Claimed: Schmeckeldorf - Clutch? [1/2]

[Corco 1,267]

Titans Winger Quietly Becoming Key Player

Rudolph Schmeckeldorf squares for a faceoff against Calgary center Jake Scheel.

 

HELSINKI, Finland - Rudolph Schmeckeldorf doesn't score often; in fact, he rarely scores. In 213 regular season VHL games, the Swiss left winger has only scored an average of ~13 goals per season (38 in total). It's a well known fact that putting pucks in the net with regularity is something you don't see from the pass-first forward, but this doesn't bother Titans management. They were well aware of Schmeckeldorf's play-style when they drafted him; the Helsinki brass drafted Schmeckeldorf to help put goals in the the net, not do it himself. In that regard, Schmeckeldorf has done a decent job, especially this season, which looks to be his breakout season; he has 48 assists so far, and topping 50 helpers looks very possible with 3 games left on the schedule for the Titans (one game in Riga and then a two game homestand against Davos and Cologne). While the Reign and the Dynamo present a very tough challenge, the lowly Express appear to be the best chance for Rudolph to reach the 50-assist plateau for the first time in his career. 

 

For the few goals that Schmeckeldorf scores though, there appears to be something quite special about them. Of those 38 goals that he's scored in his career, 18 of them have been either game-tying or game-winning winning goals (16 game winners and 2 game tiers), which means that a little less than half of the goals Schmeckeldorf scores either win or tie the game for the Titans; slightly less (42%) win the game for the Titans. This rate of goals to game-winning goals is a bit of an unknown statistic, and not an official stat. After looking over some career stats of the all-time VHL goal scoring greats, the results are a bit alarming (in terms of Schmeckeldorf's statistics at least). Most of the all-time leaders in GWG have scored somewhere around 70 game winners in their career (Fun Fact: only one player has scored over 100 GWG in their career; Scotty Campbell with 101), but their ratios of game winning goals to goals is only about 20% for most. That's extremely low compared to Schmeckeldorf's absurd 40%. 

 

You obviously cannot measure how "clutch" a player is, it's impossible. Some pundits even argue that there's no such thing as "clutch" players; they say "clutch" is just something people use to describe players who are lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time more often than not, but even if that is true, wouldn't that still be a way to describe those players who are in said location at said time? Relating this to Schmeckeldorf, he may not score nearly as much as other players in the VHL, but when he does, there's a very good chance it will be a goal that wins or ties the game for his club.

[TheLastOlympian07 2,388]

Review

Nice write up once more Corco. Interesting that you have 40% GWG rate. I think last i checked, this season I scored 20 goals while 10 have been GWG lol. Very interesting season this S56 is

[boubabi 4,725]

Schmeckeldorf, the true 1st oa