Taylor Hall & Crazy People
by Derek Zona on Aug 16, 2010 3:00 PM MDT
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When it comes to message boards and internet commenters, Taylor Hall is like Rob Schremp on bull steroids. The hype surrounding the kid is almost unfair, but it comes with the territory for number one overall picks.
I've looked at reasonable rookie year projections for Hall, assuming he gets power play time, and Lowetide has done the same. Lowetide's got Hall at .541 PPG and I've slotted him between .609 and .695 PPG - again, assuming power play time. The difference between the two is about eight points for a nearly-full season, it's not insignificant, but I don't believe it's a big deal. That I'm more optimisitic that any Oilers writer is a big deal. But it's not Hall's rookie year projections that have me confused. In discussing Taylor Hall's future here, at Lowetide and at Oilers Nation, commenters are taking us through the Hockeysfuture looking glass.
Expectations are always fun to discuss, and lately, the career expectations for Hall have become out-of-control. He's now regularly discussed as a "consistent ninety point winger" and some of the crazies have him as a "one-hundred point guy".
I've talked about Robin Hanson's excellent Overcoming Bias previously (if this site isn't in your daily reading list, it should be) and for this topic I go back to the well. Hanson talks about an article in Psych magazine about Future/Distant Bias, and I think that is what's happening here. Fans are excited about the number one overall pick and they are projecting that excitement into unrealistic expectations.
To get a sense of what it would mean for Hall to become a consistent ninety point per season player, let's look at the number of players that have accomplished this since the lockout. Since 2005-2006, there have been fifty player seasons in which a player has scored ninety points or greater, or an average of ten per year. Only twenty-eight players have accomplished the task, or five per season:
Daniel Alfredsson, Nicklas Backstrom, Danny Briere, Jonathan Cheechoo, Sidney Crosby (x4), Pavel Datsyuk (x2), Ryan Getzlaf, Dany Heatley (x2), Marian Hossa (x2), Jarome Iginla (x2), Jaromir Jagr (x2), Olli Jokinen, Ilya Kovalchuk (x2), Vincent Lecavalier (x2), Evgeni Malkin (x2), Alex Ovechkin (x5), Zach Parise, Brad Richards (x2), Joe Sakic, Marc Savard (x2), Henrik Sedin, Teemu Selanne (x2), Jason Spezza (x2), Eric Staal, Steven Stamkos, Martin St. Louis (x2), Joe Thornton (x3), Henrik Zetterberg
Note that only thirteen of the twenty-eight players have been wingers, the rest are all centers.
Ninety points averages out to 1.097 points per game, something that only ten players have averaged since the lockout. For Hall to become a "consistent" ninety point producer, he will have to become one of the ten best scorers in the game.
| Sidney Crosby | 1.364 |
| Alex Ovechkin | 1.336 |
| Joe Thornton | 1.256 |
| Evgeni Malkin | 1.233 |
| Daniel Alfredsson | 1.137 |
| Jason Spezza | 1.13 |
| Marian Gaborik | 1.113 |
| Dany Heatley | 1.113 |
| Ilya Kovalchuk | 1.109 |
| Pavel Datsyuk | 1.103 |
Again, only five of these ten are wingers, putting Hall at a further disadvantage in scoring a consistent ninety points.
What about the notion that he should be a "forty goal, fifty assist" player? Since the lockout, there have been fifteen seasons of forty goals and fifty assists, or three per season. Eleven players have accomplished this.
Daniel Alfredsson, Sidney Crosby, Dany Heatley (x2), Marian Hossa, Jaromir Jagr, Vincent Lecavalier (x2), Evgeni Malkin, Alex Ovechkin (x3), Teemu Selanne, Eric Staal, Martin St. Louis
Setting more restrictive goals makes it less likely that Hall will ever meet these numbers.
What I find hilarious about the people that are already set to judge Hall strictly by his boxcar numbers is that Jonathan Toews, a player that every single team in the league would love to have, and every single fan in Edmonton would love to see Hall emulate has never come close to this magical ninety point plateau. Toews' point totals over the last three years: 54-69-68, yet he's a Stanley Cup champion, an Olympic hero and is widely considered to be one of the best forwards in the game.
So listen to me all of you crazy people out there: your silly boxcar-only projections and lofty expectations are short-sighted and incredibly difficult to reach, even for the best players in the NHL. Taylor Hall can become an outstanding, even great, NHL player without hitting your preconceived superstar points totals.
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Crazy . . . mmmmmmmmmmmm . . . Crazy
If Hall doesn’t become a 90 point a season player, I am going to destroy all my personal belongings, and move back to Edmonton. I am sure the fear of me walking the streets as a homeless person, ranting and throwing used condoms, at the fine folks of Edmonton will be enough motivation for the Oilers to make sure the Hall is over a point per game man for the foreseeable future.
one of the founders and most prolific writers of Bringing Back the Glory
this doesn’t even take into account point inflation in 2005-06 (and less so in 2006-07) due to the inordinate number of power plays given out. throw that in and it becomes even less likely.
by Triumph44 on Aug 16, 2010 3:35 PM MDT reply actions 1 recs
Good catch.
