I checked in on 2010-11 CHIP recently and discovered some large disparities between team and division totals.
CHIP was developed by LW3H from Springing Malik, and he updates the current season CHIP value at the end of each month. His definition of CHIP:
The concept again - multiply each game missed by a player by his 2010/11 cap charge, then take the aggregate of these figures for each team and divide by 82. This indicator of value lost to a team by injury/illness is called CHIP (Cap Hit of Injured Players).
He's also done a three-year analysis of injuries, calculating combined CHIP from 2008-09 through 2010-11. He's got enough data logged that some enterprising young blogger might find some solid correlations in there.
LW3H breaks down the injuries by year, by division and by individual and comes to some interesting conclusions:
- The Islanders led the league in man games lost to injury over this period as well as Total CHIP.
- The Oilers were fourth in man games lost, but second in CHIP over this period.
- Minnesota was third, Colorado sixth and Vancouver 11th over the last three seasons, pushing the Northwest into second behind the Atlantic division in total CHIP by division.
- This is all bad news for Calgary, who were 18th in CHIP, and thus comparatively healthy to their divisional peers over this period, but managed only one playoff appearance and no playoff series victories in three seasons.
- Pittsburgh and Philadelphia were 4th and 5th and New Jersey 9th. The Atlantic division was 1st overall. Like the Flames, the 23rd-ranked Rangers weren't able to take advantage of so many divisional injuries.
- The Pacific had the lowest total chip of the six divisions at $77 million, 56% of the Atlantic's $137 million. The Pacific had Anaheim 26th, San Jose 28th, Los Angeles 29th and Phoenix 30th. The Stars were up against it - they were 12th - facing relatively healthy teams.
- The Bruins and Blackhawks have both remained healthy through this period - is it luck, youth, a combination, or is health a real skill?