A Look Again At The Phil Kessel Trade

We've already posted quite a bit on the subject of the Phil Kessel trade, which backwards narrators everywhere have come out against. Now that the Leafs have ended up with the #2 overall pick, we hear even more flack.

The detractors' argument reads as follows:

Toronto was not a particularly good team coming into the season, and they could have assured themselves they wouldn't be any good with not very much effort. As a result, they passed on an opportunity to get in on the ground floor and get superstars - as we have seen from Chicago and Pittsburgh's recent success, top picks are an enormous advantage that Toronto is failing to capitalize on.

Let's try to understand what's at stake here. If we may borrow a page out of Brian Burke's book, we've decided to rank players based on a fairly easy system. There may be quibbles here and there about the 'system' we're employing, but it's quick and dirty and is much less labor intensive than anything else, which would be an amalgam of statistics that would merely confound the issue.

The system is as follows, from 1 to 6:

6 - HOF level player
5 - All-Star player (i.e. should make multiple All-Star teams)
4 - Above average player
3 - Average player
2 - Fringe NHL player
1 - NHL Bust

The top of the spreadsheet has the first five picks from the last 7 seasons. You might be thinking, 'But, supercilious 'we' who runs this podunk blog, how can you possibly project players from 2008?' You would be right - that's part of the point. That's, in effect, what drafting is. We keep the uncertainty in here to show how inexact a science drafting can be. Some of these '4's will look ridiculous in several years, in all probability. Right-click on the spreadsheet and view it in a new tab:



The average of the top 5 draft picks over the last 7 years is 4.6 - somewhere between an All-Star and an above average player. The average of picks 6-10 over the last 7 years, excluding 2009, is 3.5. So had Toronto finished within 6-10, the player they pick figures to be merely an above-average player most often. Furthermore, we've only rated one player drafted 6-10 an All-Star, and that is Dion Phaneuf, whose All-Stardom is dubious - he could easily be rated a 4 if he repeats his 2009-10 in Toronto. Meanwhile, we rated 15 players All-Star level who were picked 1-5.

On the right of the spreadsheet, we've examined each team who has picked 3 or more times in the top 10 (excluding 6-10 in 2009), and averaged together the 'rank' of player they've gotten. Obviously, Washington and Pittsburgh's players are exceptionally good, and teams like Columbus's players are not so good.

In our next post, we will look at the NHL lottery system, and year-to-year improvements of chronically terrible teams being aided by top draft picks.

Shootout and Overtime-Adjusted Standings

The NHL playoffs are made even more interesting by the curious notion of deciding regular season games through events that do not happen in the NHL playoffs. The construct of the 4 on 4 overtime and shootout make for more entertaining hockey, but they make a sport with tiny edges even more confounding for prognosticators - we are interested in the betting line on the Phoenix/Detroit series, for instance, as we think Detroit to be a favorite, based on the standings below. We are treating any game that made it to overtime as a tie, with one point for either side.

Adjusted Standings

Eastern Conference

Washington: 43-15-24 - 110 points
New Jersey: 40-27-15 - 95
Buffalo: 35-27-20 - 90
Pittsburgh: 33-28-21 - 87
Ottawa: 34-32-16 - 84
New York Rangers: 34-33-15 - 83
Philadelphia: 35-35-12 - 82
Atlanta: 29-34-19 - 77
Boston: 25-30-27 - 77
Montreal: 24-33-25 - 73

Western Conference

San Jose: 43-20-19 - 105 points
Chicago: 37-22-23 - 97
Vancouver: 41-28-13 - 94
Detroit: 33-24-25 - 91
Phoenix: 31-27-26 - 88
Los Angeles: 32-27-23 - 87

Nashville: 33-29-20 -86
Calgary: 35-32-15 - 85
Colorado: 34-30-18 - 84
St. Louis: 30-32-20 - 80

Criticisms

We note two major criticisms. The first is in lumping both overtime games and shootout results together. We suspect that better teams have larger edges in 4 on 4 overtime, but here they are being penalized for it. We had intended to have teams' overtime records match their records in regulation, but used this method to save time.

The second is that teams' strategies would obviously change drastically were the shootout not so lucrative for certain teams - Phoenix, for example.

