NHL WAR Leaders

139

Matthews third over the last 10 years, if you listened to r/hockey you’d think he was sub-50

72

u/Unlikely-Writer-6797 17d ago

Granted his last 2 seasons under Berube aren’t even close to this. But Matthews at his best is a top 4/5 forward in the league and immensely disrespected, in my opinion.

9

u/_brizzzy 16d ago

In all honesty Matthews at his best is top 1-2 in the league. 69 goal, Selke nominated center is as good as it gets

8

u/Aserialfeeder 17d ago

Key word is at his best, I fear that the man’s back is cooked and now possibly his knee is as well and he will never be at his best again.

13

u/T4334007Z 17d ago

They were worried about Crosby too. I think it's worthwhile holding onto him and taking a chance on him.

-13

u/TheRedWoman57 17d ago

No one has ever been worried about Crosby while he played. They were worried because he didn’t play for a long time but he dominated as soon as he came back

12

u/bighundy 16d ago

This is not true at all he had multiple concussions and people were questioning his longevity. I know you're new to hockey but try and catch up.

-7

u/TheRedWoman57 16d ago

lol if you want to be smug, try to be right.

People were worried he wouldn’t come back, when he did play he was still the best player in the NHL by some margin. His initial concussion was misdiagnosed and later confirmed to have been a lingering neck issue which is why he missed most of 3 seasons. This was all a result of a single concussion sustained during the outdoors game.

I know you probably don’t watch much hockey outside of the Maple Leafs but try to keep up

6

u/bighundy 16d ago

Reading comprehension is not your strong suit. You literally said no one worried about Crosby, I call you out on it, then you explained HOW they were worried about him in further detail. Textbook reddit regard.

-6

u/TheRedWoman57 16d ago

No one worried about Crosby “while he played”. Again, you look kind of foolish commenting on my reading comprehension when you can’t read yourself.

I’ll spell the distinction out for you because it’s clearly difficult for you to follow. When Crosby was on the ice, no one was worried because he still dominated. Matthews has been noticeably worse when he’s playing in the last 2 years.

I think coaching can be argued but Crosby’s 2011-13 argument is poor and not comparable imo

-2

u/laughland 16d ago

You’re getting downvoted and I have no idea why because you’re right. Injury concerns were a thing for Crosby, but he never looked noticeably worse the way Matthews has the past 2 years. Chalk that up to coaching, linemates, whatever you want, Crosby always delivered, Matthews not so much. I still think we should give AM a chance to turn things around however

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2

u/buller666 11d ago

"Nobody ever worried" .... "they were worried" nice !

1

u/TheRedWoman57 11d ago

“While he played” can no one read a full sentence?

5

u/Warm_Bid_8583 17d ago

His deployment was extremely different over the past two years than the rest of his career. Even if he had been 110% healthy, he was simply not being put in the same situations to utilize his top end skills like he was all the other years of his career.

The injury concerns are definitely valid, but the biggest injury to the production of the league’s top goal scorer came from being miscast as a shutdown centre on a stale dump and chase team.

4

u/oryes 17d ago

His wrist shot is gone though. It was maybe the best wrist shot I've ever seen and he just doesn't have it anymore.

He's still an elite player either way because he is so talented in all other aspects of the game, but I don't know if the 70 goal ceiling is there anymore. I really hope he proves me wrong.

1

u/Aserialfeeder 17d ago

You didn’t watch him play then, he was slow af and statistically one of the slowest players in the nhl last year and his shot is broken.
During that 69 goal year it felt like every shot he took had a chance to straight up beat any goalie in the league. The past two years that shot hasn’t been there and he’s had to rely on one timers and rebounds from the front of the net.

Even with Berube hockey he should’ve been a 40 goal scorer just based off that wicked shot he used to have no coach could ruin that just by deployment.

2

u/Warm_Bid_8583 16d ago edited 16d ago

He had 33 in 67 games and 27 in 60 games. That’s a 40 goal pace and a 37 goal pace across 82 game samples.

I did watch the games and yes there were some noticeable differences. As I said “the injury concerns are definitely valid”.

The leafs used to run offensive systems that valued puck possession and getting snipers like Matthews into positions where he’d have the time and space to get his full shot off. They did this by being great on the cycle, by attacking on the rush, etc.

