammate quality are probably the dominant factors here. Most research into team-mate on ice shooting shows that players have very little influence in how well their linemates convert their shots, with even the league’s top players having a relatively small effect. Meanwhile, factors outside a player’s control in randomness and differences in natural shooting talent is large. These results probably reflect how Desharnais was playing with a typical 12.2% even strength shooting% forward in Cole while Eller’s most common winger has been 7.1% Moen.

The proportion of team shots each player takes is also interesting. It looks like the typical value for Habs centers is about 20%, meaning centers are average in shot taking amoung the 5 players on ice. Plekanec buck the trend high and is a major factor in his team’s shot taking while Desharnais takes about as many shot as a defenseman, leaving the shooting duties to his wingers.

One factor that has been missing from our discusion is difficulty of opposing circumstances, which we look at here by the two standard methods Quality of Competition measured by opposing relCorsi and percentage of offensive to defensive zone faceoffs (OZone Start%)

Its clear that Plekanec consistantly faces the heaviest minutes. He’s the most counted upon in the defensive zone and faces the toughest opponents. This is likely a big reason that his team-mates offensive performace lags. Meanwhile Desharnais faces the lightest minutes in competition and relatively high offensive zone use, reflecting minutes designed for scoring, which is surely a factor in his good team production. Eller has been moving towards Plekanec’s role but doesn’t fill those shoes yet while Gomez once was a tough opposition player but has fallen down the matchup depth chart.

I’ve shown a bunch of rate stats so players can be easier to compare to one another, but what do these numbers mean in real terms? To answer that I have converted the personal and team goal scoring into what would result from this player performing at this level in top six minutes (14 minutes ES per game) over 82 games.

Plekanec has been a player that will get to 20 goals on the year with special teams time. Likewise Eller and Desharnais have shown they can hit 15 with some goals elsewhere. Gomez has been inept in goal scoring. Desharnais has been a part of strong offensive units, Plekanec has been generally good while Gomez and Eller’s lines have struggled to score.

Thanks to behindthenet.ca and stats.hockey.analysis.com for the databases to make this work possible.