Conclusion

The Rangers got screwed, the Wings are probably better than the Coyotes, and the Western Conference is way better than the East.

Power Play Faceoff Percentage and Power Play Percentage

We wondered recently if there was a correlation between power play faceoff winning percentage, and power play percentages in general - in the tiny sample we have, it appears that there is not. The two right-hand columns are the most relevant. We should also note that we were interrupted in the middle of this work, and some of the faceoff numbers are as of Friday night, whereas the power play information is from Saturday.


The most interesting fact that came out of this is that faceoff percentages on the power play are generally above 50% - in fact, the Eastern Conference is winning faceoffs at a 54.8% rate. We wish we had the capability for isolating defensive-zone faceoff percentages, as we have noticed that teams will make almost no effort to win faceoffs while on the penalty kill in the other two zones. We do however suspect that the additional man allows teams on the power play to be more aggressive in retrieving the puck and winning the faceoff, and likewise causes the other team to be more concerned with defensive positioning than winning the faceoff. We should therefore be wary of using total faceoff percentage to dictate who is the better faceoff man; even strength faceoff percentage is far more likely to be a better determinant.

We also found that power play rank and faceoff rank have a slight negative correlation (-0.23), but we suspect that is due almost entirely to the Capitals and Panthers, whose power play rank and faceoff rank are inverted. We suspect power play faceoff percentage is meaningful, but that the percentage differences are so small that this sample cannot tell us just how much it matters.

Cap Conundrum #1 - The New York Rangers

The New York Rangers are the league's most difficult team to figure out. Composed of up-and-coming rookies, two legitimate superstars, and quite a few players who used to be good but now are not, the team is at a crossroads, looking like a near-certainty to finish out of the playoffs for the first time since 2004.

Glen Sather has developed a rather remarkable ability to make problems disappear - he managed to convince Montreal that Scott Gomez was worth it (he wasn't), fobbed off Ales Kotalik on a desperate Calgary team (2 points in 15 games), and has dug himself halfway out of his cap troubles. Let's get a look at the next two seasons, cap-wise, for the Rangers:


If you recall from last season, green indicates RFA estimates, and red indicates unrestricted free agency.

The two four hundred pound elephants in the room are Wade Redden and Michal Rozsival - Redden is playing 6th defenseman minutes while making 1st defenseman money, and Rozsival is not much better. The biggest question surrounding the Rangers this off-season is: will ownership allow Glen Sather to bury Wade Redden in the minor leagues? We already assume that his contract is entirely untradeable - a middling season in Ottawa and two terrible ones in New York mean that someone has to be seriously stuck in the past to consider Redden anything more than an average defenseman. Burying Redden puts the Rangers at 45 million dollars going into the off-season, which if the cap stays around where it is, gives them the cash to replace Redden's salary as well as add help up front.

We do not think this rule is cited often enough in mainstream publications regarding the salary cap, but it is of great importance to clubs that are thinking of burying a salary somewhere. After July 1, teams are permitted to go over the salary cap, but only by 10%. If the salary cap is at its present amount, teams will be allowed to have up to $62.48 million in player salary on the cap after July 1. This hamstrings the Rangers somewhat, as they still have Patrick Rissmiller on the books at $1 million per, as well as Redden's $6.5 million - unless they are creative with signing RFA players, and subsequently holding them out of training camp (as New Jersey did in September 2006), or sign some UFA free-agent stragglers after they clear Redden off the cap, the Rangers will not be able to spend completely up to the salary cap during the off-season, although they will then have cap room to make deadline additions.

Regardless, if the Rangers can bury Redden, they will still be able to sign $11 million worth of players. This is not exactly Glen Sather's forte - other than Marian Gaborik, who appears to be a massive bargain, Sather has had little but abject failure on his resume in terms of unrestricted free agents since 2006. This year's free agents appear to be a minefield.

Our Plan For The New York Rangers

Rather than speculate about what will happen to earn imaginary plaudits and attaboys from the blogosphere when the Rangers sign Pavel Kubina to a 3 year deal (or something similar), we will instead detail what we would attempt to do if we were in the Rangers' shoes. We will also imagine ourselves to have the same motivations as the Rangers - i.e. massive 'rebuilding' is out of the question. We're trying to put together a playoff squad for next year.

