Crust: Do the Oilers have any?

Last year, I used these new (and less exciting by the day) stats to do their original function, judging the pugilists and the yappers around the league. Actually, there was two studies; one was focused on multiple aspects of the game using a small sample size and the other focused on a few variables with a larger sample size. Zorg came out as one of the better middle-weights in the league last year, while SMac did not fair so well. This year I am going to create two lists (one of “heavy weights” & the other as “pests”) and have about 10ish players on each of them (8 and 11 respectively). I assembled the lists based on there reputation or by my eyes, but each player must had 50 games and over 300 minutes of time on ice to qualify. Here are the lists of players I am going to compare Zorg, JFJ, and Blarney Stone:

Heavy Weights:

	GP	TOI/G	Special Teams	AP/GP	LP/GP	Differential	Pts	PiMs	PiMs/60
Hordichuk	56	6:01	0:02/nil	0.375	0.036	0.339	2	142	25.20
Ivanans	61	4:53	0:02/nil	0.344	0.180	0.264	0	136	27.29
Orr	82	6:51	0:05/nil	0.573	0.085	0.488	6	239	25.47
Boogaard	58	6:09	0:03/nil	0.310	0.172	0.138	4	105	17.95
Konopka	74	8:08	0:16/0:04	0.581	0.108	0.473	5	265	26.41
Parros	57	6:00	0:01/nil	0.474	0.017	0.457	4	136	23.86
Boll	68	7:12	0:05/nil	0.500	0.058	0.442	7	149	18.32
Boulton	62	6:50	0:01/nil	0.399	0.114	0.226	8	113	15.99

Pests:

	GP	TOI/G	Special Teams	AP/GP	LP/GP	Differential	Pts	PiMs	PiMs/60
Avery	69	13:32	1:12/nil	0.449	0.232	0.217	31	160	10.39
Downie	79	14:42	2:38/nil	0.570	0.278	0.292	46	208	10.75
Cooke	79	14:47	0:55/2:33	0.215	0.228	-0.013	30	106	5.44
Clutterbuck	74	14:16	0:33/1:30	0.149	0.122	0.027	21	52	2.95
Eager	60	8:19	0:03/nil	0.383	0.117	0.265	16	120	14.40
Asham	72	10:04	0:14/nil	0.314	0.181	0.133	24	126	10.43
Carcillo	76	11:14	0:14/nil	0.461	0.158	0.303	22	207	14.53
Sean Thornton	74	9:02	0:03/nil	0.378	0.081	0.297	10	141	12.63
Neil	68	11:58	0:39/0:19	0.412	0.221	0.191	22	175	12.88
Ruutu	82	13:21	0:13/2:05	0.220	0.195	0.005	26	121	6.63
Rypien	69	7:14	0:07/0:10	0.319	0.101	0.218	8	126	15.15

Oilers

	GP	TOI/G	Special Teams	AP/GP	LP/GP	Differential	Pts	PiMs	PiMs/60
Zorg	77	9:17	0:17/0:01	0.42	0.09	0.33	13	155	13:02
JFJ	49	11:11	0:15/0:13	0.41	0.07	0.36	11	78	8:52
Blarney	27	10:51	0:03/0:44	0.29	0.06	0.23	6	48	9:84

Note: the special teams section of these lists, in which the PP TOI/60 and SH TOI/60 appear respectively.

Games Played- Well this was one of the conditions (min. 50 games played) to get on the comparison list, so the numbers are quite high. The average GP for a ‘heavy weight’ is 64.8 and for a ‘pest’ is 72.9. This means only Zorg would have qualified for this list, while Balarney and JFJ were just too hurt this year (and with the frenchie this is becoming part of a standard season). Zorg would have ranked 2^nd on the list of Heavy Weights and 4^th on the list of Pests: and he was clearly above both of the averages.

Time On Ice- This is not an area that the Oilers excelled at, but there are a lot of good names on both of these lists. The average TOI of the Heavy Weights was 6:34 and the Pest had a respectable 11:40. This means that Zorg would have towered over the Heavy Weights with a first overall in TOI (a full minute over Konopka’s 8:08 TOI), but he would be lowly ranked among the Pests at 9^th over all; only with Eager, Thorton, & Rypien below him, and they play on teams with serious forward depth). For the two mostly broken Coke machines, both would finish 8^th in the Pests, lumped in around the two Flyers as comparisons.

