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Alexander Ovechkin - Just How Great IS He?

Alex the Great: this past season, the hockey world was abuzz calling him the NHL's most exciting player.  That's wonderful and all, but you want to know who is the best player in your fantasy hockey league!   Let's look at the past NHL season from a fantasy hockey value perspective, analyzing the NHL's biggest star and how he fares in various league setups.

The whole basis of this analysis will be comparing Mr. Ovechkin to an average player at the same position (which we touched on in the Fantasy Fundamentals – Position article).  Enough yammering – here are the goods: 

Alex Oveckin has established himself as the NHL's best sniper and he plays like a bull, content to either dangle around confused defenders or plow right through them.  In the 2008-2009 season, he placed in 2^nd in NHL scoring with 110 points. 

But that doesn't tell the whole story -- each fantasy hockey league is different so to really understand Ovechkin's value, we need to look at a few different league setups:

League 1

This league doesn't distinguish between forward positions and only counts points.  There are 12 teams, each of which has 6 forwards.  Averaging out the top 72 point producers (12 teams x 6 forwards per team), we find that the average forward scores 73 points.  In that scenario, the top 5 forwards were: 

Ovechkin's value: Only 8% off the lead, but a solid #2.

League 2

 This league again has 12 teams and 6 forwards per team, but distinguishes between forward positions (2 C, 2 LW, 2 RW) and only counts points.  Averaging the top 24 at each position, we get:

In that scenario, the top 5 forwards were:

Ovechkin's value: When the league differentiates for position, Ovechkin starts to distance himself from the pack.  Here he's a solid #1, worth 15% more than his closest competitor. 

League 3

This 12-team league again distinguishes between forward positions (2 C, 2 LW, 2 RW) and counts the standard rotisserie categories of goals (G), assists (A), plus/minus (+/-), penalty minutes (PIM), powerplay points (PPP) and shots on goal (SOG).  This is where the analysis can get daunting, but hey – this is just a good time for the Hockey Pool Geek!  Going back to the stats, the average scoring at each forward position is:

In that scenario, the top 5 forwards are shown in the table below.  The RS columns shows the player's real statistics, and CA shows that statistic compared to the average at their position.  Adding up all the CAs gives you a raw player value. 

The very astute among you might be thinking 'Now wait just a second!  Not all stats are created equal' any NHL plug can put a shot on net, but it's way harder to put in a goal!' – and you're right.  The final column below takes the sum of all the stats and normalizes them so they are on even footing. 

Published Sun, Jul 26th, 2009