Friday, February 24, 2012

Score One For the Kings

Los Angeles defencemen with at least 100 games played between 2007-08 to present, ranked by plus/minus rating per 82 games played:

1. Sean O'Donnell, +8
2. Rob Scuderi, +6
3. Drew Doughty, +4
4. Willie Mitchell, +4
5. Matt Greene, +2
6. Davis Drewiske, -3
7. Peter Harrold, -5
8. Jack Johnson, -21

Obviously, Jack Johnson is not very good, yet apparently he and a first round pick are worth Jeff Carter, a guy who scored more goals in the three seasons prior to this one than every player in the league save Ovechkin, Crosby, Stamkos and Marleau.

Just as I prefer to look at multiple seasons' worth of data for goalies, I think there is at least some value in multiple years' worth of plus/minus given how the percentages tend to work themselves out over the larger sample, although obviously matchups and usage context are still important, especially for players utilized in a specific role.

However, when you're supposed to be one of the best defencemen on your team and you're that much of an outlier in terms of getting outscored over a 338 game sample despite not playing tough minutes, it's pretty glaring. It's also very tough to make a linemates excuse given that Johnson had four different defencemen rank as his highest defensive teammate TOI over that span, not to mention also having the benefit of playing more minutes with Anze Kopitar than any other Kings forward in four of the five seasons (it probably would have been all five if Kopitar played 82 games in 2010-11). At some point there's really nobody else left to blame. And the bad news for Blue Jackets fans is that their team is on the hook for paying Johnson $4.357 million per year through 2017-18.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great post. Yet alot of the Main Stream Media are saying how CBJ won the deal?!

Just shows you how far from reality they are when it comes to evaulating players/goalies.

Reminds me of all the talk for Osgood re ConnSmythe/Hall of Fame (and to a lesser degree Vernon)

Luongo for me, is a perfect example.

I feel the stats clearly show he is the best of his generation (GVT) in
terms of both excellence and consistency and a definite Hall of fame candidate.

I argue he is better than Brodeur
and right behind Roy.

(He laso clearly deserved the Vezina in 06 07 one of the greatest single seasons by a goalie ever. (I believe his road
save % was .930?) with a god awful team

He has also not had the benefit of playing with strong defensive defensmen in Vancovuer. A point that is never brought up in his defense.

(I have seen every game and Vancouvers defence is below average in both shots against and quality chances).


'Lortimer'

Anonymous said...

There can be no doubt that Joke Jerkson (aka Jack Johnson) is one of the most overrated D-men on the planet. He's nearly as bad as that good-for-nothing floater known as Bouwmeester.