Capt.Crunch Posted September 7, 2005 Share Posted September 7, 2005 No so long ago I made a small research to see where Ryder was situated as far as individual production. This morning, I read the excellent article by Louis Garon which mentionned that Ribeiro should "know the best season of his career in order to convince the canadiens hockey staff to offer him a new deal at the end of the season". An even better season? He was 30th in the league as far as points produced in the 2003/2004 regular season! Maybe it would be a good thing to keep in mind the individual player's production before making a judgement. Of course, numbers aren't everything, but they may help keeping a "perspective" on things. So, in this post, I propose to look at the total points, goals, assists and plus/minus average of what *should* be the canadiens two top offensive lines. In each category (when applicable), I'll mention their ranks in relation the their NHL peers, the total production, the number matches played and, when applicable, their average per match. Points best: Martin St-Louis: 94 pts, 1.15 pt per game Ribeiro: 30th, 65 pts in 81 games, 0.80 pt per game Ryder: 32nd, 63pts in 81 games, 0.77 pt per game Koivu: 51st, 55 pts in 68 games, 0.81 pt per game Zednik: 82nd, 50 pts in 81 games, 0.62 pts per game Kovalev: 108th, 45 pts in 78 games, 0.58 pt per game Dagenais 262nd, 27 pts in 50 games, 0.54 per game Goals best (tied): Kovalchuk and Iginla: 41 goals, 0.51 goal per game Zednik: 32nd, 26 goals in 81 games, 0.32 goal per game Ryder: 41st, 25 goals in 81 games, 0.31 goal per game Ribeiro: 83rd, 20 goals in 81 games, 0.25 goal per game Dagenais 117th, 17 goals in 50 games, 0.34 goal per game Kovalev: 173rd, 14 goals in 78 games, 0.20 goal per game Koivu: 174th, 14 goals in 68 games, 0.21 goal per game Assists best: (tied) St-Louis: 56 assist and 0.68 assist per game and Gomez: 56 assists and 0.70 assist per game Zednik: 153rd, 24 assists in 81 games, 0.30 assist per game Koivu: 25th, 41 assists in 68 games, 0.60 assist per game Kovalev: 84th, 31 assists in 78 games, 0.40 assist per game Dagenais 416th, 10 assists in 50 games, 0.20 assist per game Ribeiro: 17th, 45 assists in 81 games, 0.56 assist per game Ryder: 35th, 38 assists in 81 games, 0.47 assist per game Plus/Minus average best: (tied) St-Louis: +35 in 82 games and Marek Malik: +35 in 78 games Zednik: 248th, +5 in 81 games Koivu: 811th, -5 in 68 games Kovalev: 927th, -9 in 78 games Dagenais 73rd, +15 in 50 games Ribeiro: 74th, +15 in 81 games Ryder: 133rd, +10 in 81 games Ok... I'd be carefull with the ranking in the +/- category if I were you... Shayne Corson came in 92th with +12 but only played 17 games. Lets say that must have been 17 lucky games. Top 60 is more reliable as the players there looks like they played 50 games +. Rankings after 60 starts to come apart. Kovalev in 927 because there are a ton of players which played only a few matches (between 1-10) which raked in between a -5 and a +5 spread in +/- avg. There is also the defensive pairings to look upon as this average is counted on the whole line that was on the ice when a goal is made or scored against. Now, here comes the weird part: If I had to make a judgement based solely on those numbers, without knowing the players involved, I'd come to the conclusion that: Koivu is a better playmaker than Ribeiro (0.60 vs 0.56 assist per game). However, Ribeiro is a better scorer (0.25 goals/game vs 0.21) and is better defensively (+15 in 81 vs -5 in 68) Kovalev and Ryder are the best wingers in terms of playmaking ability (0.40 ans 0.47 assist/game respectively) but Ryder is a much better scorer (0.31 goals vs 0.20) and much better defensively (+10 in 81 vs -9 in 78th) The three best scorers are Dagenais, Zednik and Ryder (0.34, 0.32 ans 0.31 goals per game respectively). The best players in overall ability are Ribeiro and Ryder (2nd and 3rd in PTS average, 4th and 3rd in goals, 2nd and 3rd in assists and 1st and 2rd in the +/- avg respectively). Dagenais and Zednik don't care that much at making plays, they mostly look for chances to score. Koivu and Kovalev are defensive slackers (-5 in 68 ans -9 in 78) Kovalev is the worst scorer of the bunch. St-Louis is a machine Ok... that was a long post. Hope you had as much fun reading this than I had making it (it was really a fruitfull exercise for me!) Remember, take this with a grain of salt! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trizzak Posted September 8, 2005 Share Posted September 8, 2005 I'd ask you to do the same thing for playoffs. Better picture of the players worth emerges Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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