Twitter Was Made For Hockey Talk

I had a great talk on Twitter with former Ranger beat writer and current Sporting News writer Jesse Spector about advanced hockey statistics. Being a huge proponent of advanced stats, and a guy who loves to talk hockey in general, I jumped right in and overloaded Jesse with tweets. Since Twitter is pretty tough for explaining things in detail, I'll try to expand on the discussion here.

It started with this tweet from Jesse:

Here's an expansion of how I responded to Jesse on Twitter:

Relative Corsi, of course, measures the difference in shot differential when a player is on the ice vs. when he isn't. This allows us to see who really makes their team's shot differential better, and who makes it worse. Brent Burns' current mark of 33.2 (at 5 on 5) leads the league among all skaters who have played at least 10 games. The next closest is Colin Wilson at 26.8, so Burns is in fact obliterating the NHL in this stat. 

Burns' on-ice Corsi is 26.93, and his off-ice Corsi is -6.28. This means that, when Brent Burns is on the bench, San Jose (a team who outshoots opponents by 4.7 a game) is a negative shot differential team. This tells us one of two things: Brent Burns is either incredible (he is) or San Jose gets an insane boost from their power play to assist in their shot differential. Without having specific shots for and against numbers with the man advantage, I'd have to guess it's a solid mixture of both.

However, as I mentioned to Jesse, when we combine this stat with Burns' offensive zone start percentage of 58.8%, the picture becomes slightly clearer. Burns starts nearly 60% of the time in the offensive zone. This, by definition, means that we should expect a positive shot differential if Burns is doing his job. It's difficult for opponents to rack up shots when the puck is starting 200 feet away from their net. Regardless, Burns' figure is still very high and very impressive. He excels at what he does: moving the puck, generating shots, keeping possession, and being a stud defenseman for the Sharks.

I then compared Burns to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins as an example. RNH has an even higher O-Zone start percentage: 71.3%. Based on the great start to his season, we'd expect him to have good Corsi numbers too, right? Turns out that he has a -6.02 Corsi and only a 2.5 relative Corsi. This tells us that A) Edmonton is a bad possession team 2) RNH can thank the power play for his production. There is some blame for his teammates, but overall, RNH should have a stronger gross Corsi number given the amount of time he starts in the offensive zone.

Jesse wrote this tweet shortly after:

I wrote a great deal of tweets responding to this one. Here's how I'd answer the question:

The stat referenced is Relative Corsi Quality of Competition. The title is a bit misleading - this stat measures the relative Corsi of Player A's opponents while Player A is on the ice.

Let's use Joe Pavelski as the example. Pavelski has a league-leading CorsiRelQoC, which means that  he is constantly being matched against strong opponents who are putting up high relative Corsi numbers. 

Here's the most important part: because relative Corsi is used, this doesn't mean that Pavelski's opponents are dominating him in shot differential. It just means that the opponents' relative Corsi is higher. It's possible, if not common for low shot differential teams, to have a negative gross Corsi and a positive relative Corsi. Therefore, Pavelski could still be holding opponents to a negative shot differential---that number could just be "less negative" for that opponent than it typically is. This means that Joe Pavelski is facing the toughest competition in the league, the players most likely to increase their team's shot differential to a number more positive than it typically is.

CorsiRelQoC doesn't tell us much about Pavelski's performance, because we don't know anything about his own Corsi. All we know from this stat is that he faces the toughest competition in the league. CorsiRelQoC tells us his role. Based on the fact that the Sharks and Rangers have the top 5 players in this stat, it tells us that those teams give these players heavy minutes against the opponent's top players, and stick to those rigid, line-matching systems. However, to get any insight into performance, we need to look at the players' own Corsi numbers.

Sure enough, Pavelski has a strong relative Corsi of 11.3, which I think is extremely impressive given the competition he plays against. These two stats, combined, summarize that Joe Pavelski logs minutes against the opposition's best players (more so than any other player in the NHL), and yet he still maintains a double digit relative Corsi. 

