Thrashers and Hitting
by The Falconer on May 27, 2009 12:55 AM EDT
2 comments
Dirk Hoag who covers the Nashville Predators for SB Nation also shares my passion for stats and analysis. He has pulled together the final season numbers for Hits Given and Hits Taken department in this post.
The Thrashers are one of the smaller teams in the NHL and so it is not terribly surprising to me that they ended up towards the very bottom of the NHL in Hits Given (29th out of 30 teams). On the flip side, the Thrashers also finished #1 in fewest Hits Taken last season. If you put those two things together it indicates that games involving the Thrashers were among the least physical in the NHL.
Now there are two ways to think about this data. 1) On the one hand, hitting is exciting and can generate passion both on the bench and in the stands--so a lack of hitting is a negative from the persepctive of energy in your building. 2) On the other hand, a low number of physical games might also explain why the Thrashers continue to have good luck on the injury front. Key players like Enstrom and Kovalchuk miss fewer games than is typical for a NHL player (the median number of games played is around 75 for an average NHLer).
One last possability is human error (aka inter-coder reliability)--it is possible that the official scorers in Atlanta are much more stingy in the way they count hits for both teams which would depress the Thrashers numbers for the 41 home games. While that is a logical possability, having watched most of the games I can verify that Atlanta is not a big hitting team.
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Team Quickness
I think this is something else that goes unnoticed for the Thrashers… While they don’t outplay too many teams, I do think you can see the Thrashers as out-skating certain oponents. If the puckhandling could catch up, Atlanta could be deadly. Other teams can’t hit what they can’t catch, which I think is a huge reason for the Thrashers being low in the number of hits taken.
by Boomer00 on May 27, 2009 1:37 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Is there any evidence that more hitting leads to more shots, goals, or games won? While hitting is great for making the product more appealing (and teams should always strive for that) I would suspect that it is kind of a wash like blocked shots. To answer this I would look at all of a team’s home games (a team that is somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of hits) and see if the hit differential correlates with shots, goals, or games won. I don’t have enough time and I suspect you don’t either, but anyone who is reading this who is interested could take a look. It could help determine the value of, say, a substandard player who makes a lot of great hits when it comes to deciding what defensive players to keep and trade.
by ThrashersRecaps on May 27, 2009 3:55 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
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Southeast Standings
| GP | W | L | OTL | PT | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Washington
|
59 | 41 | 12 | 6 | 88 |
|
Tampa Bay
|
57 | 25 | 21 | 11 | 61 |
|
Atlanta
|
57 | 25 | 24 | 8 | 58 |
|
Florida
|
58 | 24 | 25 | 9 | 57 |
|
Carolina
|
58 | 21 | 30 | 7 | 49 |
(updated 2.8.2010 at 8:30 AM EST)
Thrashers Schedule
Next 5 Games
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@
Colorado
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Wed 02/10 | 9:00 PM EST |
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@
Minnesota
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Fri 02/12 | 8:00 PM EST |
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@
Chicago
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Sat 02/13 | 8:30 PM EST |
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Florida
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Tue 03/02 | 7:00 PM EST |
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New York Islanders
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Thu 03/04 | 7:00 PM EST |
Last 5 Games
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Florida
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Sat 02/06 | W 4 - 2 |
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@
Washington
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Fri 02/05 | L 2 - 5 |
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Tampa Bay
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Tue 02/02 | L 1 - 2 |
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@
Nashville
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Sat 01/30 | L 3 - 4 |
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@
Philadelphia
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Thu 01/28 | W 4 - 3 |
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