Caps Advanced Stats Player of the Month: October 2014

This is the first in what I intend to be a monthly feature here at BrooksLaichyear. As I said when I wrote about the Caps advanced stats all-stars, this isn’t meant to be a claim that #fancystats or advanced stats are the end of any discussion. Instead, this is just meant to be a fun way to discuss Caps advanced stats and to put a new twist on an old idea (player of the month).

Instead of making this a completely arbitrary award, I’ve come up with a system (that may be completely arbitrary) to determine the player of the month. Otherwise, I’d just rotate this award between Nate Schmidt and Mike Green and be accused of playing favorites.

There will be 4 categories used. They are:

1) Close game unblocked shot attempt (Fenwick) percentage.

*close game situations are when the game is tied at any point or within a goal in the first two periods.

2) Unblocked shot attempt (Fenwick) percentage.

3) Zone starts-The percentage of shifts a player starts in the offensive zone. The lower the number the more shifts a player starts in the defensive zone, and thus, the “tougher” the minutes.

4) Quality of competition-The higher the percentage, the tougher competition the player faced.

A player has to have appeared in a minimum of 6 games to be eligible.

I have used two possession categories to give possession more weight than the other categories. The top 5 players in each category will receive points based off of where they finish (1st place-5 points, 2nd place-4 points) and so on. The player with the highest point total from the 4 categories will be deemed the Caps Advanced Stats Player of the Month.

Category 1: Close-game unblocked shot attempt (Fenwick) percentage 

Player	Close-Game Fenwick %	Points
Latta	64.1	5
Ovechkin	62.75	4
Ward	61.11	3
Green	60	2
Backstrom	58.49	1

Category 2: Unblocked shot attempts (Fenwick) prcentage

Player	Close-Game Fenwick %	Points
Green	61.35	5
Ovechkin	61.25	4
Backstrom	59.75	3
Latta	59.02	2
Burakovsky	58.73	1

Category 3: Zone Starts

Player	ZS%	Points
Beagle	41.67	5
Fehr	46.75	4
Carlson	47.87	3
Chimera	48.57	2
Backstrom	51.32	1

Category 4: Quality of Competition

Player	ZS%	Points
Ovechkin	29.89	5
Backstrom	29.82	4
Fehr	29.47	3
Carlson	29.12	2
Orpik	29.03	1

 

Here, courtesy of War on Ice, is a player usage chart of our 5 finalists:

The Final Ballot: 

Player	Points	Place
Fehr	7	5
Latta	7	4
Green	7	3
Backstrom	9	2
Ovechkin	13	1

Ladies and gents, your Caps advanced stats player of the month for October 2014, with a grand total of 13 #fancypoints is Alex Ovechkin. 

Photo by Amanda Bowen, RRGB Photography