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BEHIND THE NUMBERS - Giveaways

D'Arcy McGrath

September 17, 2001

As training camp approaches, Calgarypuck will take one final look back at the season that was by looking into a variety of stats and a more detailed analysis of the Calgary Flame's players. This week's feature deals with giveaways, their frequency of occurrence and the Flames' leaders in coughing up the puck.  

Statistics can be a very valuable tool in assessing the performance of an athlete or sports team. Often however, the statistics that are available are too flat, offering little analysis beyond the actual numbers. For example it's easy to determine who led a team in points, but sometimes it's more interesting to find out who led the team in points based on other factors like games played, and ice time. In doing so, a reader can determine who did the most with limited ice time, and conversely, who did the least with ample ice time.

In the past Calgarypuck.com has used these "time between" numbers to look at the performance of the team through the season. With camp just around the corner, a camp which will feature many new faces, applying the same formulas will give us a look at how these new players fit with the current squad in many statistical categories.

This week Calgarypuck.com takes a look at giveaways. Traditionally a team's most offensive players tend to cough the puck up more often. They carry the puck more, and need to take chances in order to get the puck into position to score goals. Some players however, have a tendency to make more mistakes in these situations. A relatively defensive player can't afford to give the puck away as often, the risk doesn't match the potential reward as they are bound to just dump it in anyway.

Giveaways

Below is a list of the Flame's most guilty culprits when it comes to giving the puck away. The list doesn't include players traded during the off season.

It's not a big surprise that Marc Savard would sit a top the giveaway list for the Calgary Flames. As the team's number one center the onus on finesse often falls to Savard when he and linemate, Jarome Iginla, go on the attack. With Iginla going to the net, Savard will often try to beat one of the defenders to set-up an odd man situation.

The second place holder, Craig Conroy, is a surprise however. Though Conroy does have an element of offence to his game, his giveaway count was quite high for a center that should be thinking defence over offence.

Two of the most controversial Flames players would be Phil Housley and Igor Kravchuk. Both pull down roughly 2.5 million in salary per season, a sum that doesn't match either players' contributions. They sit tied for third on the list in giveaways. Both in considerably less games.

Val Bure and Tommy Albelin would have appeared in the top ten list, but have since moved on. Bure in particular was high on the list with 58 giveaways last season.

In order to provide a more thorough analysis, the table below adjusts each player's giveaway rate based on their ice time. The time quotient below represents a player's ice time between coughing the puck up.

Craig Conroy rises to the top of the list in terms of giveaways when subjected to ice time. It is important to point out that even as the most guilty Flame's player a giveaway only occurs every 21 minutes.

Many of the players from the absolute list above, appear in the time between list as well, with the notable exception of Jarome Iginla. Iginla was seventh in terms of giveaways, but when ice time is calculated it shows that Iginla plays almost 34 minutes between instances of coughing the puck up.

Though giveaways are a negative statistic, to give the puck away less often than your teammates can be a real feather in a defensive player's cap. When looking at forwards, Dave Lowry (56:41), Clarke Wilm (51:15) and Dwayne Hay (49:59) tended to make good decisions with the puck last season. The model defencemen are new comer Bob Boughner (37:51), Robyn Regehr (34:57) and Toni Lydman (34:44).

When the analysis is expanded to show all players from last season, Rico Fata (11:19) and Steve Begin (23:01) appear as players that cough up the puck more often than many of their teammates. On the positive side Dallas Eakins is particularly stingy, averaging 68 minutes between giveaways from his blueline position.

Summing It Up

The Calgary Flames have been rebuilt this past off-season. All these changes have altered the line-up towards a defensive style for the upcoming season. One of the key elements in a sound defensive game is the ability to make sound decisions with the puck. Players not counted on to take chances in the neutral and offensive zones have to get get the puck deep to limit the number of odd man rushes into the Flames zone. The Flames are likely hoping that the addition of players like Bob Boughner and Dean McAmmond will help play a key role in improving the defensive bottom line.