Estimating man games lost to injury
I get asked for a list of man-games lost to injury all the time, generally by fans whose teams have had bum luck on the injury front in a particular season.
Unfortunately, these are some pretty elusive stats, something that appears irregularly in pre- and postgame write-ups, but that is never officially catalogued.
Part of the problem I've always had with the unofficial official numbers that come out in dribs and drabs is that they count everyone. A player on a one-game call-up blows out a knee? He'll count for 30- or 40-plus games, at least until he's well enough to get sent down.
What use is that?
Anyway, what follows are my best guestimates for man games lost to injury this season, taking into account only what I'll call "core performers" — the top nine or 10 forwards and five or six defencemen. Sure, that part of it is entirely subjective, but it's better than keeping the fringe players in the mix:
| Team | MGL | |
| 1 | FLA | 225 |
| 2 | EDM | 215 |
| 3 | NYI | 215 |
| 4 | VAN | 200 |
| 5 | COL | 195 |
| 6 | CAR | 195 |
| 7 | CHI | 185 |
| 8 | WAS | 180 |
| 9 | TAM | 180 |
| 10 | BOS | 175 |
| 11 | COB | 170 |
| 12 | SAN | 160 |
| 13 | DAL | 155 |
| 14 | PIT | 155 |
| 15 | LOS | 150 |
| 16 | PHI | 145 |
| 17 | BUF | 145 |
| 18 | NJD | 140 |
| 19 | TOR | 140 |
| 20 | DET | 115 |
| 21 | ANA | 115 |
| 22 | MIN | 110 |
| 23 | CGY | 110 |
| 24 | NAS | 100 |
| 25 | MON | 90 |
| 26 | STL | 90 |
| 27 | NYR | 85 |
| 28 | OTT | 70 |
| 29 | ATL | 70 |
| 30 | PHO | 65 |
The top seven teams, at least in my eyes, certainly appear right, but let me know if you find any glaring errors. And keep in mind that these are estimates, rounded off.
The thing that this list doesn't do, however, is quantify how valuable these games lost are. Is it Joe Sakic or Raffi Torres spending time in the injury ward?
This is a stat entirely of my own devising, using injured players' goals scored per game times games missed. I think it represents which teams are missing top talent quite well:
| Team | Gls/M | |
| 1 | CHI | 43.7 |
| 2 | COL | 37.2 |
| 3 | WAS | 36.6 |
| 4 | EDM | 32.8 |
| 5 | PHI | 32.5 |
| 6 | CAR | 30.5 |
| 7 | BOS | 30.2 |
| 8 | LOS | 27.7 |
| 9 | FLA | 27.4 |
| 10 | SAN | 26.3 |
| 11 | TAM | 26.0 |
| 12 | COB | 25.0 |
| 13 | VAN | 24.6 |
| 14 | DAL | 23.9 |
| 15 | PIT | 23.1 |
| 16 | DET | 21.8 |
| 17 | NJD | 21.7 |
| 18 | BUF | 21.5 |
| 19 | MIN | 21.3 |
| 20 | TOR | 19.2 |
| 21 | ANA | 17.5 |
| 22 | OTT | 17.4 |
| 23 | NYR | 16.6 |
| 24 | NAS | 14.7 |
| 25 | NYI | 13.9 |
| 26 | ATL | 10.7 |
| 27 | MON | 10.6 |
| 28 | PHO | 10.4 |
| 29 | STL | 8.9 |
| 30 | CGY | 8.1 |
So, Chicago for instance has been without Jason Williams, Martin Havlat, Rene Bourque and Jonathan Toews for long stretches, while Colorado has seen Sakic, Ryan Smyth and Paul Stastny all miss time.
Washington's missed Chris Clark all season essentially, and Michael Nylander and Alex Semin also missed major time. Edmonton has been without Sheldon Souray, Torres, Fernando Pisani and Shawn Horcoff.
On the "lucky" end of the scale, teams like Phoenix, Atlanta and St. Louis really haven't had many significant hurts this season.
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Labels: injuries
by James Mirtle @ 6:05 PM
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19 comments
19 Comments:
Thanks for the info i have been looking high and low for these numbers.Do you have a link or did you do it the hard way? if so do you have that link?
As always thanks for the number crunching. Bryan McCabe who is president of the Maple Leaf Excuse Manufacturing Corporation (MLEMC) has pointed to the Leaf's injuries as one of the reasons they are so low in the standings. I sensed that they have not been hit as hard as last season and the numbers confirm it. Their problem isn't injuries but lack of depth.
What about man games lost for Dmen? You can't quantify their importance based on goals scored. Vancouver, for example, has been without some of its "top talent" on D for a good part of the year...I would say the impact of their injuries puts them higher than 13th on this list.
You can't quantify their importance based on goals scored.
No, look — I just did.
Carolina's MGL is more like 250 right now.
They're sure to hit 300, as four of the "top" players are done for the season.
Great stuff James. Interesting to note that Atlanta is still crap despite having relatively good luck injury wise.
The goals per game kind of puts the emphasis (heavily) or forwards, no? Not to mention players like Ethan Moreau. He's certainly an impact player on the Oilers, if not on the scoresheet. This also misrepresents the huge problems vancouver has had, mostly limited to defence. Maybe you should have put "top goal scoring forward talent"
I assume that these numbers are exaggerated for San Jose since Wilson appeared to use the IR to keep an extra man up and avoid waivers (just a rumour).
Goaltenders? If your top goalie misses time, I would consider that significant.
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I think a better way to measure the importance of a player is to look at their time on ice rather than goals scored.
I agree. Goals scored artificially deflates the value of non-goal scorers (e.g. defensemen or goalies).
Pretty good list, actually. Does anyone dispute that the top five are indeed the clubs most affected by injuries this year? While any injury to a starting goalie is disastrous, how many of those have there been this year?
Did you include Teppo in Buffalo's numbers?
Including Teppo would be hilarious considering the Sabres suspended him (essentially tossing him from the payroll - bye bye millions!).
Did you include Teppo in Buffalo's numbers?
No, I didn't. I didn't use any players who have missed the entire season, which includes guys like Steve Sullivan in Nashville, etc.
Goaltenders aren't included as I didn't think there'd been a significant injury to a netminder that had impacted a team's performance. I believe Marc-Andre Fleury and Manny Fernandez have been the two main stoppers hurt for prolonged periods, and their teams won more games without them than with.
It's not a perfect list; it's merely some estimates I was able to cook up in about a half hour.
Good numbers for a half hours worth of work. A more refined listing would probably include the afformentioned TOI and in a salary cap world, possibly average salary lost per day. I think that no matter what you do the top injured teams will stay on top.
"and in a salary cap world, possibly average salary lost per day"
Yea this would be an interesting number, though we all know the top paid aren't necessarily the top performers. No stat comparison is going to be perfect, the argument against TOI could be the opposite of that for Goals in that a top pair defenceman logs 25% more ice time than a top forward typically.
But like Dario says, I'm sure most of the 'top' 5-10 injury prone teams would just shift amongst themselves.
Thanks for the loose breakdown.
James,
Maybe % of minutes played would be a better guideline than pure goals scored. Goals not only hurts defensemen, but it also penalizes teams that just aren't as good or don't score as much as a team.
Just a thought, but you put together a great start.
Kurri_17
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