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Hockeymetrics: Finding Out The 'Who' in The 'How ___ Went, So Did the Stars' in 2012

By Brandon Bibb
Is the guy on the left the Star who really stirred the drink last year?
Is the guy on the left the Star who really stirred the drink last year?

One metric I haven't really looked at since starting this series on Defending Big D is looking at who scores the goals when the Stars win. Not really sure why that is because it is a metric with some meaning.

Mind you, I'd rather measure something like the metric co-developed by a friend of mine, Marc Foster, than this one. I don't think it digs deep enough.

But it's still worth a look see since we've got to penalty kill for the next three weeks. And because the answer to the question in the title, depending on whether you consider scoring more goals in wins or scoring a greater percentage of overall goals in wins, may not be so obvious.

And for the purposes of this exercise, I didn't discriminate between results earned in regulation and those earned in OT or the shootout.

And right off the bat, here's the list sorted by the Stars leaders in goal scoring in 42 wins.

In Wins Pct
No Pos Name G  A  P  G A P G A P
10 L MORROW, BRENDEN 33 23 56 22 16 38 0.667 0.696 0.679
21 L ERIKSSON, LOUI 26 47 73 18 27 45 0.692 0.574 0.616
14 L BENN, JAMIE 22 37 59 16 23 39 0.727 0.622 0.661
18 L NEAL, JAMES 22 16 38 15 9 24 0.682 0.563 0.632
63 C RIBEIRO, MIKE 19 50 69 14 32 46 0.737 0.640 0.667
91 C RICHARDS, BRAD 24 49 73 12 37 49 0.500 0.755 0.671
29 C OTT, STEVE 13 21 34 10 12 22 0.769 0.571 0.647
6 D DALEY, TREVOR 8 20 28 7 12 19 0.875 0.600 0.679
23 C WANDELL, TOM 10 2 12 7 1 8 0.700 0.500 0.667
16 R BURISH, ADAM 8 6 14 5 4 9 0.625 0.667 0.643
3 D ROBIDAS, STEPHANE 5 27 32 4 19 23 0.800 0.704 0.719
13 R BARCH, KRYSTOFER 2 1 3 2 0 2 1.000 0.000 0.667
24 R SEGAL, BRANDON 5 5 10 2 2 4 0.400 0.400 0.400
27 C WILLIAMS, JASON 2 3 5 2 1 3 1.000 0.333 0.600
37 D SKRASTINS, KARLIS 3 6 9 2 3 5 0.667 0.500 0.556
44 D WOYWITKA, JEFF 2 9 11 2 5 7 1.000 0.556 0.636
28 D FISTRIC, MARK 2 2 4 1 2 3 0.500 1.000 0.750
33 D GOLIGOSKI, ALEX 5 10 15 1 5 6 0.200 0.500 0.400
2 D GROSSMAN, NICKLAS 1 10 11 0 8 8 0.000 0.800 0.727
5 D NISKANEN, MATT 0 6 6 0 6 6 0.000 1.000 1.000
11 C GAGNON, AARON 0 2 2 0 1 1 0.000 0.500 0.500
12 R SAWADA, RAYMOND 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000
17 C PETERSEN, TOBY 2 4 6 0 2 2 0.000 0.500 0.333
20 C SUTHERBY, BRIAN 2 2 4 0 1 1 0.000 0.500 0.250
22 C SCEVIOUR, COLTON 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000
36 D LARSEN, PHILIP 0 2 2 0 1 1 0.000 0.500 0.500
39 C MORIN, TRAVIS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000
48 L WATHIER, FRANCIS 0 0 0 0 0 0 0.000 0.000 0.000

 

I'll be honest. When I embarked on this journey in hockeymetrics, I expected Brad to be ranked higher on the goal scoring list.

To his credit, 67.1% of the points he scored were scored in wins. That ranks only behind Brenden Morrow in that department amongst the forwards.

But not only is he ranked 6th on the club in goals scored in wins, he scored the same number of goals in Stars wins that he scored in Stars losses.

12 each.

The other thing that jumps out at me is the number of percentages amongst the Stars top 6 that are in the 60% range and above for not only goals, but assists and points.

Take out Richards' percentage and you'll see that the other six Stars forwards who got the most of amount of minutes didn't have a goal scoring percentage in wins of under 66.7%.

I'd expect to see this on an offensively challenged club. And to be sure the Stars did rank 4th in their own division in goal scoring.

Still, this was just a little surprising.

But not as surprising as Matt Niskanen's line as a Dallas Star. He didn't score any goals, but he picked up six assists. When his name appeared on the stat sheet, the Stars won.

When he didn't, they lost.

So I guess Niskanen is the answer to the question that I posed in the title. Which means we're all screwed for next season.

Warning: The previous paragraph is chock full of sarcasm. Please do not issue a serious response in the comments to this paragraph, but further sarcasm is highly encouraged.