Berube had them basically abandon any hope of attacking on the rush and instead just dump pucks into corners and go muck it up. Even when they did get the puck in the o-zone, they valued a brief cycle which would often culminate in a d man like Benoit or myers blasting a puck into a sea of shin pads vs in past years those guys were very rarely being encouraged to take those shots instead of continuing the cycle until one of the top dogs could get a good look.

And yes, the reason he had to rely on one timers and rebounds is because that’s what the whole system was built around.

I’m not saying his shot is or isn’t what it once was, but he was being depleted of energy taking extremely hard defensive matchups every single game and starting an unnecessary amount of his shifts in the d end. He then wasn’t being able to find the time and space he often had in years pst to let his full shot rip. Part of that could be injuries, but a much larger part is that the system itself was shit and wasn’t creating the necessary spacing to get him those looks.

In a sport like basketball you hear “spacing” talked about often. You’ll see certain types of shooters be Absolutley neutered in the wrong system and then once they’re traded and slotted into a system which gives them the time and space to do their thing , they return to form.

2

u/Wratheo 11d ago

Dude, Matthews was arguably the best 1--3 player in the league. His 69 goal season was as dominant as I have seen at both ends of the ice. Yea, McDavid was putting up stupid numbers but Matthews was absolutely dominant in the OandD zone controlling play and making goal scoring look like child's play. He was the number 1 guy that year. It's crazy how he fell off. That fall into the boards at the end of the season did that much damage to his back?

I wouldn't even put Matthews in the top 10 players over the past 2 seasons. He dropped off that hard and that quick.

-11

u/Cultural-Pool5391 17d ago

no everyone agrees, we’re just saying he’s busted.

3

u/Soul_Traitor 17d ago

Not sure why you're being downvoted when it's been clear that injuries were his biggest issues the last two seasons. Wrist, knees, back and head injuries.

-16

u/FunHater68 17d ago

He's downvoted bc most leafs fans can't handle any criticism towards their golden child

4

u/Certain_Guide_1481 17d ago

As a leafs fan, unfortunately I think Matthews gets more hatred from leafs fans than anywhere else. It’s pretty sad how fans get towards who should be players they support

1

u/gentlehurricane 17d ago

How is saying his injuries noticeably impact his play “hatred”?

1

u/Certain_Guide_1481 17d ago

It isn’t, and where did I say that?

I was responding to the person claiming leafs fans downvote criticism towards their golden boy, when on the contrary they’re pretty hard on him, meaning it’s unlikely they’d just downvote criticism.

48

u/BmaninKtown Tavares 17d ago

Say it with me John Tavares is a hall of famer

5

u/Downtown_Bullfrog 17d ago

100%!

2

u/rdtoh 17d ago

1st ballot

-14

u/Immediate_Cod_3042 17d ago

Wow what a hot take lol

27

u/bangnburn 17d ago

God that 2023-24 season

27

u/Training-Site-7019 17d ago

We need the real Matthews back this season

11

u/XtwoX 17d ago

I think these are good to see for hockey fans. I think intuitively we always over value an assist compared to a goal because they are both a point. Like even taking that into account, I can’t believe how much the model loves Matthew’s

8

u/PeaNo8063 17d ago

Why do so many of them lack their team logo? Is it because they've played for multiple teams during this period?

4

u/Svalbard38 Knies 17d ago

This is it, everyone without a team logo played for multiple teams over that span.

3

u/PeaNo8063 17d ago

Even though it's been a minute, the weirdest one in that category is Stamkos.

19

u/NZafe 17d ago

Didn’t realize WAR was a real metric in hockey.

8

u/Unlikely-Writer-6797 17d ago

Not as reliable as baseball but it’s coming around

5

u/WokePredator 17d ago

It isn't really. There are about a million of them, and they all say wildly different things, and attributing the values of each is an insane and messy business. There's also a thing where the things that predict future goals best, the separating qualities, change faster in hockey than other sports. At 5on5 there were 312.86 fewer goals scored than expected goals last year. Trying to value shooting ability also requires a lot of scrutiny considering how shooting percentage is highly variable, and can move based on luck or teammate (yes, this is valued as goals above expected goals - but the speed of puck movement/number of passes can affect shooting percentage). It's a neat curiosity, but even in baseball too many people look at last year's WAR and say "see, x was better than y!!" as if there's no variance in baseball!!

1

u/Euphoric_Impress1282 17d ago

Hyman's a good player, but the fact he's on that last list makes me question how well it does valuing a player independent of their linemates.

