epl ice hockey league analysis 2012/13

Using VORP

EPIHL Player Value

@NickJewell

VORP?!

• Value Over Replacement Player - A baseball 'sabremetric' term applied to hockey.

• A common way to evaluate players across teams, irrespective of position.

Building VORP• Lack of 'deep stats' available for the EPIHL.

• Limited to GP, G, A, Pts and PIM (mostly).

• Best derived stat: Points-per-Game (PPG)

• PPG = Pts/GP. In effect, a measure of "average productivity" that's independent of the number of games played.

• Split players into groups of Forwards, Defencemen and Goalkeepers.

• Calculate mean (average) PPG for Forwards and Defence separately. Goalies dealt with later on... This average PPG is what an average 'replacement' player in the league produces.

• Divide each player's individual PPG by the mean for that player's group.

• This leads to the player's offensive VORP (oVORP) rating. An oVORP greater than 1.00 indicates this player is more offensively productive than the league average. An oVORP lower than 1.00 indicates a player of less-than-average league value.

What oVORP is Not• oVORP is "offensive" only - for now.

• VORP doesn't take into account defensive statistics (since none are available in the EPIHL anyway). This will weight offensive D-men above stay-at-home D-men.

• There are a lot of factors in hockey (face offs, defensive+/-, etc) that aren't measurable from these basic stats. All these factors are relevant in measuring the characteristics of a complete player.

• VORP has been hacked together for Goalkeepers using the very limited stats available and is covered at the end of the deck. More work is needed before it can be included as part of the main VORP analysis but is presented here as a work in progress.

Exclusions• For Forwards and Defencemen, any players with

fewer than 4 games played will be excluded from the analysis.

• This represents about 20% of the season to date.

• If a player has changed teams, his season total will be aggregated and presented towards his current team only. For example, Cesky has transferred from Telford to Basingstoke mid-season. His totals will appear under the Bison's analysis.

Data Capture

• All data taken from eliteprospects.com before 9am on 12th November 2012.

Team by Team Analysis• Each EPIHL team analysed

by oVORP

• Overall team value and quality ratio provided.

• Team value is the sum of oVORP for all players.

• Quality ratio is the number of "value players" (ie over 1.00 oVORP) divided by "non-value" players.

Basingstoke BisonForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

Greg Chambers 2.16

Greg Owen 1.91

Joe Greener 1.50

Douglas Sheppard 1.42

Joe Miller 1.42

Jaroslav Cesky 1.42

Joe Rand 1.17

Kurtz Reynolds 0.76

Alex Symonds 0.38

Carl Graham 0.19

Tony Redmond 0.25

Andrew Melachrino 0.17

Jacob Heron 0.09

Cameron Wynn 0.08

Zach Sullivan 0.00

Bison ScorecardTeam oVORP 15.95

Value Players 7

Non-Value Players 8

Squad Quality Ratio 0.88

Top 10 oVORP Players 0



Bracknell BeesForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

Marcel Petran 4.10Lukas Smital 2.12

Jan Bendik 2.08Shaun Thompson 1.97

Martin Masa 1.97Sam Oakford 1.25

Robert Lamey 1.18

Grant Rounding 0.66Matthew Foord 0.63Scott Spearing 0.57James Galazzi 0.55

Alan Lack 0.47Lewis Turner 0.36

Andrew Munroe 0.18Oliver Brönnimann 0.13

Ben Johnson 0.00

Excluded: Ryan Webb (F), Nick Mihinnick (F), Tom Fisher (F), Samuel Waller (D)

Bees ScorecardTeam oVORP 18.20

Value Players 7

Non-Value Players 9





Guildford FlamesForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

David Longstaff 3.11Curtis Huppe 2.75Jozef Kohut 2.26

Jez Lundin 1.89David Savage 1.89

Branislav Kvetan 1.84Paul Dixon 1.61

Rick Plant 1.58Nathan Rempel 1.21Ben Campbell 1.16

Andrew Hemmings 1.08

Milos Melicherik 0.81Stuart Potts 0.75

Neil Liddiard 0.57Ricky Skene 0.57

Andrew Sharp 0.25Ben Edwards 0.14

Scott Greenfield 0.08Chris Cooke 0.00

Excluded: Dean Holland (F)