This is especially impressive because, by definition, Pavelski's teammates are playing against weaker competition than he is. Pavelski's off-ice Corsi is 1.33, and his on-ice Corsi is 12.67, meaning that Joe does roughly 9.5 times better than his teammates do, all while facing much tougher competition than those teammates.

I brought up Michael Frolik on Twitter as an example of the opposite. Frolik's CorsiRelQoC is 6th in the league, meaning he plays against the 6th best competition in the league. His relative Corsi, meanwhile, is -8.5. Since Frolik is playing against incredibly strong competition, it's okay to expect him to have weak gross Corsi numbers--he is, after all, playing against the best, and having a on-ice Corsi of -0.80 is holding water. 

While the situation is not dire, however, his team has strong shot numbers when Frolik is on the bench---they're a much worse shot differential team with Frolik on the ice. This tells me that Frolik isn't capable of these types of minutes. The Blackhawks would be better served decreasing his ice time against the strong competition he's been seeing. This is especially considering that his offensive zone start is only slightly below 50%. It's not like Frolik is constantly logging defensive zone minutes, or is a defensive specialist. 

Again, maintaining a on-ice Corsi number around 0 (or slightly below it, in Frolik's case) against this type of competition is not horrendous--many players would be below zero. However, given the extremely negative relative Corsi, I believe the Blackhawks have better players elsewhere to handle these types of minutes.

In my opinion, this also highlights how strong of a season Pavelski and similarly situated players such as Nicklas Lidstrom, Joe Thornton, Ales Hemsky (when healthy), and Radim Vrbata are having. These players are all in the top 14 of CorsiRelQoC, yet they all maintain double-digit relative Corsis. That tells me that these players are rising above that strong competition, unlike Frolik, and excelling no matter who is on the ice against them, relative to their teammates, who are facing weaker opponents. That's a quality to admire, and a quality that we can detect through these advanced stats.

The Wild Are Best In The Standings, And Nowhere Else

NOTE: Before you read this entry, read this.

One thing that always amuses me in sport is the overreaction to early season standings. A second thing that amuses me is the reliance and pervasion of flawed statistics that don't really tell us anything. Today, I'm going to do my best to combat both.

PDO is one of the most simplistic advanced stats and also one of the most useful. It's hockey's equivalent of BABIP, for those who know sabermetrics in baseball. With great accuracy, we can use PDO to predict regression and progression, both for teams and for players.

The Wild are not a good team. This was evident last season when they struggled to generate shots and score goals. The "retooling" of the team this season was done at the expense of two of their top three players in offensive GVT (Martin Havlat and Brent Burns). Adding Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi certainly will help you on offense, but not by much if you have to give up two of your three best scoring assets to do so. Needless to say, I predicted the Wild to finish bottom five in the league, and Hockey Prospectus actually predicted them to finish 30th.

Yet, on November 21, the Wild are atop the league standings. Enjoy it while you can, St. Paul, because it's not going to last. A cursory look at the stats shows that the Wild currently are getting outshot by 5.6 shots/game. That mark ranks 27th in the league, and if you've read my previous entry, you'd know how important shot differential is.

We can further expand on this concept through PDO, and by doing so, we can see with more clarity just how lucky the Wild have been this season. (Note: I have seen PDO defined as both the sum of save percentage and shooting percentage in all situations, as well as just even strength. I am choosing to use the all situation numbers here because they are easier to acquire.)

Here's the data I've compiled:

In sports, the most important factor in any skill, streak, or metric is sustainability. We want to know if a player's career year was a fluke, or if he can sustain it. We want to know if a team's breakout season was sustainable. PDO can help us tell what's sustainable and what isn't. We can expect most teams and players' PDO ratings to come back to the league average of 100 over time. Thus, we can expect Minnesota to regress.

However, to form a league average of 100, some teams need to stay above the average, and some need to remain below. Not everyone will end up at 100 at the end of the season. It's entirely possible that Minnesota could continue to get lucky, maintain a high PDO, and make the playoffs this season. We saw this happen last year with Anaheim, who maintained a 101.6 PDO throughout the season, made the playoffs, lost in the first round, and have since regressed to a bottom-level team as we would have expected.

