Why Jarmo Ruutu Is Your S95 MVP

[Knight 1,291]

Why Jarmo Ruutu Is Your S95 MVP

 

It’s been a long while since I’ve had any vested interest in this often contentious debate. To probably the shock of everyone in the league, myself included, David Rashford’s performance on the ice gave me a real chance to win the most coveted individual trophy - the Most Valuable Player award, otherwise known as the Scotty Campbell Trophy. Even though I’ve produced four Hall of Fame players (Night, Henman, Walcott and Smalling), only David Walcott came very close winning an MVP, losing a close battle to long-time rival Leeroy Jenkins and settling with a great consolation prize of receiving the Brett Slobodzian Trophy (most outstanding player as voted by their peers). Walcott’s astonishing 145 points, including a record setting 111 assists was a season for the ages and likely good enough to win MVP in most other years. Jenkins, however, recorded a league best 66 goals, 152 points and 414 hits, breaking the league's hit record (which I would break back a few seasons later) and doing enough to sway the voter panel. Henman was on the ballot of the S18 MVP vote and finished with a respectable two votes. Smalling, arguably my best and most successful player, had incredibly consistent seasons but never had any true MVP momentum. 

 

Enter Rashford, the unsigned draftee who many had written off before his career had even really started. How he managed to win my first ever Mike Szatkowski Trophy (most points in a season) and Kevin Brooks Trophy (most goals in a season) given how many HOF players I’ve had is beyond me. He’s truly exceeded all of my wildest expectations and to even be part of the conversation about MVP is genuinely exciting. The league has changed a lot since I was last around but it’s gratifying to know I’m still able to produce impactful players all these years later. It’s also a wonderful feeling to win two (maybe three) trophies I never managed to win in my long career. However, this article isn’t about David Rashford’s strong case to win my first ever Scotty Campbell Trophy. Instead, I think it’s important to highlight the real MVP of S95 - Jarmo Ruutu @jRuutu.

 

Let’s look at a direct comparison between Ruutu and Rashford:

 

 

If I had a vote, at first glance I’d lean Rashford. The points differential is negligible but Rashford scoring 14 more goals and leading the league is by far the single biggest differentiator between the two players. Rashford has substantially lower PIM than Ruutu which negates (and potentially puts Rashford ahead) Ruutu’s large advantage in hits. The plus/minus, shots blocked, game winning goals, and special teams have no significant differentiator so it seems to be a pretty easy decision in favour of Rashford. Easy decision then, David Rashford is your S95 MVP! Wrong. 

 

So how have I come to the conclusion that Ruutu is a more deserving recipient of the S95 MVP than Rashford? Well, let me be clear - it’s not because I’m being humble because that certainly isn’t the case. I took a deep dive into the statistics to see if there was anything that helps paint a larger picture of the impact both players had. After doing so, it became abundantly clear that Jarmo Ruutu was the single most impactful player (goalies included) during S95.

 

The first and most obvious glaring omission from VHL voting ballots (not really sure why) is faceoffs. I can understand that faceoff winning percentage is not the sexiest of stats, but it’s statistically important to a team’s success. Winning the faceoff means gaining puck possession. Having puck possession means more goals for your team. Below is a chart showing the relationship between offensive zone control time per game and number of goals scored per season. 

 

Now that we’ve established there is a direct correlation between faceoff percentage and scoring more goals, we can now begin to better understand Ruutu’s impact. He led the league in faceoff percentage at 61.46% and finished second in total faceoffs won at 1906. Every player's faceoff percentage is a little inflated by so the data below shows an adjusted faceoff percentage that omits any player who didn’t take enough faceoffs to qualify for the minimum threshold. I realize there is no data for who took faceoffs against who (although I’m sure we could write a script to scrape this information from the game logs) but the adjusted figure is just meant to roughly highlight the true value of their faceoff wins.

 

 

While there is only a small advantage in Ruutu’s faceoff percentage, leading the league in any statistical category is a big achievement. Ruutu’s success in the faceoff circle led to Moscow’s league leading offensive zone control and, naturally, goals scored. The impact is undeniable and therefore it is essential that this should be factored into determining Ruutu’s suitability for the MVP.