Flames ScorecardTeam oVORP 23.54

Value Players 11

Non-Value Players 8





Manchester PhoenixForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

Robert Schnabel 2.22Michal Psurny 2.07

Tony Hand 2.07Ondrej Pozivil 1.73

Richard Bentham 1.48Joachim Flaten 1.42

Andrew McKinney 1.20

Scott McKenzie 0.87James Archer 0.87Ciaran Long 0.83

Luke Boothroyd 0.74Thomas Duggan 0.59

Ben Wood 0.49Jake Nurse 0.00 James Neil 0.00

Excluded: Liam Chong (F), Sean Day (F)

Phoenix ScorecardTeam oVORP 16.58

Value Players 7

Non-Value Players 8





MK LightningForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

Leigh Jamieson 1.62Lukas Zatopek 1.51

Adam Calder 1.27Adam Carr 1.25Nick Poole 1.17

Michael Farn 1.13Blaz Emersic 1.00

Nicky Chinn 0.67Daniel Harris 0.64

Adam Brittle 0.58Grant McPherson 0.58

Chris Wiggins 0.40Ross Bowers 0.40

Lewis Christie 0.38Ross Green 0.19

Excluded: Kamil Tvrdek (F), Connor Goode (F)

Lightning ScorecardTeam oVORP 12.80

Value Players 7

Non-Value Players 8





Peterborough Phantoms

Forwards oVORP Defencemen oVORPJames Hutchinson 2.08

Ondrej Lauko 1.91Tom Carlon 1.75

Thomas Norton 1.70James Ferrara 1.66

Jozef Sladok 1.61Maris Ziedins 1.25Luke Ferrara 1.17Jeff Glowa 1.00

Robert Ferrara 0.94William Weldom 0.33Jordan Cownie 0.22

Nathan Pollard 0.20Jamie Line 0.17Lewis Hook 0.09Alex Whyte 0.00 Joe Graham 0.00

Luke Barber 0.00Declan Balmer 0.00

Excluded: Peter Burai (D)

Phantoms ScorecardTeam oVORP 16.08

Value Players 9

Non-Value Players 10





Sheffield SteeldogsForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

Ben Morgan 2.81Greg Wood 2.39

Pavel Gomeniuk 2.21Derek Campbell 1.70

Steven Duncombe 1.50

Andre Payette 0.97Dmitri Rodin 0.92

Edgars Bebris 0.88Andrew Hirst 0.71Stuart Brittle 0.44

Thomas Squires 0.33Lloyd Gibson 0.28Ashley Calvert 0.27

Lee Hayward 0.20Craig Elliott 0.18Shaun Wild 0.00 Jonathon Kirk 0.00Lewis Bell 0.00

Excluded: Luke Smith (F), Thomas Wells (F)

Steeldogs ScorecardTeam oVORP 15.78

Value Players 5






Slough JetsForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

Mindaugas Kieras 5.78Darius Pliskauskas 1.95Frantisek Bakrlik 1.85

Vyacheslav Koulikov 1.50Daniel Davies 1.42

Tomas Valecko 1.38Ladislav Harabin 1.07

Michael Wales 0.88Josh Bruce 0.77

Aaron Connolly 0.71Matt Towalski 0.62

Adam Greener 0.60Alex Barker 0.53Daniel Rose 0.00 Daniel Scott 0.00

Samuel Godfrey 0.00

Excluded: Terry Miles (F), Kane Todd (F)

Jets ScorecardTeam oVORP 19.07

Value Players 7

Non-Value Players 9





Swindon WildcatsForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

Jonas Höög 2.66

Aaron Nell 2.41

Michal Kapicka 1.52

Shane Moore 1.43

Matias Perkkiö 1.42

Nicky Watt 1.23

Tomas Fojtik 1.07

Paul Swindlehurst 0.57

Jamie Hayes 0.44

Chris Jones 0.27

Sam Bullas 0.11

Loris Taylor 0.08

Floyd Taylor 0.00 Stephen Whitfield 0.00

Excluded: Ryan Aldridge (F)