I don't think sustainability is likely with the Wild. I would expect them to regress sooner rather than later. Here's what stands out to me:

1. Save Percentage

The Wild currently lead the league in this metric behind Josh Harding's .945 and Niklas Backstrom's .935. Somewhat ironically, both of their career marks are an identical .918. We would be foolish to expect the Wild goalies to keep this run up, especially considering Minnesota has allowed the fourth most shots this season--the barrage of shots that Backstrom and Harding face is bound to turn against them at some point.

2. Shooting Percentage

Minnesota's slightly subpar 8% shooting percentage is about what we'd expect, because they simply don't have above-average offensive players. They also don't generate enough shots to overcome their lack of skill. 

3. Shot Differential

That shot differential is a killer. In the case of Anaheim last season, they had the goaltending to overcome the nights when their shooting percentage wasn't absurdly high. Minnesota doesn't have the offensive fallback when their goaltending inevitably falters, in my opinion.

Expanding on this concept, compare the Wild to the Bruins, the team just ahead of them in the PDO "race."  Boston has 69 more shots than the Wild this season, and their shot differential is +4.3/game (compare that to Minnesota's -5.6/game). Boston has the ability to outshoot opponents, keeping games in their favor. Minnesota doesn't.

Of course, I don't think Boston will shoot 11 percent all season, but they take enough raw shots on goal to compensate for this anomaly. They're still going to score a high gross number of goals when their shooting percentage comes down. Minnesota won't.

Similarly, Boston has allowed 120 less shots than the Wild, so if and when their save percentage crumbles, it won't affect them as badly as it will the Wild, because Boston's gross number of goals allowed will also be lower. That's why I believe Boston's PDO is more sustainable and less a complete product of luck than Minnesota's.

The Wild have all the factors of regression about them: a poor shot differential, poor gross shots for/against numbers, a high PDO, and an overall roster that simply doesn't impress me. These things will combine to hurt Minnesota very quickly, and why I still don't see them in the playoffs, despite this start.

Transaction Reaction: Letestu to Columbus

Normally, a trade as minor as this one wouldn't receive a full write-up on this blog, but I have a free minute and the deal was between the two teams I've watched more than any other, so here goes:

Columbus needs more players like Letestu. Let me also add that ever since I wrote a post defending Mason, he's been horrendous. But still, the reason Columbus is 2-11-1 instead of 5-7-1 is because they aren't getting secondary scoring, they have injuries, their defense is lost at (most) times, and their depth forwards don't do the things Pittsburgh's depth forwards do.

Want to know the reason Pittsburgh is an elite team without Crosby and Malkin? It's because their forward core is ridiculously deep. Letestu is the kind of player who you can get for cheap that can help you win games. He wins faceoffs, has incredible offensive awareness for a player of his role, and generally won't hurt you with stupid penalties or poor positioning.

This is probably a set-up for a bigger move, even though Scott Howson says it isn't, because Columbus has center depth like they've never had in the history of the franchise, and they'd be dumb to just sit on that when they have so many holes elsewhere. Every hockey writer in the business can start speculating about a Derick Brassard trade now. Truth be told, if they give Letestu his minutes, they aren't going to be losing much in the short term. Letestu can play, and he's cheap. Pittsburgh just has about 14 forwards better than he. Most teams don't.

Transaction Reaction: Panthers/Canucks Trade

A huge deal occurred tonight between familiar trading partners, as the Canucks and Panthers made an intriguing swap. As we all know by now, Vancouver shipped Mikael Samuelsson and Marco Sturm to Florida for David Booth, Steven Reinprecht, and a third round pick in 2013.

When the deal first broke, many hockey people I follow on Twitter questioned the deal from a Florida perspective, and I can understand that viewpoint. Booth is the "name" commodity in the deal, and generally, in a trade, whoever gets the best player "wins the deal." I'm not here to analyze who wins the deal, I'm here to analyze the deal from the frame of reference of Mike Gillis and Dale Tallon. Each is qualified and intelligent; neither would make a deal that they didn't benefit from in some way.