In 2005, there were fourteen player seasons of ninety points or more. That leaves thirty-six over the last four years.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
You say only four of ten are wingers, so which player of Ovechkin, Alfredsson, Gaborik, Heatley and Kovalchuk are you considering a centre?
That point aside, I completely agree that the boxcar expectations are out to lunch with him. I’d love it if he could turn into a guy who scored between 30-30 and 40-40 consistently. I don’t think that’s too unreasonable.
You say only four of ten are wingers, so which player of Ovechkin, Alfredsson, Gaborik, Heatley and Kovalchuk are you considering a centre?
Thanks for catching that. It’s corrected.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Only 5 of the 10 are Wingers (though 50% still seems pretty significant), but 4 of them are LWs, and the rest are centers. 80% are top 3 picks, and Hall can play both LW and C. So he’s a C and a LW who was taken in the top 3 of the draft. By my math that makes the chances of him being a perrenial 90+ point player…hmm…carry the one…ah ha, got it…100% GUARANTEED!
On the other hand, I don’t see any hybrid C/W players there. No Marleau ;)
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by red army line on Aug 17, 2010 3:22 AM MDT up reply actions
V.O.R.P.
The rarity of 90 point players is because “everybody” scores 50 points. Probably just ahead of talent, the number one predictor of point production is opportunity, including power play time, linemates, offensive system and toughness of minutes.
In baseball I’ve seen VORP used which more or less examines how many runs subbing in player “x” creates positively or negatively over the average player of the same position. Take Lyle Overbay, who’d be considered a pretty good player by many fans and media. By this metric however, he gets skewered because he gets thrown in against a shallow pool of starting first basemen (Pujols, Teixera, Miggy Cabrera etc.) The “replacement level player” in this case would be the 15th most productive first baseman; i.e. a pretty damn good player. Overbay might cost his team 30 runs compared to the average.
The thing with hockey is that your even more dependent on your “opportunities”. Let’s say Alex Burrows switched bodies with JF Jacques. Burrows played 8 minutes a night max on the Oilers fourth line with Zack Stortini and Andrew Cogliano and got no power play time. What would he produce? What would Jacques do playing 20 minutes a night and first power play with the Sedins?
The bottom line is that there is probably some easy math that says if player x plays y minutes on scoring line 2, and z minutes on PP1, he’ll produce xx points. I think we’d be surprised how close most players would be to this predicted number.
by knighttown on Aug 16, 2010 4:44 PM MDT reply actions 1 recs
If Jacques played 20 minutes a night and 1st PP with the Sedin’s he’d sink the Canucks out of the playoffs.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
I don’t know about that. I thought he looked pretty good with Horcoff and Hemsky and what he brings to the table would greatly complement the Sedins’ game.
Really? I mean, he looked better with H+H than he did with scrubs, but he still looked awful, and H+H looked worse with him than with anyone else in the last several years. Dawgbone is (probably) joking and exaggerating his negative impact on the Sedins, but I have no doubt that the Sedins would be much less effective with Jacques on their wing than they are with Burrows (or would be with any number of other options).
by Scott Reynolds on Aug 16, 2010 7:48 PM MDT up reply actions
No one gets Yeti’s humor but me.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
I agree with this completely.
I’ve looked long and hard and can’t find a comparable for Hall anywhere. He’s a guy who had a solid lead on 2nd place in team scoring (pretty regular occurance amongst the guys who have gone on to great things), but his % of team offence is well down the list.
There are guys who have played on good teams, and still produced a significant amount of their teams offence. Taylor Hall hasn’t. Whether this is good or not I really don’t know, but I’ll tell you it’s pretty damn rare!
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
I know it’s a different era, but Mike Modano’s percentage of team offense in his draft year was very close to Hall’s this year. The offensive numbers themselves are very close too. Modano didn’t lead his team in offense by a wide margin, but he was the team leader. Do you like that comp, or not so much?
by Scott Reynolds on Aug 16, 2010 6:49 PM MDT up reply actions
Modano’s closest non-mathematical comp, for me, is Toews. If Hall ends up in Modano territory by the boxcars, I’d be happy as hell.
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
Oh, definitely. That’s the high end for me, especially considering how good Modano was as a PvP guy.
by Scott Reynolds on Aug 16, 2010 7:38 PM MDT up reply actions
You low-expectation-having mofo, you. Way to soon to put a ceiling on Hall. Even an arched ceiling of Modano height. Truth is we don’t really know what we’ve got, let alone how he will develop.
Bringing forward a late comment from yesterday’s Hall-post-du-jour, how about Rick Nash as a comp?
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"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Aug 17, 2010 6:40 AM MDT up reply actions
When “May be as good as Mike Modano” is having low expectations, expectations are awfully high. I think everyone understands that “ceiling” means something like “95th percentile.” If everything goes right, he could be the greatest player in the game! But using that as a “ceiling” for every Tom, Dick, and Harry isn’t very instructive. If you just want every post to say, “We’ll need to wait and see because, the truth is, we don’t really know,” we’re not going to be doing much forward-looking analysis of anybody anymore.
