How do plus minus work in hockey

Not surprisingly -- perhaps because of this built-in bias -- offensive players don't have much use for the number. In some cases, it makes sense; in others, it doesn't. As a defenseman, during the s and 80s, O'Connell had a little different view of the statistic.

E-mail him at ej. Message Board. ESPN Auctions. Tuesday, December 10 More to plus-minus than meets the eye By E. Nicklas Lidstrom , Detroit. It could even be in contention for just the worst statistic in sport. The purpose of analysis is to maximize the probability of future outscoring, and to do this requires looking at those metrics that suggest success is most likely in the future.

This is important. What is most likely to happen in the future is a better measure of who they truly are rather than what happened before. There are also more confounding variables added with the highly unstable impact that is goaltending performance on both ends while a player is on the ice.

Combining a rare event with highly variable confounding variables and you get a number that takes a very long while to settle.

With outscoring, this often means multiple seasons. Canucks score on themselves on a delayed penalty. The number is not exclusive to 5v5, or even strength. It also means that a penalty killer can only improve their rating with tallies in the plus column or stay even.

The longer they spend in those situations, the greater the likely skew, regardless of how effective they are in their respective special teams deployment. The skew is increased further by empty nets. Pulling the goalie is a desperation tactic, that increases the chance of scoring while also increasing the chance of a goal against even more. Players who are playing from behind and have their own goalie pulled are the opposite.

There is a tendency for penalty killers to play in the lead situation, and power play unit skaters to go out with the trailing situation, so these two factors in general skew in the same direction for skaters.

A handful of short handed and empty net goals may not seem like much, until you realize that the standard deviation in even strength goal differential is only about nine goals.

In other words, suppose that Player A and Player B are absolutely identical in every way. They do the same things skate, pass, shoot, hit, etc. They're the Sedin twins, if both Sedins were Henrik. Now suppose that Player A plays 20 minutes a night, while Player B plays 10 minutes. In fact, it indicates that he's twice as good of a player. But is Player A actually better? Not even a little bit.

He's the exact same. He just plays more. Let's go back to the drawing board. Player A and Player B are once again identical in every way, shape, form, ice time, and more, all in exactly the same proportions.

There's no real rhyme or reason to it; maybe the goalies just happened to get lucky a handful more times than not for Player A as compared to Player B. Maybe the goalie just whiffed on a handful more pucks when Player B was on the ice. These things totally happen, as fans of this franchise well know. Pretty massive difference, right? But Player A and B did everything the exact same way in the exact same proportions.

Player A's not actually any better at all. Let's go back to the drawing board one last time. In fact, the stat has been used for performance-based bonuses with players on entry-level contracts. It simply looks at whether you were on the ice or not during the time of a goal. It remains polarizing for players, coaches, management, fans and hockey pundits. Generally speaking, when the team is badly performing, most players will have a low plus-minus across the board.

However, we can narrow in on the issue simply by isolating individual team lines. If your line has trouble scoring or is weak defensively, you will likely see your plus-minus rating drop. The same thing will happen for teams with poor goaltending. If the overall goaltending is subpar low save percentage, high goals against compared to the league average, players will undoubtedly suffer in the plus-minus department.

You can also check out my post about goals against average GAA , where I outline its own set of shortcomings. See here. There are many times where the coach will rely on a shutdown line to defend against the top opposing team lines. As successful as they may be, the shutdown line will inevitably be overwhelmed and will pay the price in plus-minus.

Furthermore, player deployment can also impact plus-minus. Although a strong scoring line will typically generate more offensive zone time, this stat can still be manipulated. As an example, what if the coach deploys your line for the bulk of defensive zone face-offs? In end the end, you can expect your plus-minus stat to suffer once again. Here is my two cents on the plus-minus stat — it definitely has its limitations! My biggest complaint comes when the rating is applied to players on a line change.