No Offense, Ho Hum

Again with the losing. The Sharks gave up two power play goals in the first period and went on to lose 2-1. They didn't really show any urgency until quite late in the third period, when they managed to score. The Kings were wandering around at the end of the game, with the Sharks buzzing, but L.A. managed to run out the clock, barely. I actually turned to Grier with about ten minutes left in the game and said, "They're playing like the game is tied." It was 2-0 at the time. The lack of desperation was palpable.

One thing that is interesting is the Sharks again outshot their opponents, this time 27-17. The Sharks have lost eight times in regulation this season, and only three of those times were they outshot. The two losses to Detroit, and the one against Columbus (outshot 18-17). In total, the Sharks have outshot their regulation betters 219-188 (on average 27 to 23).

What this means, I'm not exactly sure. Could they be watching stats during the game, thinking that outshooting the opposition somehow excuses their lack of tallies? That seems pretty unlikely. Eight games is not exactly a sample size, but only being outshot 3 of 8 times seems extraordinarily odd. The Ducks have lost nine games in regulation, and only two of those times they weren't outshot. The Kings have lost twelve in regulation, and were outshot in ten of those games. It's a very odd circumstance, but I honestly have no idea what it means. It could just mean the obvious, the Sharks are able to hit the broad side of a barn with the puck, but they can't actually get it past the goalies.

I have a feeling this might have something to do with their dismal play at home. Their five losses at home they've outshot the opposition 165-106 (33 to 21), much more lopsided than the overall numbers above. Are the Sharks just soaking up the adulation at home, knowing the fans will cheer the slightest scoring chance or the most routine save?

I'm pretty well stumped, any ideas?

Our Fan(s) Have Spoken

Before now, I used sitemeter to gather statistics for this site (you can still see the little counter all the way at the bottom of the page). But yesterday, I signed up for for Google Analytics, because they will report not just how many views and visitors you have, but pretty charts and maps and referring sites and all the crap a math-loving dork like me loves.

It takes about a day for the first stats to start rolling in, and I just checked it for the first time a minute ago. As expected, we get referrals from chompboard and BoC, but there was another table that reports which keywords the visitors searched for that ended up here. Here it is. I swear to God I did not Photoshop it.



To our wonderful reader that is looking shave his or her <shudder> ass, stay tuned. I'll try to convince Grier to write it up.

Douglas Murray and His Monstrous Plus-Minus

So you go over to the ESPN stats site right now, and you'll see that Douglas Murray (can't I call you Doug?) is tied for the league lead in plus-minus, at +15, tied with Chris Phillips. Holy God! That's a pretty amazing stat, given that the Sharks are +10 overall (including PP) while the Sens are +20.

I've never put a huge amount of stock in plus-minus as a purely defensive measure, because lots of things can skew it. I did an analysis once that showed that teams with a poor power play generally have players with a higher +/- than teams with a good power play. It makes sense. If you don't score on the PP, that means a higher percentage of your goals must come on even strength (ES), which boosts your +/-. Only ES and short handed goals count as a plus. And only ES and SH goals against count for a minus.

In my view, when you're rating a defensive defenseman, you really want only half of what the +/- stat give you. You want ES goals against only, because a defenseman's job is to prevent goals, not score them. If Larry gives up 20 ES goals, but they score 21 when he's on the ice, he's +1. And if Pete gives up no goals, and scores 1, he's +1, just like Larry. But Pete is a much better defensemen than Larry.

So let me start with a little factoid: Douglas Murray has not been on the ice for a even strength goal against since October 18th vs. Detroit. That means, he's been perfect for 10 games, over a month. Unbelievable.

The NHL doesn't publish this information exactly (you'd have to pore through the game logs) but luckily there are some good stats sites out there, and I turned to hockeynumbers.com. They have a stat called EH-, which is defined as "Goals against average while on ice @ even strength". They don't publish the formula, but I'm assuming it's goals per 60 minutes of time. Murray is the best on the Sharks, with an EH- of 0.3. If that means what I think it means, that's pretty astounding. Just for the record, and unsurprisingly, Alexei Semenov is the worst with an EH- of 4.1 (Kaspar is technically worse, but he only played 3 games).

So I went overboard, as I usually do, and made a spreadsheet. Here's the list of the top 10 defensemen in the NHL this year (who have played over 10 games) in EH- (and I have no idea why there's a big gap here):

Player	Games Played	EH-
Douglas Murray (SJ)	15	0.3
Petteri Nummelin (MIN)	15	0.3
Alexander Edler (VAN)	12	0.4
Mike Stuart (BOS)	18	0.9
Glen Wesley (CAR)	21	0.9
Nicklas Lidstrom (DET)	20	1.0
Marek Malik (NYR)	12	1.0
Ville Koistinen (NAS)	13	1.1
Luke Richardson (OTT)	16	1.1
Marc Staal (NYR)	20	1.2

Murray leads the league. Chris Phillips, the man who is tied with Murray at +15, is not in the top 20 (1.6). There are other factors that can skew this stat, like strength of linemates and strength of opposition, but this is a better raw stat than regular +/-. Douglas Murray has been one of the best two or three defensive defenseman in the NHL this year.

Sharks in the Shootout- Far Less Effective Than Phil Spector

So mclaren's right hip put a comment in the last post about how bad the Sharks are in the shootout. And as I am wont to do in situations like this, I get curious about the numbers. I'm a math guy. Sorry. If you hate numbers, click here and go take a nap. Try to wake up in the real world.

Still here? Ready for some Sharks shootout facts?

• Sharks are 3-9 since the shootout was started in the 06-07 season (a lovely 1-7 in the first year). That's the worst in the NHL both in terms of percentage and in terms of wins.
• The Sharks have also had the fewest shootout opportunities of any team in the NHL.
• Nabokov is 2-5 lifetime in the shootout. That's among the worst of goalies with 5 decisions or more. Other horrible shootout goalies include Ray Emery (1-6), Mikka Kiprusoff (4-11), Jussi Markkanen (1-4), Andrew Raycroft (3-7), and Cam Ward (1-4).
  
• Vesa Toskala was 0-4 in the shootout with the Sharks.
  
• Patrick Marleau is 0-6 in the shootout.
  
• Joe Thornton is 1-6, 0-1 with the Sharks.
  
• Joe Pavelski has the most shootout goals by a Shark with 4 (on 4 attempts, including last night). Other Sharks with multiple shootout goals- Cheech with 3, Clowe with 2, Marco Sturm with 2, and Nils Ekman (remember him?) with 2.
  
• The best in the NHL is Jussi Jokinen, who is 15 for 25. In terms of percentage, Paul Kariya and Slava Kozloz are slightly better, shooting 12 for 18 (66.7%).

So other than the goal-scoring and the goal-saving, the Sharks are money in the shootout.

If I were to put together a shootout lineup, I would go Pavelski, Clowe, Cheech, with Michalek or Bernier on deck. Bernier scored in the Teal and White game, remember? Against Taylor Dakers, but that's beside the point.