Let's look at those lines:

Dubinsky-?-Gaborik
Avery-Anisimov-Callahan
Christensen-Drury-?
Brashear-Boyle-Prust

Staal-Girardi
Del Zotto-Rozsival
Redden-Gilroy

Lundqvist
?

First, we call our employer and say whatever he's paying us isn't enough.

Bury Wade Redden - enough said. We definitely have to do this. We cannot possibly have a successful offseason without that contract gone.

Re-sign Vinny Prospal at 2 years/5 million (2.5 per) - Prospal's career has been so strange, what with his pattern of alternating good years with mediocre ones. He has had a career revival in New York, but he is also an over-35 player who is receiving $1 million a season from his former employer - we hope this will keep his price down. We know the price for centers around the NHL is high.

Try like mad to convince Edmonton that a prospect + Michal Rozsival is a good deal for Sheldon Souray - Souray and Rozsival's contracts are of similar length and similar cap hit, but Souray is making $9 million combined for the next two seasons, while Rozsival is making $7 million. Souray has also struggled with injuries while Rozsival's allergy to body contact keeps him in the lineup every night. We cannot say how great the need for teams to save money is - Rozsival's $3 million disparity between cap hit and salary spread over two seasons could save a team that amount of cash. If we can clear Rozsival out, things are looking peachy - we can go hog-wild on the free agent market, as well as go after some of the leftovers coming out of Chicago and other places. Let's assume that we've gotten Souray for Rozsival and a 2nd.

Trade Dan Girardi - Girardi has plateaued in New York, he is no longer used on the power play (with good reason), and we think Matt Gilroy can adequately replace his minutes next season. We hope to get some forward help here - we're not sure who wants Girardi, but probably a team that got shut out of free agency.

Let's get a look at that team now:

Dubinsky-Prospal-Gaborik
Avery-Anisimov-Callahan
Christensen-Drury-?
Brashear-Prust-Boyle

Staal-Gilroy
Souray-?
Del Zotto-?

Lundqvist
?

We've got 12 million with which to paint on this canvas. For the third line, we'd look to acquire Dustin Byfuglien, who despite being overpaid is a big, physical winger of the sort the Rangers need. From free agency, we might look into Alexei Ponikarovsky, whom we expect to be paid between 3 and 3.5 million, or Colby Armstrong, who we expect to be paid around 2 to 2.5 million. Were we feeling truly daffy, we might even make an offer towards Ilya Kovalchuk, to give ourselves two very strong lines. An offer to Kovalchuk would put us in serious cap trouble, however, and is rather unlikely.

On defense, we would look toward younger defensemen who are not as likely to decline. Paul Martin would make an ideal pairing with Marc Staal, and he can likely be had for $5 million per. Dan Hamhuis, Anton Volchenkov, Shaone Morrisonn, and Willie Mitchell are cheaper, defense-first D men that we would be interested in. Our ideal Rangers team looks something like this:

Dubinsky-Prospal-Gaborik
Ponikarovsky-Anisimov-Callahan
Avery-Drury-Christensen
Brashear-Prust-Boyle

Staal-Gilroy
Souray-Hamhuis
Del Zotto-6th D at 1.3 million

Lundqvist
Johnson

The total cost of these 20 players is $54 million.

Conclusion

We don't expect the Rangers to be able to accomplish even half of this, but if they accomplish even half of it, they should be right in the playoff mix next season. The Rangers do have gobs of young players who may be able to contribute in following years - it would be a colossal waste if Sather once again signed aged and past-their-prime skaters who would squander cap room on an otherwise talented squad.

Promise About Upcoming Posts

We always start off each post now self-deprecating and apologetic, which disappoints us. See? Anyway, we had a sudden inspiration for posts - Cap Conundra For 2010-11 - at least 5 posts about teams in the most cap 'trouble' - 'trouble' defined as the ability to keep the team of the same quality on the ice. We haven't decided if we will revisit Chicago, but we probably will.

When free agency rolls around, we hope to be doing brief thumbs-up and thumbs-down judgments of the various moves. This blog was started with high-minded ambitions, but we are neither Icarus nor Daedalus - our high-minded ambitions are now limited to literary references.

