Sabres Goal Scoring Breakdown: Who Scores The Big Goals?

by David Oleksy on Jul 24, 2009 10:28 PM EDT

I figured that a Saturday would be a good time to replace the morning links with some statistical analysis. I will try to do this every week when it's possible. During the season we may see a change in how the site is run but for summer we need to keep it interesting.

Last season I did some statistical analysis but it wasn't nearly enough. I have wanted to really breakdown statistics that we don't normally get to see. We all know that Thomas Vanek led the Sabres with 40 goals last season but who scored the first goal of the game most often?

It's always important to score goals but as a fan I want to know who scores the important goals. The important goals are the goals that are scored when the game is close. Who scores the goals when the team is ahead by a goal or better yet when they are behind by a goal.

This study may be even more accurate if I had broke it down by period and maybe I'll do that in the future. This chart describes the goals scored in certain situations without taking into account the time of the game.

	Goals	Sabres 1st	Trailing -1	Tied	Leading - 1	Winning/Tying Goal	PP	SH
Thomas Vanek	40	8	7	13	7	4	20	2
Derek Roy	28	8	4	11	4	3	9	1
Jason Pominville	20	7	4	6	2	3	6	1
Drew Stafford	20	10	7	4	2	2	9	0
Tim Connolly	18	7	2	7	4	0	5	1
Clarke MacArthur	17	4	4	3	2	2	5	0
Paul Gaustad	12	3	1	2	3	1	3	1
Jochen Hecht	12	4	1	4	1	0	3	1
Daniel Paille	12	5	2	4	2	0	0	0
Jaro Spacek	8	4	2	3	1	0	4	0
Adam Mair	8	5	0	3	2	0	0	0
Matt Ellis	7	2	0	2	2	0	0	0
Maxim Afinogenov	6	1	1	2	2	0	0	0
Toni Lydman	3	2	0	2	0	0	0	0
Andrej Sekera	3	0	0	2	1	0	1	0
Craig Rivet	2	1	1	0	1	0	1	0
Teppo Numminen	2	0	0	0	1	0	1	0
Henrik Tallinder	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Mark Mancari	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0

Now that the stats are posted what does it all mean? Drew Stafford had a career high 20 goals this season and he scored some pretty important goals. He scored the Sabres first goal a team high 10 times this season. He also tied with Thomas Vanek by scoring seven goals while the team was trailing by one. A one goal lead is difficult to overcome but a two goal lead is almost insurmountable. It's always big to keep the game close.

Thomas Vanek is obviously the Sabres best goal scorer and he is also the best clutch player on the team. He not only tied with Stafford with seven tying goals but 13 times he scored to break a tie and give the Sabres a one goal lead.

The more surprising stat is the 11 go-ahead goals scored by Derek Roy. Derek Roy is often criticized for not being a clutch player but the above numbers don't back up that theory. In the next week or so I should go through and see how the Sabres compare to players on other teams with similar overall statistics.

What are your thoughts on the above statistics? Were you surprised at some of the numbers? Do any of these numbers even matter? I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas for possible statistical breakdown.

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Comments

GWG

I think the most important statistic up there, especially for the purposes of determining ‘clutch’ players, is game winning or tying goals. Judging by what I see we don’t really have anyone that stands out. Not to dredge up the past but the last season Drury was with us he had 9 game winning goals (out of 37 total, about 24% were GWG). Vanek on the other hand, our de facto ‘clutch’ player this year had 4 GWG AND GTG out of 40, 10%. Now obviously Drury is a cup winner and more experienced then just about everybody on our current team but it does kind of highlight what we lost when he walked.

"We want to win immediately. To say you're building is an incomplete sentence. ... You're building for a future coach and general manager."
-Marv Levy

by TEMSON on Jul 25, 2009 8:54 AM EDT reply actions

I’ve confused myself, can someone explain the discrepancies between the above statistics and the ones found here? If the ones on the other site are even remotely correct it looks like the Derek Roy detractors will be losing one of their arguments (that he isn’t clutch, 9 GWG).

"We want to win immediately. To say you're building is an incomplete sentence. ... You're building for a future coach and general manager."
-Marv Levy

by TEMSON on Jul 25, 2009 8:59 AM EDT up reply actions

yes

I left out a key component. In the NHL a game winning goal is the goal that gives you the win. An example would be…you win 4-1 the second goal is the game winner.

My stat is the actual winning/tying goal. Team is losing by one or tied and the goal is scored. I feel this gives you a more accurate description of clutch.

D.O.
www.diebytheblade.com - An SB nation destination for Sabres fans everywhere

by David Oleksy on Jul 25, 2009 1:30 PM EDT via mobile up reply actions

Oh, right, duh. Thanks, that makes sense – I like your stat better.

