Hockeymetrics: What the Stars Have Missed from Alex Goligoski

A few weeks ago, I took a look at some of Alex Goligoski’s metrics in any effort to project how much his absence on the blue line would affect the Stars.

But while projections can be a an informative time killer and generator of talking points, they’re not substitute for cold hard facts. And the facts are the Stars have really suffered on offense since Goligoski went out of the lineup on Veteran’s Day with a broken thumb.

How much so?

Well before he got injured, the Stars had gone on a three game run of scoring at least five goals (7 against Colorado and 5 each against Carolina and Washington). Since then, they’ve only managed to hit the four goal plateau just once (November 21st against Edmonton) and went a calendar week from November 12th through November 19th without scoring a goal.

But it’s the power play where they’ve really suffered.

More after the jump

Through that fateful night in Pittsburgh almost three weeks ago, the power play was humming along at a 7.088 clip for PPGF/60. Ten full games later without Goose, it’s fallen approximately 1.668 to 5.378 PPGF/60. Before last night’s game and Ott’s power play goal, the dip was 1.945.

In fact, Loui Eriksson’s power play marker to open the scoring at Detroit way back on November 12th represented the Stars’ only goal with the man advantage since Goligoski went out of the lineup until Steve Ott redirected a point shot from Toby Petersen last night in the first against Ottawa to give the Stars two power play goals out of a total of 48:43 of power play time. For those scoring at home, that gives the Stars a pedestrian 2.463 PPGF/60 during that time span.

As bad as that sounds, it’s still significantly better than the mark they came in with, a 1.357 PPGF/60 thanks to one goal being scored in 44:13 with the man advantage. And when you consider that Dallas’ overall GF/60 for the season now sits at 2.563, you can see just how tough the sledding has been for the offense.

Furthermore, if we look at the data that Josh Lile has compiled throughout the year and do a query on who amongst the blueline corps had the highest power play +/- ratings per game through Monday’s game at Colorado, we find the following:

I don’t know how much last night’s game will impact this list. And as of this story’s publication, Josh is either doing a write up on the scoring chances from Thursday’s game, or he’s watching the game and recording the chances.

Nonetheless, Goligoski’s name appears in two of the top 5 slots, three of the top 7 slots, and five times in the top 20. And one other thing, you’ll notice that 19 of the top 20 spots are occupied by games in which Goligoski played in before getting injured.

And I’ll throw in the PP +/- /60 ratings. If for no other reason than I doubt the 1200 rating that Nicklas Grossman put up against Colorado back on November 4th will be duplicated the rest of the season.

Then again, it doesn’t take much time to win a faceoff cleanly, get a shot from the point that’s directed from within the scoring chance zone, and get a rebound.

Or….well….I digress. Here are the stats:

And in case you’re wondering how Grossman managed to pull this off, he only got six seconds of power play time. During that time, the Stars managed to get two quality scoring opportunities. Neither of which turned into goals, which is a little surprising given how much success each team’s power play unit had that night.

Again, most of this list is dominated by games preceding the injury. And the three exceptions on this list come with a caveat in that they occurred in that ugly 6-0 loss to Florida where Dallas didn’t go on the job until the scoreboard already read 3-0. Their 2nd and last opportunity of that night occurred after the Panthers had tacked on another goal late in the second period to make it 4-0.

With the luxury of comfy lead, it’s not hard to tell that the Panthers penalty killing units that night weren’t exactly aggressive in killing off the 4:00 of shorthanded time they had to work through that night.

Now that the bad news is out of the way, the good news is we’re at the midway point of that worst case scenario of ‘six weeks out’ for Goligoski. If the scenario is any better than that, we’re past the midway point.

And thus far, the Stars have weathered the storm a lot better than they did last season when they went through a spell without Brad Richards and Jamie Benn in the lineup through significant parts of January and February.

Whether that’s because of an infusion of veteran character guys or Glen Gulutzan’s system is certainly up for debate. But they’ve responded well to the five game losing streak of a couple weeks ago. And if they can keep their heads above water, enforcements will be on the way in short order.