Trade Deadline Primer

We've wanted to post on here for the last two weeks, but posting about salary caps and waivers during that time would feel rather like using one's cell phone to buy stocks while at church. It's just a tad on the crass side of things. Olympic hockey was quite wonderful, but for NHL GMs it is back to the dirty business of scheming up a trade to fleece one of the other 29 general managers.

Let us take an overview of the NHL starting with Capgeek's daily salary cap tracker, which may be the best contrivance ever for hockey nerds. It informs us that 3 teams in the playoff race currently have no cap space with which to add players: Boston, Philadelphia, and Detroit. We suspect these three will have great difficulty adding talent.

Furthermore, we are unsure which teams will be sellers. Only Toronto, Carolina, Edmonton, and Columbus are truly eliminated from playoff contention. Florida has declared that they are in sell mode. There's a question about teams like St. Louis and Minnesota, who currently sit 4 and 5 points out of the Western Conference race; they may delude themselves into thinking they have a legitimate chance. Still, both are short on talent and have to hop over much more robust squads to make it in. They should both be sellers.

There are some curious factors at play that we think will make for less trading than usual, and not just because many of the typical 'trade deadline' deals already happened in early February.

First, the salary cap is probably staying where it is for the second consecutive year. We've posted about this extensively, and this will mean that young, inexpensive players are worth their weight in ... well, not gold, but some precious metal. Teams jammed up at the salary cap now are probably offered little or no relief for the coming season, plus there's that Chicago bottleneck. This speaks in favor of prices for trade deadline talent falling, because young talent is at a premium. So let's put a check mark in the falling column.

However, with these salary cap jam-ups comes the realization that for some teams, this may be their best year to go for it. New Jersey and Philadelphia are the first two clubs that come to mind. This speaks in favor of prices for deadline talent rising - a check mark in the rising column.

On the other hand - and we'll be using several hands here - the lack of sellers is a mark in the rising price column as well. We have already seen Matt Cullen, a rather average-ish center who can fill a lot of roles, move for both a 2nd round pick AND a decent depth defenseman with some ability to run a power play. Perhaps this is not outrageous compared to last season, when both Ales Kotalik and Dominic Moore moved for a 2nd round pick. Teams need that extra talent to put them over the hump.

In the prices falling column, however, is the issue that some teams simply don't have room to add another player. We saw Calgary attempt to continue adding players at last year's deadline by going with a 20 man roster down the stretch, and it backfired spectacularly, as some nights Calgary was dressing 16 players - we don't expect any team to try this maneuver again. Capgeek lists 9 teams with less than $3.4 million in cap space; these teams may have some difficulty accommodating the higher-priced talent that may be available.

And yet - with attendance generally down around the NHL and revenues falling, a team like St. Louis is not going to want to eat the $1 million + still left on Paul Kariya's contract - they should be desperate to sell this. That's also in the prices falling column.

To recap, here is why prices for trade deadline talent will rise:

Lack of sellers
Panic among Cup contenders

Here is why it will fall:

Need for young talent, league-wide
Lack of able buyers
Teams desperate to unload unsightly contracts

As we wrote this, Jordan Leopold was traded from Florida to Pittsburgh for a 2nd round pick, so the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The Phaneuf Trade And The Stagnant Salary Cap

We all know that Dion Phaneuf was traded today. Rather than julienne the trade such that we cannot even recognize the pieces, we think it notable that Dion Phaneuf got traded at all. We also think it notable that Phil Kessel got traded. We think it exceptionally notable that both players got traded for absolutely no corporeal hockey players who are actually well-above-average and signed beyond this season. In other words, the Leafs turned nothing into 'something'.

It is a product of the times that we see a player like Phaneuf, once thought totally untouchable and a future Hall of Fame defenseman, traded for 3 around-average players. Phaneuf's value has obviously fallen a great deal - it's not just his 6.5 million dollar salary and his diminishing interest in the defensive zone. There is a specter looming over the NHL, and it's the specter of the possibly falling salary cap. We think it's why Brian Burke has been so aggressive in pursuing both free agents and trades for unwanted commodities instead of just gently failing.