"We want to win immediately. To say you're building is an incomplete sentence. ... You're building for a future coach and general manager."
-Marv Levy

by TEMSON on Jul 25, 2009 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions

Drury

Your living in the past – forget the past and look forward to the future.

by geolover5 on Jul 25, 2009 2:02 PM EDT reply actions

This is really good work. Nothing really jumps out at me other than half of Stafford’s goals coming as the first goal for the Sabres. It did seem like Stafford stepped up and had some of his best games when the team didn’t have a great night. I also wonder if the 10 first goals is a bit of a product of Stafford having some really good games where he’s one of the best players on either team and some really mediocre games where you hardly notice him.

One thing that would have been cool is a column for throw away goals. It would be interesting to see if any player had an unusually high number of goals when the team was either up or down 2 or more goals. It could be a good stat to show who plays their best when the pressure is off (which isn’t a good thing).

by kaisertown on Jul 25, 2009 3:15 PM EDT reply actions

I agree – though what you’re asking for is fairly easy to figure out (I think) – just add the 3rd, 4th, and 5th columns together and subtract from total.

Vanek: 7+13+7=27 40-27= 13
Roy: 4+11+4=19 28-19= 9
Pommers: 4+6+2=12 20-12= 8
Stafford: 7+4+2=13 20-13= 7
Connolly: 2+7+4=13 18-13= 5
Mac: 4+3+2=9 17-9= 8
Goose: 1+2+3=6 12-6= 6
Hecht 1+4+1= 6 16-6= 6
Paille 2+4+2= 8 12-8= 4
etc.

What might also be interesting is percentage of goals that could be considered ‘throw away’.

Vanek (13/40) 32%
Roy (9/28) 32%
Pommers (8/20) 40%
Staff (7/20) 35%
Connolly (5/18) 28%
Mac (8/17) 47%
Goose (6/12) 50%
Hecht (6/12) 50%
Paille (4/12) 33%

These numbers are all rounded and obviously don’t paint the whole picture but even so, when you consider that nearly half of MacArthur’s goals were probably not game changers (probably didn’t affect the outcome of the game, the team winning before Clark scored ended up winning the game, however you want to phrase it – and again PROBABLY) it does say something. I’m not sure if it’s fair to rate a 3rd or 4th line player in the same way (in terms of percentage of throw away goals) since often those players have more important roles and are just chipping in offensively whenever they can. That being said, Goose and Hecht had the worst percentages – which I tend to think is not a big deal for Gaustad and the result of a bad year for Hecht.

Anyway, it’s kind of interesting at least. (sorry if I made any mistakes, did it quickly)

"We want to win immediately. To say you're building is an incomplete sentence. ... You're building for a future coach and general manager."
-Marv Levy

by TEMSON on Jul 25, 2009 6:02 PM EDT up reply actions

Thanks for the math. Nothing really jumps out with the throw away percentages. 50% is pretty high for those guys, but when you only score 12 goals, the percentages are pretty variable. if just one more of those goals was in a tighter game then it almost drops down to 40%. If there’s one thing to take away it’s that Vanek and Roy’s percentages are impressive. The Sabs were really dependent on those guys last year.

by kaisertown on Jul 26, 2009 11:45 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, that’s basically what I was getting at by saying that it’s unfair to judge 3rd and 4th line players by the same standards as your top 6 forwards.

The only thing that really jumps out at me is how important Connolly was to keeping our season respectable last year – almost all of his goals were in close games.

"We want to win immediately. To say you're building is an incomplete sentence. ... You're building for a future coach and general manager."
-Marv Levy

by TEMSON on Jul 27, 2009 3:15 PM EDT up reply actions

The flaw in this kind of analysis is

you assume that it’s not just a statistical oddity that a guy gets more or less of his goals at a certain score

surely there are some players where it isn’t a statistical oddity, and their numbers would represent some sort of “clutch factor” but with such a small sample size for each guy (especially on the sabres!) it’s impossible to distinguish between the guys whose numbers are telling us someone, and someone who just got unlucky with when they scored their goals

by tiimbitz4786 on Jul 27, 2009 3:15 PM EDT reply actions

er..."telling us something"*

by tiimbitz4786 on Jul 27, 2009 3:18 PM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, I agree – we all realize the extremely high potential that this means nothing. But in the middle of the summer, for lack of anything better to look at it can’t hurt to look at the numbers because they COULD mean something.

"We want to win immediately. To say you're building is an incomplete sentence. ... You're building for a future coach and general manager."
-Marv Levy

by TEMSON on Jul 27, 2009 4:23 PM EDT up reply actions