We recently introduced a new project: the NHL 500. So far, we have considered the league’s 50 best goalies and 150 best defencemen, and now it’s time to turn our attention to the forwards, starting at left wing.
What are we looking for here? We can explain it in one question: Taking into account the available evidence, what would a reasonable person expect from every player in the league in this coming year?
Our analysis is primarily rooted in major league work, which means we’re omitting new rookies. We don’t care about contracts or long-term trade value. We don’t care about what happened last year, except insofar as it predicts what will happen in the coming year.
Our process leans heavily on analytics, and involves creating a 100-point scale for every position. A grade of 50 indicates an average player at his position, with a higher total obviously being better. For the most part, talent tends to cluster around the average, with elite players being relatively rare.
For forwards specifically, we’ve divided our analysis into three parts.
Offensive play (50 points) is exactly what it sou ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
NHL 500: Ranking the Top 90 Left Wings
October 9th, 2015 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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