Surely in a rising salary cap era, Phil Kessel, if he demands a trade out of Boston, gets moved for players. Surely in a rising salary cap era, Phaneuf's contract is still somewhat valuable because he's locked up for a long time - when salary caps and salaries rise, the value of long term contracts increase even if the player's on-ice performance does not. Likewise, when salary caps fall, long-term contracts values do too. Phaneuf's play appears to have stagnated - had Calgary waited until next season to try to move Phaneuf, he may have lost all value entirely.

Even with the two deals they've managed today, the Maple Leafs will still have plenty of salary cap room for next season - our estimates give the Leafs 9 forwards, 6 defensemen, and 2 goalies, at a total of $40.85 million. If the salary cap stays where it is, that's a comfortable $15.65 million with which to sign 4 forwards and a defenseman. Burke can still forage for goodies in the Chicago implosion. He can still try to profit off of Edmonton's collapse (we know not how, but he can do it). Toronto can still be a dumping ground for bad contracts next season if teams are struggling financially; they could even sign Ilya Kovalchuk were they so inclined.

The larger question is about Brian Burke's rebuilding strategy - as we have seen throughout NHL history, teams who do poorly for long stretches of time tend to improve. The Quebec Nordiques of the late 80s and early 90s, the Ottawa Senators of the early 90s, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Chicago Blackhawks of this decade - all of these teams were terrible for a good long while, and certainly Brian Burke could have gone that route. We think he chose not to for the reasons above - that impending salary cap problems are making teams antsy about keeping players on long-term contracts, and that Burke can profit from this enough to build a Stanley Cup contender without having to go through a prolonged period of losing. He's not going to get star-level players without giving up a large bounty - certainly this Kessel gambit appears like it may backfire - but with Burke's ability to seemingly have star-level players gifted to him, the Leafs may yet defy accepted NHL wisdom.

Upcoming posts:

Continuation of the previous discussion on placeholder defensemen (got way more intense than we thought it could)

Rookie playoff scoring since the lockout

What Car Company Do You Work For? A Major One.

Subtitle: Placeholder Contracts and Inexact Science

We were again pondering the Oskars Bartulis contract extension recently penned by the Flyers (and meanwhile, not pondering the thought process that led us to ponder Oskars Bartulis's contract perhaps more than he himself has) - we wondered, given Bartulis's unsightly and team-low -12, what if a team intentionally signed a replacement-level or sub-replacement level player as a placeholder, to then bump him out of the playoff rotation each year through trade? Could this be a good move? There's a lot to consider here. First, let's limit the discussion to defensemen, because defensemen play more minutes than forwards, and there's less of them on a team.

Let us assume that our team is in the NHL elite, or near it - that each season, we have an excellent chance of making the playoffs. Let us call that percentage P%. Let us assume that we have signed a defenseman for 3 seasons, at $700,000, in a league where the minimum is $500,000 and the salary cap is at 56.8 million. Let us assume that he is a replacement-level defenseman and has little chance of improvement - we can assume he gives us 0 wins a season, or we can assume he gives us a range of wins from -1 to 1. For the purposes of this exercise, we suspect that just calling him a 0 win defenseman is best.

Let us assume that each season at the trade deadline, we are able to acquire a defenseman who is either a 1 win or 2 win player. Now recall, with the way the NHL salary cap works, cap room gets 'stored' - it is calculated each day, and for each amount that a team does not use on that particular day, some of that amount is 'saved' in proportion with the remaining season. The trade deadline is 40 days before the end of the regular season (which season usually lasts 180 days), therefore when the trade deadline rolls around, teams have stored up 180/40 times the cap room that they 'actually' have.

So let us return to our original defenseman - Replacement-Level Paulie. He plays for the first 60 or so games of the season at a 0 win level at $700,000. The team makes a trade at the deadline, and acquires League-Average Lou for a 2nd round pick, who's worth 1.5 wins over a full season; over the remaining 22 games, he is worth .40 wins. League-Average Lou's salary is $2,000,000 - the team could acquire him with as little as $450,000 in cap room. Replacement-Level Paulie is now a 7th defenseman.