 

One thing that might go against Ruutu is his seemingly high number of penalty minutes. To me, this makes sense. It should always be considered a negative impact on a player (and from previous experience I don’t think many GMs consider this) because of the disadvantage that comes from being a player down. The league’s powerplay rate this season was 17.61%. Ruutu had 94 PIMs which means that he gave up 47 power plays, meaning that you could technically argue that he was responsible for costing his team 9 goals. This isn’t an insubstantial amount of goals and for some previous MVPs this number was actually much higher. It’s definitely something I feel should be considered when casting votes. When you consider the league average per player was 74 PIMs, Ruutu was apparently more reckless than the average player. Looking a little closer (you knew this was coming), nearly the majority of Ruutu’s PIMs came from fights. Fight PIMs obviously have a 1:1 trade off with the other fighter so we can actually remove these from the totals while keeping penalties like instigating and game misconducts in there. Ruutu fought an astonishing 8 times during the season which grossly inflated his PIM stats. Factoring out fights from PIMs we see that the new league average drops 10 PIM to an average of 64 PIM/player. Ruutu’s readjusted number sees him drop to 54 PIMs which means he’s actually less reckless than the average league player. Instead of costing his team 9 goals during the regular season, we can see that the truer number is 5 goals. 

 

Showcasing Ruutu’s effectiveness in the faceoff circle and understanding his PIM number is inflated due to excess fighting should be enough to begin swaying those who believe Ruutu wasn’t the single most impactful player in the VHL during S95. If that’s not enough though, I have plenty more to surface. Ruutu was, by some margin, the best producer per minute in the VHL as evidenced by his league-leading 1.19 points per 20 minutes.

 

 

Ruutu could’ve had an even better season had he played more minutes as, surprisingly, he only logged the 50th most minutes in the league. This can make sense within the context of the talent on Moscow Menace where there’s a luxury of talented players to choose from as well as Ruutu’s propensity to be in the box. Even so, Ruutu produced at an elite level every time he was on the ice. He won the most faceoffs per minute, had the most points per minute, and led the league in plus/minus. 

 

Even though it’s clear Ruutu was the single most effective player in the VHL during S95 (and my vote for MVP), David Rashford’s remarkable season is undoubtedly harming his candidacy. Rashford’s league leading goals and points could have boosted Ruutu’s numbers. Maybe it’s a case of Ruutu’s dominance that enabled Rashford to have the unexpectedly dominant season he did. It’s always a bit of a case of chicken or the egg with these discussions and there’s never really a good answer. I’ve never been of the opinion that two players having dominant seasons should cancel each other’s MVP bid out. I think it’s possible, and especially in this case included, to acknowledge that the best player in the league is simply that which makes him the most valuable to his team. Ruutu clearly was more valuable to Moscow than Rashford was. Moscow were the best team in the VHL this season. No player was more effective on the ice than Ruutu. Therefore the vote should be simple.

 

I know there’s a number of other strong candidates out there so I am genuinely interested to see who will win the award. I’d love to make a case for Rashford as selfishly winning an MVP would be fantastic. I believe he has a strong case depending on how you value certain categories but if I had a vote, I’d vote for Jarmo Ruutu - the single most impactful player (goalies included) during S95.
 

[jRuutu 2,475]

Quality article!

 

I will still stay Rashford is more deserving to win the MVP, someone needs to fire those assists into the net and Rashford sure did that. On top of the goals Rashford was 5th in assists, that is domination!

[Ahma 1,444]

love articles with numbers and excel sheets on them. great work Knight!

[Victor 11,021]

14 hours ago, Knight said:

How he managed to win my first ever Mike Szatkowski Trophy (most points in a season) and Kevin Brooks Trophy (most goals in a season) given how many HOF players I’ve had is beyond me.

I mean you did specialise in defencemen before  

[Knight 1,291]

1 hour ago, Victor said:

I mean you did specialise in defencemen before  

That makes a lot of sense thinking about it 

[Daniel Janser 2,216]

17 hours ago, Knight said:

That makes a lot of sense thinking about it 

[Knight 1,291]

Claim 2/3

[Knight 1,291]

Claim 3/3