Hockey trivia

[stm22]

...to which I have no answer...
Anyone out there know who holds the single season / career record for plus/minus in the NHL? Highest? Lowest?

Thanks
--Steve M

[pfibiger]

google gave me this tidbit, from some kid's hockey bio:

My dad, Bill Mikkelson, was a defenseman for four seasons in the National Hockey League between 1971 and 1977 with the LA Kings, New York Islanders, and the Washington Captials. He played on the Caps’ expansion team in 1974-75 that went (8-67-5) and he personally still owns the worst plus-minus record in NHL history with a â€"81 that season…

[pfibiger]

also, from here:

http://espn.go.com/nhl/columns/engblom_brian/1284866.html

To the best of anyone's knowledge, Bobby Orr has the plus/minus record with a plus-124 during the 1970-71 season.

so those seem likely as the single-season records.

[KeithK]

Good column about the usefulness of the +/- stat.  As with most stats, it's coupled with your teammates play and abillities.  I wonder if anyone has done a study attempting the adjust +/- for team ability.  I don't get the feeling that there are that many hockey sabrematicians out there...

[Al DeFlorio]

[Q]pfibiger Wrote:
To the best of anyone's knowledge, Bobby Orr has the plus/minus record with a plus-124 during the 1970-71 season.
[/q]
The Bruins set a record with 399 goals (only 207 against) that season, simply obliterating the old record (303?).  Makes Dryden's Cup debut against Orr and friends that much more remarkable.

[Greg Berge]

The 1983-84 Edmonton Oilers then scored 446.  I think that's the all-time NHL record.

[jkahn]

[Q]Keith wrote:
 I wonder if anyone has done a study attempting the adjust +/- for team ability. [/Q]
For a few years (maybe early 80's, I don't really remember) the league kept a team adjusted plus/minus which compared a player's +/- to the average +/- on the team.  I don't remember the exact algorithm, but it took into account an adjustment for games played as well.  The problem was that an average player on the best team in the league would be at 0, while a slightly above average player on a team that was highly minus in total would have a plus rating.  Someone on that '74-'75 expansion Washington Capital team could lead the league in adjusted plus/minus.  A great but well-balanced team would have a lot of guys near 0.  There seemed to be even more problems when comparing players on different teams, even though that's what the system was supposedly designed to do, and eventually they decided to trash that stat.

[KeithK]

Yeah, that doesn't sound like a very meaningful way to breakdown the +/- numbers.  Abstractly I'm picturing something where you can take out team ability in some sense measured by GF and GA, thus leaving an adjusted stat.  Not sure how to do that though.

[Shorts]

I think, if you had a complete record of all the times when every player was on the ice, then you could adjust a player's +/- for the effects of the other players on the ice at that time.
For example:
Player A (Cornell) played 500 minutes, with an unadjusted +/- of +7.
During those 500 minutes:
Player B (Cornell, +6) played 200 minutes.
Player C (Cornell, +9) played 100 minutes.
...
Player X (St. Lawrence, -6) played 25 minutes.
Player Y (Harvard, -15) played 30 minutes.
Player Z (Colgate, +1) played 5 minutes.

Based on that info, you could calculate an adjusted offensive/defensive potential, similar to either the CCHP or CHODR.  Of course, that would take a lot of computing power.

[billhoward]

[Q]jkahn Wrote:

 [Q2]Keith wrote:
 I wonder if anyone has done a study attempting the adjust +/- for team ability. [/Q]
For a few years (maybe early 80's, I don't really remember) the league kept a team adjusted plus/minus which compared a player's +/- to the average +/- on the team.  I don't remember the exact algorithm, but it took into account an adjustment for games played as well.  The problem was that an average player on the best team in the league would be at 0, while a slightly above average player on a team that was highly minus in total would have a plus rating.  Someone on that '74-'75 expansion Washington Capital team could lead the league in adjusted plus/minus.  A great but well-balanced team would have a lot of guys near 0.  There seemed to be even more problems when comparing players on different teams, even though that's what the system was supposedly designed to do, and eventually they decided to trash that stat.[/q]

As the Ivy League starts to rule the world of Major League Baseball via its numbers-crunchers, something like adjusted plus/minus may be due for a comeback in hockey. (Adjusted plus/minus might be the *starting point* for a new statistic.) There could also be penalty kill plus/minus and power play plus/minus. Heck, you could measure penalties drawn leading to power play opportunities, or number of second shots given up by goalies. All those stats give people something to talk about in the off-season and it also gives the front office better tools to measure the value of players. One thing I recall from the recent SI article on the Theo Epsteins of the world is that it's now possible to calculate how much better a baseball player is than the average player, and thus you can calculate the value of how many stars you need at what cost vs. how many role-fillers at what cost.

[cornelldavy]

The Elias Sports Bureau actually has done work on adjusted +/- and historical +/- stats from before +/- was an official NHL stat. I don't think it has been released at all, and I don't know if it ever will, because Elias is very protective of the information they generate.

[billhoward]

[Q]cornelldavy Wrote:

 The Elias Sports Bureau actually has done work on adjusted +/- and historical +/- stats from before +/- was an official NHL stat. I don't think it has been released at all, and I don't know if it ever will, because Elias is very protective of the information they generate.[/q]

At some point in every organization that sells information - newspaper, Vegas oddsmaker, NBC - some bean counter asks, "How else can we monetize our core competency?" or BS to that effect, and they think of other ways to sell the info. Secret information is just waiting for the right price.

And it has been clear that two things can make money of online and on cable TV (and etcetera): sports and pornograpahy. Elias has one of the two. Thus, a surefire hit would be the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader home workout video.

[jeh25]

[Q]billhoward Wrote:

 a surefire hit would be the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader home workout video. [/q]

So first you divide ribcage measurement by waist in inchs, raise to 1/hip circumference, add in the cup size bonus factor...... yup, I'd hit it.  

[Josh '99]

[Q]jeh25 Wrote:
So first you divide ribcage measurement by waist in inchs, raise to 1/hip circumference, add in the cup size bonus factor...... yup, I'd hit it.  [/q]I think what you meant to say was "".    :-}

[jtwcornell91]

[Q]jeh25 Wrote:
So first you divide ribcage measurement by waist in inchs, raise to 1/hip circumference,
[/q]
You can't raise to a power with units!  Have you payed no attention to anything I've said about dimensional analysis?!? :-P