Special Teams- This is the hardest category to asses. I am not attempting to make judgements about if these players are excellent, acceptable, or bad at special teams, but instead, I hope it is a reflection of the coaches trust in these players. Heavy Weights: virtually nobody played on the PK and they average 0:04 TOI/G on the PP, so props to Konopka for getting the only marks above average. Zorg does about average against these folks, with his PP TOI/G being comparable to Konopka. Pests: five—Avery, Downie, Cooke, Clutterbuck, Ruutu—out of eleven of these players contribute to one of their special teams play (averaging more then a minute per game); three of them—Eager, Rypien, Thornton—might as well be considered Heavey Weights in this category, since they do not help at all; and Asham/Carcillo/Neil just don’t seem to be first options on their respective teams for special teams but are not quite completely useless. Zorg and JFJ do not compare at all to the top five, while they are clearly more useful then the three honourary Heavy Weights. Blarney looks like he could be a useful in the ‘pest’ role if he could work on his PK game a little, and establish himself there in Oilers’ silks next year.

AP/GP- The Big Boys would ranked from highest to lowest AP/GP like this: Konopka, Orr, Boll, Parros, Zorg, (JFJ), Boulton, Hordichuk, Ivanans, & Boogaard (then Stone). The Little Guys would appear like this— Downie, Carcillo, Avery, Zorg, Neil, JFJ, Eager, Thornton, Rypien, Asham, Blarney, Ruutu, Cooke, & Clutterbuck–when the dust settles. In regards to our Oilers, Zorg’s aggressive penalties per game is right smack in the middle of the Heavy Weights, but JFJ and Blarney shouldn’t really be in this picture . . . while in comparison to the pests, Zorg and JFJ are in the top half and as expected Stone is in the bottom. Both lists had an average of 0.425 and this is exactly on par for Zorg and JFJ whom are tracking very nicely for the “crust” in the lineup (Blarney should start sucker punching folks every once and a while)

LP/GP- Again here are the list of rankings in order: heavy wights—Zorg, Parros, Ivanans, Hordichuck, Boll, Orr, Konopka, Boulton, & Boogaard, and the pests—Blarney, JFJ, Thornton, Zorg, Rypien, Eager, Carcillo, Asham, Ruutu, Neil, Cooke, Avery, & Downie, So the Oilers dominate on this list! Yes. Of course, I am assuming that I would like my goon to have as little LPs as possible, and hence have a low LP/GP.

Points- Here is where things get wide open, well on the Pest list at least. The heavy weights do not seem that interested in getting points, or at least they are not good at it, without one player in the double digits in the Pts columm. Never mind Zorg has double digits. But as we have seen with Special Teams TOI, there is a wide range of skill levels here. The average is about 23 Pts, and only Rypien has less then double digits. Zorg and the rest of the Oilers are far below this and rank quite lowly in these regards.

PiMs and PiM/60- Here the Oilers do a little better: with Zorg placing 5^th in the total PiMs and 11^th in the PIM/60 on the ‘Pest’ list, and 3^rd in total PiMs and last in the PiM/60 on the ‘Heavy Weight’ list; JFJ and Blarney round out the bottom in these categories on the Pest list. Zorg is not really taking less penalties this year but he is just playing more games, and this rankings reflect this. I don’t know if this is bad for Zorg, but come on you other two crust needs to be more (and overly) aggressive.

OverAll- Like last year, I am going to add up the ranks of each list (with the respective Oilers included) and the player with the lowest overall total will be declared the best player in their category. Unlike last year, I am going to limit which of these categories are going to count in the overall totals. I have decided the Games Played, AP/GP, LP/GP, Pts, PiMs, and PiMs/60 are the only categories that are going to count in this examination (which could be added to included Penalties drawn, corsi, zone start, etc…). Here are the overall lists:

Heavy Weights:

1) Orr (18 points)

2) Konopka (19 points)

3) Stortini (21 points)

4) Boll (25)

5) Parros (31)

6) Ivanans (33)

7) Hordichuk and Boulton (37)

9) Boogaard (47)

Pests:

1)Carcillo (25 Points)

2) Downie (26 Points)

3) Stortini (31 Points)

4) Avery (40)

5) Neil and Thornton (41)

7) Rypien (45)

8) Eager and Asham (47)

10) Ruutu (48)

11) JFJ (55)

12) Clutterbuck (62)

13) Stone (63)

14) Cooke (66)

Well Zorg can hold his own on either list, but the rest of the crust better being thinking about what they are going to bring to Old Tymey Coach’s team. The Oilers need another pest, or some more grit, or more players that are tough to play against. That is for sure. Well have a great day everyone.