This discussion is getting rather complicated - we know not where to place the variables. Let us try to simplify the discussion this way by asking the question again in a different way - can making a trade at the deadline every season be better than signing a defenseman? We suspect the discussion is growing too lengthy - we hope to examine this question further tomorrow.

The Greatest Trade Idea Ever!

We were reading over our blog entry titles here and we realized they were quite milquetoast - they need bombast and verve. Thus our title above, which is sure to be eye-catching.

We read a rumor that purported that Vincent Lecavalier could be headed to the New York Rangers, and we began to turn it over in our mind many times - it makes very much sense. We trust our readership enough to ferret out the reasoning - New York loves big names and is weak down the center and coming out of Tampa Bay have been many rumors of financial hardship. Vincent Lecavalier does have a no-trade clause, but who in the entire NHL lacks the desire to play at the world's most famous arena, for his former coach and with his former linemate?

The impediments to such a deal are New York's staggering lack of assets, and the need for them to clear out the cap room for Vincent Lecavalier's contract, which has 10 years at a $7.5 million dollar cap hit remaining on it. Even if Vincent is unlikely to play the final two years, he likely expects to play the final eight.

We therefore propose this deal:

To New York Rangers

C Vincent Lecavalier (10 yrs/7.5 cap hit)
D Andrej Meszaros (4 yrs/4 cap hit)
LW Stephane Veilleux (0 yrs/ .75 cap hit)
D David Hale (0 yrs/.7 cap hit)

Total Cap Hit: 13.2 M

To Tampa Bay Lightning

D Matt Gilroy (1 yr/1.75 cap hit)
LW Chris Higgins (0 yrs/2.25 cap hit)
RW Ryan Callahan (1 yr/2.3 cap hit)
D Wade Redden (4 yrs/6.5 cap hit)
1st round pick in 2010 or one of Evgeny Grachev/Derek Stepan/Chris Kreider

Total Cap Hit: 12.8 M

What Tampa Gets

Salary Cap Relief, first and foremost. Chris Higgins can be flipped elsewhere - he has been a total bust in New York, but perhaps he lands with a team that can use him (Pittsburgh?). Matt Gilroy and Ryan Callahan are both under team control until July 2012 - Gilroy has excellent physical skills and his underlying numbers suggest that he is a solid defender. Callahan was chosen for Team USA and looks to be a 20 goal RW who can kill penalties and play physically. Wade Redden is another matter - he is not last year's disaster so far, but he's certainly not anything more than average, while he's being paid three times the average. Tampa could buy him out during the off-season, which would cost 2.1 million dollars against the cap for the next 8 years. Bad, yes, but Vincent Lecavalier would have cost 10 million in real dollars (not cap hit) for the next 7. They would also receive a prospect in this deal, something which Tampa seriously struggles to develop - besides star-level players, Tampa has shown no ability to maintain a farm system that can spit out NHL quality players.

Why Should Tampa Move Vincent Lecavalier?

We are always inclined to think that wide variations in shooting percentage, year to year, are fluky and often without identifable cause. Vincent Lecavalier's shooting percentage currently sits at 6.7%, a Jason Blake-like number. However, his Shots On Goal Per Game have fallen in each of the last four seasons, and 112 points in his last 122 games suggest that while Lecavalier is still an excellent player, he may no longer be a superstar. Tampa Bay, if they are in financial difficulties, can not wait around until Lecavalier has exhausted all of his trade value - he will have done so if he has another season where he scores less than a point a game.

What The Rangers Get

Lecavalier, if paired with Marian Gaborik, may rediscover the spark that led him to 52 goals three seasons ago. While the Rangers' depth is skewered somewhat by this deal, that has never stopped them in the past. Meszaros is still rather young and could also improve into his contract on the Rangers' backline. The Rangers do give up some of their precious 'secondary scoring' in this deal, they get back a proven goal man - one whose paltry 11 goals would still rank 3rd on the Rangers right now.