Here's what I believe each GM was thinking when they pulled the trigger on the year's first major trade:

Vancouver Canucks:

The trade is perhaps more easily understood from the Vancouver perspective. The Canucks are a team desperately in need of secondary scoring (outside of the Sedin twins). Booth fits the type of player that they need. He's going to play alongside Kesler, who he played with as a kid growing up in Michigan, and he should fit nicely alongside the former Buckeye. Mason Raymond is still battling injury, and he's an RFA after this season--it might not be necessary to gamble on him now that Vancouver has Booth locked up for three years after this one.

Booth has often been regarded as an up-and-coming player, but he simply hasn't been the same after the crushing Mike Richards hit that concussed him in 2009-10. His 2008-09 season was a great one and earned him the current deal he has now which carries a $4.25 million cap hit. That's a contract I wouldn't have a problem giving to a 60 point scorer in his mid-20s, but the thing is, I'm not sure Booth is that anymore. 

He had a terrible season last year, his first full one since the concussion, and that's even if you ignore his -31 rating, which I will, for reasons discussed on this blog. (It's important to note that Booth's PDO was only about 96 last season, the direct cause for his -31.) Regardless, the thinking is escaping Florida and giving him a change of scenery/a competitive environment should ignite him. Mike Gillis can hope. If he doesn't rebound, he's stuck with a $4.25 million hit and no longer has the contracts of Samuelsson and Sturm coming off the books after this season.

Many people wonder why Florida would give up on him this easily, and I'll address that, but from the Vancouver side, they can afford to take the gamble on Booth. Florida can't. That's the difference. It's also why Steven Reinprecht was included in this deal, as I'll also get to in the Florida section.

As with any move, there are the obvious benefits, and the subtle ones that really make or break the deal.  Most of the Florida benefits fall under the subtle side, however, Vancouver has one of note: the 2013 third-round pick they acquired was actually their own pick, originally traded to Florida for Chris Higgins last season. 

What does this mean? It gives them the freedom to potentially sign a big name 2013 restricted free agent to an offer sheet if they wanted to, as you need to have your own picks as potential compensation. Your list of 2013 RFAs? Among others: Lucic, Hall, Seguin, Pietrangelo, Hornqvist, Wheeler, Marchand, Bogosian, Skinner, Shattenkirk, Eberle. RFA offer sheets might be regarded as taboo today, but in two years, who knows? Getting that flexibility to potentially make a franchise-changing move qualifies as a no-brainer for Gillis. It might also be a fallback option if Booth flops and Vancouver has to buy him out and/or add the secondary scoring they presumably will still be looking for in 2013 should Booth not work out.

Regardless, the opportunity to take an affordable gamble (for them) on a potential 60 point player who's in his prime (age-wise), while giving up a package that upside-wise isn't comparable has to qualify as a good trade for Vancouver. It's clear why Mike Gillis made this move. 

Florida Panthers

It's also clear why Dale Tallon made this move, albeit harder to figure. Let's think about Dale Tallon's reign as Florida Panther GM. Committed to reshaping the franchise, at the deadline last year, Tallon cleared out the bulk of the team to any and all buyers, receiving only expiring contracts in return. It's almost as if Tallon did not care whatsoever what kind of team he sent out on the ice in March and April of last season, as long as their deals came off the books July 1, 2011. Those expiring contracts gave Tallon the roster space, and to a lesser extent, cap space, to shape the team as he desired. That resulted in the big free agent frenzy this summer, and also this trade.

It's clear that Tallon did not think that David Booth was part of the Panthers core. There were rumors of Booth being shopped last season, so it didn't surprise me one bit he was moved. If you're Dale Tallon, what can you reasonably get for Booth? He hasn't been the same player since his concussion, and in the Crosby/Savard/Mueller aftermath, Tallon isn't going to convince anyone otherwise. At the same time, he doesn't want to pay a player $4.25 million a year if he doesn't believe in him being part of the franchise's future. So a trade is a given.

