Is Hitting Leaving The Game?

by Draglikepull on Jan 5, 2012 2:40 PM EST

At Brian Burke's press conference today he complained about hitting being down in the NHL. From Mirtle's article about the press conference, we get this quote

"I had a linesman tell our coach last week that he's had players say that to him. I'm not hitting anybody, I'm not getting suspended. That's what I worry about."

I was wondering if that statement is actually true, and thankfully for us, NHL.com tracks hits on both the individual and team level, making the claim pretty easy to check out. So I added up all the hits from the last 4 seasons and the first half of this season, then divided them by the number of games played to see whether the frequency of hitting has changed noticeably over the past few years.

Year	2011-12	2010-11	2009-10	2008-09	2007-08
# of Hits	25347	55911	54214	51561	46763
Games	583	1230	1230	1230	1230
Avg Per Game	43.48	45.46	44.08	41.92	38.02

As you can see, the number of hits being thrown in the NHL has actually gone up in the past few seasons. If this season's pace keeps up, there will be nearly 7000 more hits thrown this year than there were in 2007-08. So what does this tell us? It tells us that there are a bunch of old curmudgeons around, yelling at young whippersnappers to get off their lawn, who aren't against change because of what it means, but because it's change at all. The numbers are pretty clear, though - there's just as much hitting in the game this season as there has been in any other recent season.

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May I make a suggestion?

Only count road hits to erase home ice bias, which is a reality for hits and stats like them.

The First Certified Grabbo Lover

by SkinnyFish on Jan 5, 2012 2:44 PM EST reply actions

NHL.com has those stats, so I could do it, but is there a reason to worry about rink bias when comparing all of the teams combined rather than each team individually?

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
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by Draglikepull on Jan 5, 2012 2:46 PM EST up reply actions

You are correct that no need to worry about rink bias when using league totals but I still think the NHL hit data is flawed enough to make it unreliable, even for an analysis such as this.

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by HockeyAnalysis on Jan 5, 2012 3:31 PM EST up reply actions

I had the same concerns re:recorders bias. On the other hand, its the only thing remotely resembling a complete data set on hits.

"I will actually score as many times as Kulemin assists me."
-Mikhail Grabovski

by MapleLeafMole on Jan 5, 2012 5:10 PM EST up reply actions

My issues go beyond recorder bias, though that is an issues. What we don’t know is how are hits defined? What is a hit? Has the definition of a hit changed over the years, deliberately or otherwise, on either an individual recorder or league wide basis? How are the game recorders trained? What has been the turnover of game recorders (how many have come and gone) and how does that affect the stats? And finally, what is the nature of the majority of hits recorded by the NHL? Is the majority of hits really not much more than incidental contact (i.e. two guys go into the corner resulting in physical contact by the outside player on the inside player but not necessarily an aggressive hit)? In that case maybe hits are not down, but intense physicality, which Burke is referring to, is.

I am pretty certain that physical play is down from ~15 years ago when Scott Stevens was laying out forwards left, right and center and the Legion of Doom was a dominating line in the NHL and power forwards fought as well as threw hits and 40+ goal scorers also racked up 150+ minutes (Tkachuk, Shanahan, etc.). Last year only one player had 15+ goals and 125+ minutes. Scott Hartnell. The dropoff in physical play started well before the lockout and the new rules though. Physical intimidation used to be a tactic in the NHL. That is far less prevalent now. Whether that is for the better or for the worse is up for debate but I think we all know where Burke stands on the issue.

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by HockeyAnalysis on Jan 5, 2012 5:35 PM EST up reply actions

Has anyone shown hitting is correlated with something important (GF for on the forward that hit or GA or less SA for dman etc)? The hitting narrative makes sense and this is an area where anyone who “watches hockey” knows a big hit can change the momentum of the game. But there is no statistics to show that hitting helps win games. Maybe hitting in the playoff series is relevant?

by jeffgm on Jan 5, 2012 5:52 PM EST up reply actions

Using this season’s point totals and road hits only, the correlation is a negative one (barely, slope of -.0041) and an R^2 value of…………..drumroll……….. 0.002.

Zero correlation what so ever. YAY!!!!

The First Certified Grabbo Lover

by SkinnyFish on Jan 5, 2012 5:58 PM EST up reply actions

Again, is hits a good proxy for physical play or physical intimidation? I am not so sure. One could theorize that a physically intimidating team might actually hit less because the opposing team is less likely to be willing to take a hit to make a play and instead avoid any chance of getting hit altogether. An example might be Boston. The Bruins were below average in road hits last season and are again this season but they have some of the most physically intimidating players in the NHL. The obvious ones are Chara and Lucic but they have several other physically imposing players as well, particularly on defense.