As for Rick Nash, Hall’s junior numbers are actually quite a bit better, and Nash did come straight to the NHL with some distinct similarities so he might be a good player to keep in mind, especially if Hall ends up on the wing going forward. That said, I think of Nash as being a step down in quality from Modano, so I’m not sure that that’s raising the bar.
by Scott Reynolds on Aug 17, 2010 10:04 AM MDT up reply actions
Sorry to be obtuse. I just remember a whole bunch of us being accused by some of the edgier members of the Oilogosphere of setting the bar of expectations too low. I just think there’s a fine line to be drawn between having high expectations and unreasonable ones. Thinking people can handle the distinction.
I agree Nash isn’t necessarily raising the bar on Modano, but he’s a more recent #1 OV who may not be entirely useless as a comp.
Writer for The Copper & Blue and primary shareholder of Zorg Industries
"Never be ashamed of who you are" -- Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg
by Bruce McCurdy on Aug 17, 2010 3:36 PM MDT up reply actions
If i expect Hall to be as good as Patrick Kane am I being unreasonable? Pat Kane scored 88 points last season. Semin scored 84 points in 73 games, 40 of which were goals. If I wish Hall to be as good, am I asking to much?
Sins can be forgiven but conscience is a killer.
Semin played in Russia before the NHL, and also has the benefit of playing behind Ovechkin at EV, so he’s hard to look to for comparison. Pat Kane was a much better scorer in junior, both in points and in goals than Hall. I’d say looking to them is a rather lofty expectation in that his chances of underperforming are much higher than overperforming.
by Scott Reynolds on Aug 16, 2010 6:56 PM MDT up reply actions
Kane scored 22 more goals and 39 more points in his draft year.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
i am nto talking about next season. I am talking eventually. Next season anything can happen. He could have Joe THornton rookie season.
Sins can be forgiven but conscience is a killer.
I think db is saying that Kane had a higher ceiling from the get-go
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
gags
is he saying gags had a higher ceiling as well?
there are times where the ohl produces these mythical junior scorers, that makes me think about the Q in the 80s.
I understand what you’re saying, but Kane and Gagner have the two best OHL draft-year totals since 1995. That they were both on the same team just emphasizes the uniqueness of what they did. And they were still well short of a couple of those seasons from the Quebec league in the 80s. Lemieux and LaFonatine were particularly crazy.
by Scott Reynolds on Aug 16, 2010 11:12 PM MDT up reply actions
do you have thoughts on why kane and samwise’s dots are so far apart on the graph you had in your last post?
Bruce’s point bears some fruit, but I’m curious if there’s any way to know how much of the weight Kane carried for young Gagner? I’m sure it’s been done, but I couldn’t find it. thanks
I think you must be referring to Derek’s last post, but in regard to the difference between the two players, part of it is surely that Kane is the more talented player. There’s a reason he was taken first instead of Gagner after all. Setting that aside, Kane has also played in a better situation than Gagner over the first three years of his career. He’s had better linemates, faced worse competition, played on a better team, and has had better starting positions as well, so you’d certainly expect him to have superior results. As for Kane carrying the weight in junior, he was the superior goal-scorer, so it seems like Gagner probably picked up more “cheap” points (assists) than Kane would have, but it seems likely that they really helped one another put up big totals.
by Scott Reynolds on Aug 17, 2010 1:06 AM MDT up reply actions
It wouldn’t surprise me if Gagner has a higher ceiling than Hall does.
The thing with Gagner is that he isn’t that fast and he isn’t that big. That’s going to hurt him as a teenager in the NHL. You can make up a bit for being a youngster in the league by having one or both of those.
You still need to learn the game, and that’s where I think Gagner is making strides. He seems like a smart enough player to get it earlier than most guys typically do.
So I wouldn’t be surprised to see Hall put up more points in the 18-21 years than Gagner did (he’s got the size and speed)… but it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Gagner being the better player in the 25-27 years.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
This is an interesting point of view, would you say the same if you believed Hall were slated to play center?
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
I think so.
It’s an even harder position to play in terms of the thinking part of the game (which is where I think Gagner excels). Hall has got great physical tools. It’s better to be faster and bigger while you are starting to learn pro hockey than to be smarter. Then it’s a race to who learns it sooner.
It’s not that I think Hall is a dumby… it’s just that he seems like a pure reaction player, where as Gagner seems more calculating. Gagner will turn away from the net if he gets squeezed off in an attempt to make another play… Hall will keep going and try to make something out of nothing.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
You bring up a good point with Toews, and it reinforces my belief that all projections are short-sighted.
Extrapolate all you want, the fact remains that people aren’t a static entity applicable to formulae, regardless of how many statistics make up their lives.
Although I’m not sure how good a read “shut up and wait and see” would be.
The heavier point is that “100 point guy” or “90 point guy” is typed before the commenter even considers just how difficult it is to actually be a 90 point guy. If Hall ends up being a PPG player for the peak of his career, will he be a disappointment?
Editor of The Copper & Blue, and leader of The Cult Of Hartikainen.
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