Analyzing LW Drafts for Season 74

[Sljppers 23]

 

 

So it's stated over and over, max skating, puck handling, and defense. Erin Esurance is brand new, and my first foray into the VHL space. I made a small spreadsheet to analyze the statistics of the 74th season of the VHL and how previous Left Wing players have shaken out for our last season. We're all standing on the shoulders of giants to some respect, the newest of us more than others. Does the common wisdom hold true? One thing worth mentioning, something that could have deleterious effects on the implications of this data is that the teams aren't analyzed, the teammates for each of these LWs are obviously particularly important to the points they generate and thusly this analysis is mostly meaningless. However, we will see a truly breakout performance most anyone with a bit of interest in the statistics of the VHL is already aware of, as well as a particular steal of a draft pick based on average performances for the left wings of the league over the last five seasons. This analysis was mostly for my personal benefit, and this article is likely going to be a rambling mess, because I have not personally written anything to merit review in, at best, the last ten years. 

 

Firstly, let's start with the averages. As previously mentioned, team strength is not taken into account. Noting, of course, that we can't capture each player's rookie statistics and thusly our averages will also skew based on activity. Similarly, players with no playing time in S74 are going to be omitted. Of note, those players are Rookies Chris Reynolds and Kasey Tamm, as well as second year backup Michael Hall. A more in depth analysis is the realm and work of those better suited to statistical analysis than myself, of course. I am, humbly, a bartender. This is not my profession nor passion, but I do enjoy making spreadsheets for fun. Were, perhaps, I a better statistician I could leverage that hobby into a revenue stream and my wife would be very glad for it; rather than angry at my staring deeply into my computer screen long into the night trying to intuit formulae that I simply do not otherwise know into meaningful data to help my two week old player achieve honors totally unfitting her meme derived and otherwise unheralded pedigree.

 

I also have no idea how to insert tables into a post on these forums, apparently. So I'll just link the spreadsheet here. This is a common problem I have been having here. If somebody actually bothers to read this Cronenberg of an article, please do me the service of remediating my boomer nonsense and teaching me how the code function works. It would make this article, and every one following, a lot more visually interesting.

 

The average LW is taken with the 19th pick in the draft, and will be expected to contribute about 52 Points through a combination of 23 Goals and 29 Assists. The average LW will effectively omit Fighting, Discipline, Face Offs, and Penalty Shot with a total investiture between the four statistics of twelve points. Then, in order of importance, the average LW will invest in Scoring, Defense, Skating, and Puck Handling. The average LW is also 6'2" and 203 lbs.

 

 

The MVP of each set of drafted LW's per season based solely on point performance since S68 are Ondrej Ohradka (S68), Patrik Tallinder (S69), Damien Wolfe (S70)*, Squirrely Dan (S71), Robin Winter (72), Marshall James Frostbeard (S73), and Aloe Dear. Let us give a special mention to Groovy Dood (S73) who matched Frostbeard in points, with a very slight disadvantage in goals vs. assists.

The average MVP of each bracketed LW is taken with the 15th pick in the draft, and will be expected to contribute about 79 Points through a combination of 36 Goals and 43 Assists. The MVP LW will effectively omit Fighting, Discipline, Face Offs, and Penalty Shot with a total investiture between the four statistics of ten points, with a notable reduction from the average in Fighting, Discipline, and Penalty Shot, and a two point increase in Face Offs. Then, in order of importance, the average MVP LW will invest in Scoring, Defense, Skating, and Puck Handling. Of note, our MVP LW spends three points less on Checking than the average LW, and has eight points more in Strength. As well, our MVP LW has about 103 more TPA than the average. Our MVP LW is 6'1" and 195 lbs.

 

 

One mention I'd like to amend here, is the breakout performance of Ondrej Ohradka (S68). He was drafted 44th in S68, and yet slashed through defenses with 30 Goals and 45 Assists for a combined 80 Points. He did this with as far as we can see only 548 TPA, invested mainly in Scoring 98, Defense 90, Skating 82, Puck Handling 82, Passing 80 and Checking 62. That TPA is likely reduced from last season, as he has 932 TPE. However, congratulations to a great player for bucking the averages and over-performing for his draft position.

 

The point leading LW of the 74th Season of the VHL's regular season was Patrik Tallinder (S69), and congratulations to Patrik Tallinder (Acct.) for that feat. He was taken with the 10th pick of the draft, and contributed an astounding 127 Points through a combination of 53 Goals and 74 Assists. Patrik also effectively omitted Fighting, Discipline, Face Offs, and Penalty Shot with a total investiture between the four statistics of four points, with only two points in Discipline and Face Offs. He is a TPA monster, with 828 invested in Scoring, Skating, Puck Handling, Defense, Strength and Passing . Mr. Tallinder spent less on Face-Off, Checking, and Discipline than the average MVP LW. He has a total investment of 241 more TPA than the mvp average and 345 more than the average LW. Interestingly, he has less TPA than a players Jim Bob, Thomas Landry II, and Soren Jensen. Our point leader is also 6'1" but weighs only 175 lbs; twenty pounds lighter than the average class mvp and twenty eight pounds lighter and an inch shorter than the average LW. 

 

 

So what does this tell us, the average plebeian newb with no insight into the league overall, no understanding of previous winners, lines, team strategies? Nothing. Not really. As I mentioned before none of this data tells us the real story of a player because ours is a team game. However, if one was to prototype their LW it may be of note the specifics of size. Maybe bigger isn't better? But the mantra, Skating, Puck Handling, Scoring and Defense seems to ring alarmingly true, to the deference of extraneous points in other statistics.