But what can you get in return? No team is going to give up an appreciable young asset for the reasons I described above. Tallon's only option was to make another expiring contract trade. If he could have gotten young talent that he liked in exchange for Booth, he definitely would have. GMs make the best trades they can make when a situation like this comes up. It's like the Dany Heatley trade from Ottawa to San Jose--Bryan Murray admitted he didn't think he was getting the better of the deal from a raw player-for-player evaluation, but it was simply the best offer he had received. This offer from Vancouver was undoubtedly the type of deal Florida would have had to make, and it helps them in several other ways too.

1) They no longer have to pay Booth. Like I said, he clearly wasn't fitting into their core. This is still a team that's a few years away. If Booth didn't fit into those plans in two years, it makes no sense to keep him around now. Plus, even in the small sample size of this season, Kris Versteeg and Tomas Fleischmann look better than Booth, who had been pushed to second line duty.

2) They no longer have to pay Reinprecht. I guarantee you that this was the key point of the deal for Tallon. Florida is a team that can't afford to stash salaries in the minors. With Steven Reinprecht down in San Antonio, that's essentially $2.175 million of literal wasted money for Florida (his cap hit is slightly less, but in this instance, raw salary is the number that matters). Without question, Tallon insisted that if he was going to take perceived lesser talent back for Booth, the other team had to take Reinprecht's salary with him. Vancouver can stash Reinprecht in the AHL, where his cap hit won't count and his paycheck won't matter. That latter statement doesn't apply to Florida and it's extremely important for a small-market team like the Panthers.

3) They get two expiring contracts while still staying above the floor for this season. I can see this being the pattern for Tallon. He's finding creative ways to maintain and build a young core while complying with the salary cap floor. I can see him acquiring a few more contracts like Samuelsson's and Sturm's this season if the team doesn't contend, and quite honestly, I doubt it will. I could even see him trading a few of the big names he signed this offseason for players with expiring contracts if the team falls out of it. Don't count this out, by the way. It makes total sense.

4) They get a player who can potentially help them this year. I'm not as sold on this fact as the Panthers president appears to be, but still, Samuelsson can play. He's a big body who doesn't always play big, but still, he's scored 50 points in back-to-back seasons and isn't a totally worthless throwaway. He doesn't play defense and is unlikely to gain consideration to be re-signed next year, but you could do a lot worse if you were trying to trade for a player solely because his deal expires in the off-season. I'm disregarding Sturm from this classification because he's done and is solely a throw-in.

---

An all-around fascinating move, and another great example of a trade that has more underlying explanations than "player A is better than player B." Both teams knew just what they were doing and what they were getting. Vancouver gets the potential top 6 forward they need. Florida gets more cap flexibility on their rebuilding path and sheds a huge contract they clearly didn't believe in anymore. In my opinion, a good trade for both sides once the respective goals are understood.

The Steve Mason Dilemma

This time of the year is typically pretty thin on transactions, and there hasn't been much to write about re: player movement. That might change soon, however, given the poor start of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Off to an 0-5-1 start, the CBJ remain the NHL's only winless team and are already seven points behind first-place Detroit in the Central.

While most teams will wait slow starts out, perhaps no team can afford to do that less than Columbus. Attendance at Nationwide Arena, typically dull around this time of year anyway (it tends to pick up slightly after Ohio State football season), is only going to dwindle further with each and every loss. What makes this year especially different from other years is the financial commitment John McConnell gave to Scott Howson and the team.

The Jackets are essentially spending to the cap this year. That's a remarkable change for a team that traditionally hovers in the lower-to-mid third and hasn't gotten any significant boost in attendance, let alone a team that is experiencing all-time lows, as the CBJ have been recently. They already reportedly lose millions each year, and increasing the payroll by 50% isn't exactly a typical reponse to these types of losses.