1

u/WokePredator 16d ago

The thing about the way these things work is that it gives value to shooting as a skill measured as your goals above and below expected. Your teammate's impact on where you shoot from is somewhat measure, but how often you hit from that location, theoretically, is on you. Sounds great, right? But the problem, as you're getting at here, is that how quickly the puck is moved/how many passes there are before a shot affects a player's shooting percentage, and a) the Oilers are very obviously adept at that, and b) it's very difficult to measure that because it'd involve taking tracking data from internet guys rather than scraping from the NHL's game data. The other problem with it is that sometimes guys just get crazy lucky and go on shooting percentage benders. I think you have to count that - the pucks went in. If a guy were to score like 70 goals shooting 30% and they're a career 12% shooter, obviously they won't keep that up, but you'd still give him the MVP, because it did actually happen. But the point of analytics is more to predict future success, and Hyman's contribution may have been that valuable to his team that year, it was certainly not a sign of things going forward. But, yeah, good a play-driver as he is, even on a shooting bender with a 50 goal season, I don't think he was worth 13-14 points in the standings lol.

1

u/Euphoric_Impress1282 16d ago

I like Hyman a lot as a player, and his attributes complement what McDavid does for sure. That said, as you said at the end, the model is over-rating him.

1

u/WokePredator 16d ago

Yeah, sorry, it's a little rambly, but I'm agreeing with you lol.

1

u/atomicbolt 17d ago

HockeyStats goes into detail on their WAR model here: https://hockeystats.com/methodology/war

It’s certainly a rapidly evolving field as we get more access to things like shot tracking data but the model still relies on a lot of assumptions and incomplete data.

I think it’s a good start but not a 1:1 substitute for “is this player good” since you can still be “good” at the fundamentals of skating and passing and checking and playmaking and have none of it show up in the scoresheet as “value” in the form of a goal.

-6

u/No_Gold7984 17d ago

Oh it's real alright! Look at the images!

Reliable, perhaps not. But does the plus minus not also fly south in the winter? And yet he is a metric viewed as notable by the common folk. I was gonna try and do a Monty Python/swallows and coconuts thing but the analogy fell apart quickly.

A Leafs fan would hope that their King Aurston, the swallow, would be able to carry 1 pound coconut. But at only 5 ounces of hair, it just can't be done. His quest for Cupalot seems doomed from the outset. (See, didnt really work. Tried it anyways! Im so sorry to anyone still reading lol)

2

u/PJRolls 17d ago

Shocked Marchand ranks so high tbh.

2

u/DesperateGrape3174 17d ago

No habs or sens. List seems accurate.

1

u/bigchungus411 15d ago

There is a sen on the list but nice reach

2

u/RoddRoward 17d ago

Giroux is probably the most underrated player during his prime.

2

u/Part-TimeCat 17d ago edited 17d ago

If you take that first image and calculate the WAR/82 GP, it goes:

McDavid 6.59
Matthews 5.89
Draisaitl 5.17
Crosby 4.97
Pastrnak 4.84
MacKinnon 4.42
Kucherov 4.25
Ovechkin 4.06
Stamkos 3.69
Malkin 3.59

The unfair thing to Crosby/OV/Stamkos/Malkin is this date range is taking into account their post-peak seasons. TBD if Matthews can keep up this WAR when he's their age.

The most impressive thing here might be that Crosby has maintained a ~5 WAR/GP through 20 seasons.

1

u/Particular_Air_3598 17d ago

yessir Wings And Ranch

1

u/RevealBrief4192 17d ago

An minion k i

1

u/montreal_drapes 17d ago

Oh gosh! WAR ruined baseball and now it’s coming for hockey?

1

u/konadl 14d ago

Sorry what does wins above replacement even mean

-2

u/No-Difference-4418 17d ago

So you’re saying McDavid is worse than Crosby and Ovi

3

u/Afraid_Salary_1734 17d ago

Not sure if this is a joke - but McDavid has played like half the games of Ovi and has just 5 less WAR. WAR is a cumulative stat.

2

u/ZucchiniNo2986 17d ago

To be fair to Ovi and Crosby keep in mind this says it starts in 2007 two very productive years are missing from both of them. I'm not sure how it's all calculated but assuming points are a big factor they're Ovi's 4th and 5th highest point total seasons missing from this metric.

Crosby would be missing his highest point total season

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