Wildcats ScorecardTeam oVORP 18.64

Value Players 7

Non-Value Players 7





Telford TigersForwards oVORP Defencemen oVORP

Jaroslav Kruzik 1.61Tomas Janak 1.34

Patrick Greene 1.18

James Preece 0.94Tim Burrows 0.94Elliott Knell 0.94

Ryan Selwood 0.64Callum Bowley 0.51Adam Taylor 0.42

Tom Watkins 0.27Luke Brittle 0.24Joe Henry 0.16

Thomas Soar 0.00 Marcus Maynard 0.00Daniel Rose 0.00 Daniel Croft 0.00

Edward Eaton 0.00Jordan Bannon 0.00

Tigers ScorecardTeam oVORP 9.20

Value Players 3






Analysis• How to read the VORP numbers: A player who gives a consistently

average performance in the league scores 1.00. This means David Longstaff is worth 3.11 times the value of this average player.

• The most valuable team is Guildford at 23.54. The least is Telford at 9.20.

• The overall team value distribution is remarkably even - mean value of 16.58, std dev of 3.63.

• Several teams (Bracknell/Slough in particular) benefit from strong offensive D-men.

• Many ex-Flames are not good value this season (Melachrino, Brönnimann, Duggan, Chinn, Wiggins, etc)

Analysis II

• A Flames top line of Longstaff, Huppe and Kohut would be the highest value possible for the Flames (8.12 value - equivalent to almost the entire Telford team!)

• An entire Flames defensive line (Liddiard/Skene) is below value. Would a shakeup help?

Pythagorean Win-Loss• Using a formula originally applied to baseball

winning percentage - aims to predict a team's success based on goals scored and conceded.

• Teams who have expected percentages lower than actually achieved are said to be "lucky" whereas teams who are actually worse than their predictions are said to be "unlucky"

Py W-L Analysis

• Guildford (-2 places) and Peterborough (-3 places) are the most unlucky teams for league positions this year.

• Guildford (-2 places) is also the most unlucky for Cup positions.

• Tough break.

Goaltending VORP• We have two sets on non-additive stats generally available

(GAA and SV%)

• Spearman's rank correlation coefficient is 0.59 indicating a strong positive correlation between these stats. Therefore either can be chosen.

• gVORP seems more interesting and provides a bigger range between players...important for our limited data set of goalies.

• Goalkeeper analysis excluded all goalies who've played one or fewer games to help remove freak blowout results.

gVORPGK gVORP

Stevie Lyle 3.00

Alexander Mettam 2.34

Gregg Rockman 1.97

Stephen Fone 1.92

Mark Lee 1.77

Damien King 1.70

James Flavell 1.57

Dean Skinns 1.54

Tom Annetts 1.48

Dmitri Zimozdra 1.41

Stephen Wall 1.34

Declan Ryan 1.29

Daniel Milton 1.23

Carl Ambler 1.14

Bradley Day 0.46

Graeme Bird 0.20

gVORP Analysis• Using gVORP based on GAA, Stevie Lyle becomes the most valuable

player on the Bison squad, the best goalie in the league and the fourth most valuable player in the league! Sounds about right?

• The variance of GAA is considerable. Bradley Day and Graeme Bird are the only below-value goalies who meet the acceptance criteria - pretty much due to a couple of stinky outings.

• Stephen Wall and Bradley Day have only two games apiece - it's really only Bird who's currently low-value as a goalie in this league.

• Both Bracknell goalies are in the lower realms of value - would a new netminder make the difference in a playoff run?

• Based on this gVORP, six goalies would be ranked either 1st, 2nd or 3rd in their team's depth charts (including Mettam and Lyle at #1)

Feedback to @NickJewell on Twitter

Thank You!

epl ice hockey league analysis 2012/13

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