 

And of course, now is the time where, noticing the length of my article, I attempt to pad the word count in order to alleviate myself of the problematic weekly demands on my time. Anyone with a High School education can do this, really; though perhaps it is called Secondary in Canada? Irrespective, the final year of our nascent education before we are cast into the real world. But now the demands of our review process are drastically less stringent, and the flowery niceties once relegated behind the garish banner of a red pen mark by a professor or teacher can instead flourish in the warming embrace of reward. Called to, for your writer’s personal purposes, I suppose an extra six or twelve training points; should we get there in the following.

 

Of all of the players in my spreadsheet, which I certainly hope you glanced at because it took longer to put together than actually writing this, we highlighted the performances of seven. The previous years’ best point-totaling Left Wing players were from Ondrej Ohradka, Patrik Tallinder, Damien Wolfe, Squirrely Dan, Robin Winter, Marshall James Frostbeard/Groovy Dood, and Aloe Dear. Where, exactly, do they stack up 24-26 games deep into season 75?

 

Ondrej Ohradka is in his fifth year with the Prague Phantoms, his sixth in total. He is 61st overall in the VHL in points, posting 22 in 25 games, scoring 0.59 every given twenty minutes of ice time.

Due to Mr. Tallinder’s specific exclusion, we’ll save his statistical heralding for a bit later, and move along to Damien Wolf; who despite having the ignominious award for being the only LW drafted in S70 still posts a 96th in the league 18 points over his 24 games.

 

Squirrely Dan, our standout for being drafted with the 22nd pick of S71 posts a respectable 22 points in 24 games, though he is only hitting 6.77% of his shots with nine out of 133, he is averaging 0.63 points per twenty minutes of ice time.

 

Robin Winter has posted the lowest yet of our little “Where are they now,” coming in at 123rd as of 11/30 for the Dynamo, despite demanding a second round pick only three season ago in 72, with fifteen points and 0.46 points per twenty minutes of ice time.

 

Marshall James Frostbeard’s highest point total of the season 73 LW drafts in S74 came off a sixteenth round pick for the Malmo Nighthawks and he currently manages the team, boasting the 59th position with 23 on 25 games. However, perhaps the Managers know what they’re doing, his counterpart pick Groovy Dude who commanded the top pick of the entire draft in 73 now boasts the very top billing of the 75th season in both points with 41 and points per twenty minutes of ice time at and astounding 1.27, leading the next best scorer per the time they play by a boggling 0.18 goals.

And we would be remiss to not mention Aloe Dear who went first in the draft only a season ago. He is currently leveraging 22 points on 25 games for the Warsaw Predators, cementing him at 68th in the league as of the time of this writing. Last season’s first place draft pick however is posting a very solid 0.74 goals per twenty minutes on the ice, beating out a full 143 other players in the league and setting the young player at 40th in that metric of the rankings.

 

Patrik is not having as stunning a season from the outset of S75, now playing for Calgary after five seasons on the lines of Riga; with 25 points in 26 games, scoring 0.69 P/20 minutes. However, with such a standout performance last season we can only expect him to bounce back. Calgary's still second in the North American conference, as well, so a diminished early performance may not indicate too much.

 

My nearly autistic analyses since the beginning of my time in this league have led me to understand and agree with the didacts, by and large, though some deeper inspection over on the SimonT site and the words of a member on their forums leads me to believe that perhaps the VHL values Skating a bit more highly than it should. I intend to follow the same footsteps as many of these great Left Wings, with only a small break in the build away from the norms. The meta is seemingly stale, however: The average MVP LW’s Skating/Passing/Shooting weights are 34.72%, 27.98%, and 37.3% respectively. The difference separating an MVP caliber draft pick and your average LW from the Minors? A total disparity of 2% different decision making. That means just about every single LW in the league is going to Skate about a third of the time they have the puck, pass a little more than a quarter, and shoot a little less than two fifths of the time. At the end of this analysis I can say I hope in the future we can at least come to modify our builds in more meaningful ways, and that the TPA totals’ bloat wanes a bit. It’s only so interesting to compare 90/70/95/90 in so many myriad ways.

 

 

And that's where I come to ask for your, dear readers, responses and input. What did I miss? What would you have liked to see that would have made this read more enticing? What conceptual failure did I make in this analysis? I welcome any criticisms or comments, constructive or otherwise. Do you think there's any place for a meta-breaking build at left wing? From this brief analysis, I do not think so, as a person entirely new to this simulation and this community; but I hope somebody proves me wrong.

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by Sljppers
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[Sljppers 23]

2068 Words, will claim for weeks ending Dec 6, Dec 13, Dec 20, Dec 27.

Unless I can break that up. I like doing graphics. I don't think I can break it up though, right? Please let me know.

Edited November 30, 2020 by Sljppers

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@animal74

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8 hours ago, Sljppers said:

2068 Words, will claim for weeks ending Dec 6, Dec 13, Dec 20, Dec 27.

Unless I can break that up. I like doing graphics. I don't think I can break it up though, right? Please let me know.

 

Great article! You can break your claims up. You don't have to claim them consecutively. And the code function just displays code in a pretty format, it doesn't actually execute code. So it won't help with formatting. I have the same struggle with inserting tables. The best success I've had is copying from Google Sheets. Copying from Excel is a nightmare.

[Patrik Tallinder 1,079]

This was an amazing read, great job on this!

[Sljppers 23]

On 11/30/2020 at 12:44 AM, Sljppers said:

2068 Words, will claim for weeks ending Dec 6, Dec 13, Dec 20, Dec 27.

Unless I can break that up. I like doing graphics. I don't think I can break it up though, right? Please let me know.

Dec 20 claim link

[Sljppers 23]

Last claim 12/27