The team looks to be close to receiving a bailout-of-sorts from the city by diverting local casino revenue, so the threat of relocation seems to be dormant. The team's financial setbacks should improve with this new deal as well. Regardless, the attendance issue is still there, and franchise player Rick Nash will only be in his prime for so long. Ignoring off-ice finances, spending to the cap for a 30th place team is obviously concerning.

So what options does Scott Howson have? Let's take a look at the Jackets from a GM's standpoint, focusing on the one area that has been scrutinized the most: the goaltending.

It's been fashionable for fans to blame Steve Mason for the CBJ's woes, and much of it is deserved. It's no secret that he has never been able to regain the form he showed in his rookie year. He posted a 19.8 GVT that season and has been unable to even crack positive numbers in the two years since. He also ranked third in the league in Goals Against/60 at even strength in 2008-09, and then dropped to 19th and 24th in the past two seasons. What are possible reasons for this decline?

For starters, Mason's teammates were great in front of him in his Calder season in 08-09, allowing the fewest shots/60 minutes at even strength (25.9). That number went up to 29.4 in 2009-10, and stayed at 28.9 in 2010-11. That extra four shots makes a lot of difference.

Let's look at another area where Columbus has been victimized: they've gotten worse at penalty killing. The Jackets' 4v5 shorthanded shots against per 60 has ballooned from 49.2 in Mason's Calder year to 52.3 and 53.4 over the past two seasons. These shots faced are also presumably of better quality than the even strength numbers.

Conclusion? The even strength and power play shots against increase over the last three seasons of Mason's career are, in my opinion, as much to blame for his "decline" as anything.

All the while, Columbus's even strength shots for/60 has remained pretty constant, indicative of the team's possession numbers getting worse solely through allowing more shots. In other words, they're still shooting the puck at the same rate as their dream playoff season. Everybody wants to know the difference between the 08-09 Jackets team and the past two iterations. Here it is: they've been allowing more shots at even strength and on the penalty kill. That's the change in performance that needs to be addressed.

I believe that the team isn't bad because of Mason, they just aren't getting any better in front of him. It's no secret that goaltenders need time to develop--more time than any other position. Mason is the same goaltender he was in 2008-09, his defense has just been much worse since that season.

It's amazing what an improvement in the team in front of him did for a goalie like Marc-Andre Fleury, a goalie who debuted strong early but went through some struggles, including being prone to the softie. Sound familiar?

I firmly believe Mason has the ability to develop much like Fleury did. The alternative development (the Andrew Raycroft route) is still a possibility, but if Howson bails and sells low on Mason, who is still just 23 years old, I believe the acquiring team could be getting a potential franchise goaltender if they give him time to develop.

In this instance, Howson doesn't necessarily have the time to wait, and rumors have him talking to many teams about a  goaltending acquisition. I believe this would be a mistake. Mason has a friendly contract at $2.9 mil this year and next, and then is an RFA, under team control until he's 27. Replacements would either be veteran short-term fixes (Evgeni Nabokov) or incredibly expensive, young backups who have potential equal to Mason's, in my opinion (Cory Schneider).

I believe it would also be incredibly rash to acquire offense, especially considering that the team's shooting percentage is currently at  6.74%. We would expect that to normalize closer to the 9% range as the season progresses, especially once James Wisniewski, Jeff Carter, and to a lesser extent, Kristian Huselius return.

Jackets fans are also well aware about the team's dismal power play, which has seemingly spilled over to this season. I don't worry too much about the power play woes because the Jackets haven't had Wisniewski or a healthy Carter in their lineup. Those major acquisitions, combined with further development of players like Grant Clitsome and Kris Russell on the other point, should improve the PP. It just hasn't had a chance to even get started.

(Also, while it's out of their control, let's point out that the CBJ have played in one of the strongest divisions in the NHL over the past few seasons. It isn't an excuse, but it's important to note.)