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by HockeyAnalysis on Jan 5, 2012 8:44 PM EST up reply actions

What we don’t know is how are hits defined? What is a hit? Has the definition of a hit changed over the years, deliberately or otherwise, on either an individual recorder or league wide basis? How are the game recorders trained? What has been the turnover of game recorders (how many have come and gone) and how does that affect the stats? And finally, what is the nature of the majority of hits recorded by the NHL? Is the majority of hits really not much more than incidental contact (i.e. two guys go into the corner resulting in physical contact by the outside player on the inside player but not necessarily an aggressive hit)? In that case maybe hits are not down, but intense physicality, which Burke is referring to, is.

I’ve thought the same

"I will actually score as many times as Kulemin assists me."
-Mikhail Grabovski

by MapleLeafMole on Jan 5, 2012 8:01 PM EST up reply actions

For right now, 11-12 season

Average hits at home – 440. Standard deviation – 90.96.
Average hits on road – 404. Standard deviation – 78.03.

The First Certified Grabbo Lover

by SkinnyFish on Jan 5, 2012 5:27 PM EST up reply actions

In the time it took you to write this...

…Cal Clutterbuck was credited with three hits.

/Northwest Division humour

Drop at line at The Backhand Shelf or any of the fine Nations Network blogs: Canucks Army, Jets Nation, The Leafs Nation
@camcharron

by camcharron on Jan 5, 2012 2:50 PM EST up reply actions

I for one am shocked that Burke may have said something that isn’t completely truthful. Shocked.

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by mf37 on Jan 5, 2012 3:22 PM EST reply actions 1 recs

What’s most interesting to me is that Burke held this job before Shanahan and Campbell. I wonder what the league would look like if he still held that post. Was he fired or did he quit?

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by Plea From A Cat Named Felix on Jan 5, 2012 3:39 PM EST reply actions

He quit to GM the Canucks.

The First Certified Grabbo Lover

by SkinnyFish on Jan 5, 2012 5:28 PM EST up reply actions

And I recall that the league seemed desperate for Campbell to ‘quit’ and take a job as GM of the Leafs before Burke took the job.

by Mirinov's Nose on Jan 7, 2012 3:33 AM EST up reply actions

But

Do you watch the games?

/anti-stats question

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by CoolJ90 on Jan 5, 2012 3:40 PM EST reply actions

never did like da costa anyway

by hardfoot57 on Jan 5, 2012 3:44 PM EST up reply actions

Your conclusion re. old curmudgeons doesn’t really fit your argument, since you’re saying that Burke is wrong in thinking that players are hitting less often, not talking about why he likes hitting and doesn’t want to see change.

In the court of public opinion, Steve Simmons is Lionel Hutz.

by The Bag on Jan 5, 2012 3:54 PM EST reply actions

No, Drag is saying that Burke is ascribing a perceived decrease in hitting to a change in the rules with regards to hits to the head. The “old carmudgeons” are upset about players getting suspended for hits that were once considered clean – that’s the change they’re railing against – and are trying to invent reasons to hate it.

I've been looking at the sky

by Back In Black on Jan 5, 2012 4:10 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

Maybe, and if I misread the post, apologies to Draglikepull. That just doesn’t seem to be what he’s saying in that last paragraph, and even if it is, that seems like a big inference to draw from Burke’s comments. I have a hard time imagining Burke as the kind of guy who hates change for simply being change, though, since he’s the one who’s been pushing for the ‘bear-hugging’ rule as a way to eliminate injuries.

In the court of public opinion, Steve Simmons is Lionel Hutz.

by The Bag on Jan 5, 2012 4:21 PM EST up reply actions

Back In Black is correct, that’s what I was getting at. And not just about Burke, but old-guard hockey people in general who complain that we’re “taking hitting out of the game” even though that’s not true.

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".
Internet Champ. I'm on Twitter too! - draglikepull

by Draglikepull on Jan 5, 2012 4:41 PM EST up reply actions

Fair enough. It’s totally valuable pointing out that hitting is, in fact, not leaving the game at all; I just worry that the valid point gets lost amidst the politically correct progressive rhetoric that doesn’t really seem on point here. Anyway, I suppose that’s a style issue. It’s heartening to know that hitting isn’t leaving the game despite the insane amount of suspensions.

In the court of public opinion, Steve Simmons is Lionel Hutz.

by The Bag on Jan 5, 2012 5:08 PM EST up reply actions

It’s akin to Arneil saying the Jackets are a good team 4on4, even though the stats saying they have been outscored 1-8 in that situation. When he was called out on this, he got all pissy and left the press conference.

The First Certified Grabbo Lover

by SkinnyFish on Jan 5, 2012 5:30 PM EST up reply actions