Stat of the Week: Mo’ WoodMoney, Mo’ Answers

In our “Stat of the Week” series, Jon examines non-traditional statistics. Emphasis will be placed on how the Oilers are performing according to each statistic.

In this installment of Stat of the Week, we’re looking at a brand new stat: WoodMoney. Darcy McLeod (aka Woodguy), co-creator of WoodMoney and a fellow member of the clan McLeod, kindly agreed to answer a few of my questions about WoodMoney. Thanks, Darcy!

By the way, if you’re wondering about the stat’s name, it’s named after its two creators: Woodguy and G Money. If you’re totally unfamiliar with this stat, you might want to read Woodguy’s post: “WoodMoney: A New Quality of Competition Metric to Analyze NHL Data.”

*****

JON: Darcy, what is WoodMoney?

DARCY: WoodMoney uses the same data every other “fancystats” site uses from the NHL game sheets. The only difference is that we put the shot data for each player into three different “bins” based on who was on the ice for the opposition at the time.

We run all NHL players through “screens,” and depending where they “fall through” the screens is where they get binned. Currently, we only screen forwards. There are three bins: Elite Forwards, Middle Forwards, and Gritensity Forwards.

There is one new metric used: Dangerous Fenwick For (DFF). DFF weights each shot base on location and type of shot. This helps explain some “shot quality” that general Corsi misses. [Note: If you’re unfamiliar with DFF, you might want to read my Q&A with G Money.]

JON: You write in your introductory post on WoodMoney: “Who a player plays against matters a great deal.” In your opinion, what are the dangers of player evaluations based on raw Corsi?

DARCY: Corsi is a useful measure, but on its own a player’s raw Corsi doesn’t tell us much. My favourite example is that in the 2015-16 season, Anze Kopitar and Cody Hodgson had an identical 57.4% raw Corsi For Percentage (CF%). Koptiar got a $10 million contract, and Hodgson isn’t playing professional hockey this year.

Among the many contextual issues that need to be considered to give the CF% some meaning are: (1) The CF% “baseline” of the team. Is the team a good possession team overall and how does the player do compared to his peers? (2) Linemates drive most of a player’s results. Who a player plays with is critical. (3) Does the player do better or worse away from his most common linemates? (4) Does the player’s linemates do better or worse away from him? (5) Who does the player play against the most? Is the coach running him out against the best or hiding him on a soft scoring line?

It takes a lot of context to give any meaning to a raw Corsi measure.

JON: For over a year now, the Oilers have been rumoured to be interested in acquiring a top 4 right-handed defenseman (such as Kevin Shattenkirk or Tyson Barrie). After looking at their WoodMoney numbers, has your opinion of any of the popular trade targets changed for better or worse?

WOODGUY: Defencemen are notoriously tough to evaluate. The biggest reason is that they usually play with a specific partner for the majority of their minutes and their results are inexorably tied to the ability of their partner.

Until we have bigger samples of players’ results (2+ years of results, in my opinion) against the three WoodMoney bins, the best use for WoodMoney is to add more context to a player’s Goals For Percentage (GF%) and CF%. If a player is playing a lot versus elite forwards, we can be more sure that their results are in a “top 4 role,” and we aren’t snookered into falling in love with a sheltered defenceman.

I haven’t looked too hard at more right-handed defencemen (RHD), but have looked at both Shattenkirk and Barrie. Barrie is unfortunate in that throughout his career he has had marginal-to-bad partners and this is baked into his results. This year with Johnson’s injury he is playing first pairing competition and minutes and having to do it mostly with an aging and slow Fedor Tyutin. That said, he creates a lot of offence but gives up more than he creates. I’d stay away from him.

I was surprised that when I analyzed Shattenkirk that this “offensive defenceman” actually contributes more to allowing less offence than the other St. Louis pairs. The Blues’ offensive generation (shots/goals) remains consistent with him on the ice, but the other team gets less offence. He’s not a 5v5 point producer either—most of his offence comes on the powerplay. St. Louis runs a first pair (Bouwmeester/Pietrangelo) and then two “2.5 pairs” in terms of quality of competition. Shattenkirk does well in his “2.5” role and I’d take him. I think giving him $7 million is not a good idea, but he would be an ideal fit for the Oilers second-pairing RHD.

JON: How do the Oilers’ defensemen measure up according to WoodMoney?

DARCY: McLellan runs a “top 4 and bottom pair” when you look at time on ice (TOI) versus Elite Forwards. All of Sekera, Russell, Klefbom, and Larsson play about the same percentage of time versus elite forwards (about 38% of their TOI). He then runs the third pair about 28% versus Elite Forwards. It’s interesting that Benning started the year in the mid-20s, but as the coach trusted him more his TOI versus Elite Forwards increased. His time with Sekera boost that TOI versus Elites quite a bit, and he comes in at 36% today, which is basically the same as the “top 4.” Davidson is 28%, Nurse 25% and Gryba 29%.

We can look at their shot and goal stats with these percentages in mind and see that Benning actually has an argument for being the Oilers best defenceman this year. Great, great signing by Chiarelli.

JON: If you were Peter Chiarelli, what would be your plan of action for improving the Oilers’ D corpse–I mean, corps–this season and next?

DARCY: The biggest thing is realizing what a great player you have in Benning. This young man is today already good enough to play second-pairing RHD for the Oilers, in my opinion. In his limited time on the powerplay, he has produced well there also. The Oilers long search for a second-pairing RHD that can play PP1 might not be a long search if Peter sees what is already on his roster. This is found money and a very affordable solution.

I still think Peter needs to add an actual NHL RHD who can play on the second pair next year, so all of the top 6 defencemen are capable of playing on the second pair. I do not think it requires trading away a huge asset or giving a UFA a giant pile of money as I think Klefbom-Larsson and Sekera-Benning can handle the top 4 just fine. Add another RHD who might be undervalued by his team, and the money you save on the D corps can be spent on more firepower up front.

*****

Thanks again, Darcy!

If you’re not following Darcy on Twitter, you should be. He’s also an all-star in Lowetide’s comment sections and a wood expert of some renown.