Despite his wonderful offensive acquisitions, Howson hasn't done much to address the possession issues this team has had for the past two seasons.  I believe that should be the primary area of focus if he desires to make a quick fix. It would also be the most cost-efficient. You pay money for the big point scorers like Jeff Carter and James Wisniewski. Howson has done that. Next step: finding secondary players on forward and defense who can suppress shots against, keep possession, and play a disciplined game.

Transaction Reaction: The Dallas Stars' Day

Sean Avery officially came off the books for the Stars and Rangers with his assignment to the AHL, but only as far as cap hit is concerned. (Both teams still have to pay him, of course.) The Rangers, a team that typically spends to the upper limit, were understandably happy about the extra cap space.

But the Stars sure weren't. Why? Well, first consider that the Stars are in a major ownership crisis and thus don't spend to the cap. In fact, they don't even come close, because they can't afford it. They don't have any real need or use for extra cap space. And, as Bob McKenzie tweeted, Avery's demotion meant that Stars were actually in danger of being under the floor. They had to do something to replace Avery's dead space.

When the day started this morning, the Stars had their active 23-man roster, plus Adam Pardy and Scott Glennie on the IR. This meant that they had 25 players on their NHL roster.

Usually, players on IR count toward the cap, which would mean Dallas could count Pardy's $2,000,000 and Glennie's $1,620,000 hit towards their cap. However, only Pardy's cap hit counts towards Dallas' total.

I was informed today by CapGeek that Glennie does not count towards Dallas' cap. CapGeek cited Article 15.6 as the reason why, which refers to the compensation players who break training camp on the injury list receive. Both Glennie and Pardy fit into this scenario. CapGeek assured me that Glennie counts as zero.

Because said compensation is defined in Article 15.6 as a rate based off where he played last season, and Glennie spent last season in the WHL and AHL (leagues that do not carry an NHL cap hit), his compensation this season does not count towards the salary cap. Because Pardy spent last season in the NHL, his cap hit does count.

Here is the aforementioned CapGeek FAQ on the subject

So, because Glennie doesn't count towards Dallas' cap, and Pardy does, Dallas only has 24 cap-accountable players. Those 24 players combined to give Dallas a cap hit of $48,817,500. That number is only $517,500 over the floor of $48,300,000. To activate Adam Pardy, Dallas will have to comply with the 23-man active roster rule and send somebody down. The problem is, if they were to do that with their roster as it stood this morning, they would have been under the cap floor. Here's why:

The lowest skater cap hit Dallas could possibly send down is $775,000 (Toby Petersen or Tom Wandell - they do have goalie Andrew Raycroft making less but they need to carry two goaltenders, obviously). Since Petersen and Wandell are forwards, and Pardy is a defenseman, it's more likely that Dallas will send down a D-man when Pardy returned. Currently, the lowest possible Cap hit for a Dallas defenseman is Philip Larsen at $850,000. 

Assuming that Dallas sends down Larsen when Pardy returns, this puts them $332,500 under the floor. To get in compliance, Dallas found themselves needing to make a transaction that resulted in an increased cap hit of at least that $332,500. 

Let's go over what Joe Nieuwendyk's possible in-house solutions were:  he could have called up Jamie Oleksiak to replace Petersen or Wandell, as Oleksiak's entry-level cap hit would have covered the difference required. However, calling him up to either play before he's ready or sit in the pressbox every game would be terrible for his development. It would also start his entry-level contract "clock" if he hits that magic 10th game, as he is a slide risk, and I'm sure Nieuwekdyk had no intentions whatsover of doing that. Also, Oleksiak is a defenseman, so this offers no real benefit for Dallas whatsoever.

He could also have called up goaltending prospect Jack Campbell and send Raycroft down, but again, that would be terrible for Campbell's development.

Seeing no real internal solution, the Stars had to look outside the organization, so they acquired Eric Nystrom from the Wild for future considerations. By adding Nystrom, they had to send somebody down to stay compliant with the 23-man active roster, so they sent Tomas Vincour down.

