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hawerchuk 115 Posts written, 115 Comments Invite to Friend List Watch this user Watch this user Remove User From Watchlist

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Sidney Crosby: Rookie of the Year?

| Apr 19 2006 06:55 PM PDT By hawerchuk

Topics: NHL

First things first — let's look back to my October 13 column, and my pre-season projection for Sidney Crosby:

	GP	G	A	Pts
Crosby	81	39	63	102
Projection	82	35	54	89

Pittsburgh was worse than I ever could have imagined, and Crosby was better. I gratefully accept the profuse thanks of all those who picked Crosby in their hockey pools because of my projection (and I know at least one of you who did).

Crosby vs Ovechkin

On paper, it seems academic. Even though he's a full year older than Crosby, Ovechkin should be the Rookie of the Year. He's a goal-scorer who hit the magic 50-goal plateau, while Crosby's a play-maker who hasn't quite put up the same offensive numbers — an assist requires a goal-scorer, after all. Ovechkin takes two extra shifts per game over Crosby, and on teams with equally-bad defense and goaltending, he has a slightly better plus-minus, in addition to significantly more goals:

	GP	G	A	Pts	+/-	Ice Time
Crosby	81	39	63	102	-1	20:08
Ovechkin	81	52	54	106	+2	21:37

But it should come as no surprise that such traditional hockey statistics can be misleading. It turns out that Ovechkin gets a lot more time on the power-play, so let's look a little closer at numbers for each through last Saturday's games:

	Total Ice Time	PP Ice Time	PPG	PPA	Pts
Crosby	20:04	5:38	16	29	45
Ovechkin	21:42	6:45	21	29	50
Difference	1:38	1:07	+5	0	+5

Ovechkin got his extra power-play ice time primarily because his team, the Washington Capitals, didn't have enough skilled offensive players to spell him with a productive second-line power-play unit. Scoring is much easier with a man-advantage, so we'd expect big things from Ovechkin, but he had just five more goals than Crosby despite getting 20% more power-play time.

Since just having Ovechkin or Crosby on the ice creates opportunities for other players, let's also compare their team's overall power-play production when they're on the ice, not just their own point-scoring:

	PP	Actual GF/GA	Exp GF/GA	Actual +/-	Exp +/-
Crosby	5:38	58/8	39/5	+50	34
Ovechkin	6:45	58/13	47/6	+45	41
Difference	+1:07			-5	+7

"Exp" refers to the expected production of an average power-play unit given the same playing time. Both Washington and Pittsburgh's power-play units scored 58 goals, but overall, Ovechkin actually put fewer goals on the board than Crosby because his line allowed an extra five short-handed goals.

Even worse, Ovechkin's power-play shifts were each much less likely to result in a goal than Crosby's, giving Pittsburgh a 12-goal advantage overall. If Washington had a better second line and Ovechkin got less ice time, his efficiency probably would have gone up. But that's not what happened.

Some would argue that Ovechkin does have a huge advantage because he's a goal scorer and can break open a game by doing all the work himself. Crosby, on the other hand, needs a goal scorer he can set-up. As a playmaker, he gets more second assists, which means someone else did the work necessary to score the goal.

We can evaluate that theory, too:

	Unast G	1 Ast G	2 Ast G	1st Ast	2nd Ast
Crosby	0	6	32	40	19
Ovechkin	5	20	31	34	18
Difference	+5	+14	-1	-6	-1

Crosby definitely isn't padding his stats with garbage assists, though Ovechkin clearly scores very different goals than he does.

Ovechkin also took 556 shots (of which 141 missed the net), by far the most in the NHL, to Crosby's 343. Given Ovechkin's elevated power-play time, he just wasn't efficient to justify taking all those shots, even if his teammates weren't good enough to coax him to give up the puck.

There is also the position difference — Crosby is a center, while Ovechkin is a winger, so Crosby is responsible for taking face-offs and assorted defensive responsibilities.

Crosby gave away the puck fewer times (55 to 88) and blocked more shots (42 to 20), but also played less physically, resulting in fewer takeaways (35 to 67), and took too many penalties. The rest of their play, as much as it can be deduced from the limited play-by-play statistics tracked by the NHL, is a wash. But Pittsburgh would be well-served to sign some real free agent protection to keep Crosby out of the penalty box next year.

Overall, the production difference between Crosby and Ovechkin is illusory, a result of Washington letting Ovechkin take as many chances as possible for lack of any secondary offensive options.

Given all these extra opportunities, Ovechkin's efficiency dropped so much that Crosby was more productive in comparison. As tantalizing as Ovechkin's individual skills can be, Crosby's passing and play-making skills make him my choice for Rookie of the Year.