The Critical Importance of Team Context

There are so many synergies in hockey that the team context always needs to be taken into account for all players, not just for goaltenders. Edmonton just acquired Dustin Penner from Anaheim, giving up 3 high draft picks and committing to $21.5 million over 5 years. I doubt that Edmonton's front office staff uses any kind of advanced statistical metrics, or they likely would never have made such a move.

There were probably no more than a handful of players in the entire league who benefitted as much from their linemates and from soft minutes played as much as Dustin Penner. He might be one of the last players in the league I would have rolled the dice on, not because I don't think he is good, just because he is completely and utterly unproven, and I don't care how many goals he scored last season, I still can't be sure that every one of them wasn't because of Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf, or because of weak opposition, or both. Not to mention Penner playing almost 3 minutes per game on one of the league's top power play units.

Getzlaf and Perry were #664 and #665 out of #676 players in terms of easiest minutes played according to Behind the Net. Over the course of the season, Penner's minutes were slightly harder (he ranked #572), but a lot of his scoring came together with those two guys playing the same kind of soft minutes. Looking at the scoring rates, the impression you get is that if anything Penner was dragging the other two down. Here are the per game goals for and goals against on the ice stats for Getzlaf and Perry, with and without Penner, from David Johnson's Hockey Analysis site:

Getzlaf with Penner: +2.19, -1.97
Perry with Penner: +2.24, -2.24

Getzlaf without Penner: +3.40, -1.59
Perry without Penner: +3.25, -1.44

Second line scorers on good teams can often be like goalies playing on strong defensive teams - their teammates make them look way better than they actually are. I don't think this signing will end well for Oiler fans, and all because their management (which should have learned this lesson by now, see Lupul, Joffrey) apparently didn't stop to take the time to consider team effects in their decision making.