Dallas assumed Nystrom's full cap hit of $1,400,000. Vincour's cap hit is $800,000. Adding Nystrom and subtracting Vincour added $600,000 to Dallas' team cap hit, which is in excess of the $332,500 they needed. This means that if Adam Pardy is activated, and if Philip Larsen is sent down as the concurrent move, Dallas will be $267,500 clear of the floor.

It's interesting to note that Dallas could have claimed Nystrom off re-entry waivers a few days ago, but that wouldn't have helped them as all, because the half-cap-hit of $700,000 would actually make their deficit relative to the floor worse.

Dallas needed to find a way to take on salary once Pardy was healthy, and they've done so with this trade. An all-around crazy situation.

Goals Versus Threshold (GVT) and My Small-Market Team

Note: A good friend and loyal reader asked me on Twitter what the GVT stat means in my previous post. I don't profess to have invented it; that credit goes to Tom Awad and Hockey Propectus. However, I have researched it and value it as a great all-around metric for determining value.

GVT is to hockey what VORP is to baseball. It strips away the winning and losing aspect of hockey and equates player statistics to goals. Regardless of a team's performance, all a player is trying to do is increase goal differential in his team's favor, whether offensively or defensively. He can't control what happens when he isn't on the ice, even though that might make the complete difference towards the outcome of the game. GVT takes a player's individual contribution and scales it relative to replacement value. We can then use that to predict how a team will do.

For example, let's take my "perfect small market team" from the last post. Let's look at Jonathan Toews. His GVT last year was 20.8. That means he contributed, through offensive, defensive, shootout, and goaltending totals, +20.8 more to the Blackhawks' goal differential than a replacement-level player would. His breakdowns are as follows:

OGVT: 13.7
DGVT: 5.7
SGVT: 1.4
GGVT: 0 (obviously, Toews is not a goaltender)
Total: 20.8

These totals isolate Toews' performance to the various areas of the game. What stands out to me: 5.7 DGVT is very good for a forward. Selke winner Ryan Kesler also posted a 5.7. Noted defensive guru Pavel Datsyuk posted a 2.3. Bottom line, everyone knows Toews is a great scorer by looking at his points numbers, but GVT can show us a real boost in his value because of his defense. This is why Toews ranked as highly as any skater in the league last season despite lagging some 15-20 points behind players like Martin St. Louis, Corey Perry, and the Sedin twins.

We can also use GVT to predict team performance. I emailed Mr. Awad about the calculation this morning, and he was gracious enough to respond to me. The first step is to sum the player GVT contributions of all players. Again, reference my perfect small-market team. The total player GVT was 258.7. However, this doesn't represent team GVT, since we have to account for replacement level. Replacement level is defined as 1.5 goals per game, or 123 goals for the season. We subtract this out from the player summation to find that my perfect small market team would have a goal differential of 135.7. As mentioned, this would be the highest goal differential since the lockout by a wide margin.

But that's not all. We can then scale this predicted goal differential to get a predicted point output. Mr. Awad was extremely helpful in sharing the formula with me, so credit to him here. 3 GVT = 1 point in the standings. So our imaginary team of 258.7 GVT would have a predicted point output of (258.7 divided by 3) 86.2333 points above replacement level. We then add in replacement level of 50 points to get a predicted output of about 136 points for my imaginary team.

How was that 50 points derived? Remember that the replacement level GVT is 123 goals for the season. Divide that by 3, and we get 41 points for a replacement level, 123 goal team. The exact average point total of a team since the lockout is 91. Subtract 41 from 91 and we get 50.

Important: A team full of 0 GVT players would not produce 0 goals! They would just produce 0 goals above replacement level.  A team with nothing but replacement level players would produce a goal differential of 1.5 per game, or 123 for the season. Anything above that results in a positive GVT. Anything below that results in a negative GVT. That's why, just like VORP in baseball, we can see players with a negative GVT, and why it's possible for a team with a positive GVT player summation to have a negative team GVT: if a team's player GVT summation doesn't exceed 123, we would expect that team to have a negative goal differential for the season.

A great story appeared in the New York Post today about the hockey sabermetric movement. It's also worth a read.