Tampa Bay's New Lineup

Malone-Stamkos-St. Louis
Tanguay-?-Callahan
Higgins-Halpern-Downie
Wright-Konopka-Szczechura

Ohlund-Hedman
Ranger-Redden
Gilroy-Foster

New York Rangers' New Lineup

Avery-Lecavalier-Gaborik
Prospal-Anisimov-Drury
Christensen-Dubinsky-Kotalik
Brashear-Boyle-Lisin

Staal-Girardi
Del Zotto-Meszaros
Hale-Roszival

We are not entirely sure this works - Tampa Bay receiving no centers for one of the top centers in the game may be an impediment, and Brandon Dubinsky may be a better addition to the deal. However, it is certainly something that both sides should consider - it is a trade absolutely made for the New NHL, where player value is secondary to cap flexibility.

A link worth checking out

Vic Ferrari does some terrific work mathematically, and he runs the impeccable timeonice.com website. His work is always a little dense and takes patience to sort through, but we think this article excellently sums up sabermetric thought in general:

Likelihood and the Way Humans Think

Why Haven't The Devils Had Playoff Success Post-Lockout? Part 2

Astute commenter Sunny Mehta had this to say regarding New Jersey:

"In the regular season, the Devils gain a lot of marginal goal differential through special teams. You look at their shot attempts at even strength this season - their ratio is basically league average. But their ratio on special teams (i.e. PP shot attempts/PK shot attempts allowed) is amazingly good. That's mostly because they perennially take so few penalties, and partly because their PK is good. Either way, if you buy into the idea that the impact of special teams is lessened in the playoffs, and the impact of even strength is heightened, well that downgrades the Devils from a very good team to a slightly above average team."

We had not researched this in depth, but it strikes us as true. When we went to examine the 2006-07 New Jersey Devils, the number that jumped out at us was the Devils' extreme discipline - the Devils took 271 minor penalties that season, compared to 398 as league average. They drew 367, a difference of 96 power plays. This sounds all well and good, but let us look at the penalty differentials of the other playoff teams in the Eastern Conference versus non-playoff teams:

Playoff Teams: +12
Non-Playoff Teams: -27.4

If we leave out the anomalous Islanders, who were -85 but dragged themselves into the playoffs, the non-Devils playoff teams were +28 in penalty kill and power play differential.

We are going to try something unconventional here, using Bill James' log5 method to estimate one-game winning percentages in baseball. We are going to translate this into power plays drawn/penalties taken. The Devils, for instance, had a 57% 'winning' percentage if we look at (Power Plays/Total Special Teams Situations). So if they played the rotten Florida Panthers, who were -106 and had a percentage of 43%, we would expect the Devils to have a 64% Power Play/Total Special Teams percentage. However, playing the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had a 55% PP/TST, would reduce the Devils' power play expectation to 52% of all special teams situations. These are small potatoes - although it is interesting that New Jersey's playoff power plays for/against was 52%, when its expected value was around 54%.

Digression: We expected that the playoffs would feature better penalty-killing teams, so we used the lazy man's way of adding percentages to come up with these 'averages' of penalty kills:

Playoff Teams: 81.67%
Non-Playoff Teams: 82.2%

Strange. We suspect had we not been lazy that the percentages would be around equal.

Even Strength

Would that we could locate the 2006-07 even strength numbers - we cannot seem to locate the numbers we need to do this properly, with shots on goal (which ferret out a lot of variance). We can, however, express New Jersey's even strength goals for/against as a percentage at even strength:

New Jersey: 50%
Ottawa: 56%

None of these numbers are really getting at why New Jersey may have gotten thrashed, until again we return to the backup goalie question. Let us now consider the question in reverse: if Scott Clemmensen, the Devils' backup in 06-07, played as much as the average Eastern Conference playoff team backup, how many more goals would the Devils have let in? Let us assume that his numbers are as expected, despite the tiny sample size.

Clemmensen would start 22 games and give up 69 goals with his .889 - Brodeur would start 60 games and give up 141. This gives us 210 goals against for New Jersey instead of 187, scuttling their already miniscule goal differential into a negative. The only edge they would have in this instance is their defense and ability to avoid penalty trouble.

Conclusion

The Devils' insistence on playing Brodeur a great deal in 2006-07 masked their deficiencies at even strength, where even despite him they were a breakeven team. In the playoffs they get a reduced advantage from their ability to draw penalties and avoid power plays against because most teams that take a great deal of penalties are out of the playoffs.