Categories: PenguinPoop

Penguins Go to WAR

At the end of each season, PensBurgh does a terrific in-depth evaluation of each prominent Penguin. For yours truly, one of the most fascinating features is a set of charts that display a player’s WAR, short for Wins Above Replacement.

WAR is a stat you may be familiar with from baseball. In the simplest of terms, it measures a player’s contributions (or wins) for his team, while at the same time providing a method of comparing a player to his peers based on position and role, which in hockey is determined by TOI.

You’ll notice in the following table that in some cases, a player’s role doesn’t necessarily line up with the way he’s actually used. For example, Marcus Pettersson is categorized as a depth defenseman when he’s often cast in a second-pairing role.

WAR can be expressed as a number or in this case, a percentage, with 50 percent being the break-even mark between being better than a replacement player or worse. It takes into account factors such as even-strength offense, even-strength defense, power-play offense, short-handed defense, penalties taken and penalties drawn, as well as finishing, strength of competition and teammates.

That cursory description aside? I don’t have a clue as to how WAR is actually calculated. I looked at a couple of in-depth articles explaining the intricacies of WAR and my brain immediately froze. (I barely passed college calculus and still have no idea how I pulled it off.)

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to put together a table displaying WAR data for all our prominent Penguins, including newcomers Jeff Petry and Ty Smith. I’ve also included our unsigned free agents and recent tradees Mike Matheson and John Marino. No data was available for Josh Archibald.

Likewise, in some cases values for the ’21-22 season weren’t available.

I’ve only displayed overall WAR, along with even-strength offense and defense percentages. Kind of the equivalent of a 20,000-foot flyover. 

A few shockers to point out, namely the even-strength defense values of Jake Guentzel, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang. Smith, too (yikes)!

On the flip side, the extremely impressive overall and offensive WARs of Guentzel, Malkin and Sidney Crosby. Chad Ruhwedel’s remarkably strong numbers, too.

Data is courtesy of JFresh Hockey and TopDownHockey.

 

3-Year Weighted Average WAR (%)

2021-22 WAR (%)

Forwards

Pos

Role (TOI)

Overall

EV Off.

EV Def.

Overall

EV Off.

EV Def.

Crosby

C

1st Liner

95

99

65

92

99

48

Guentzel

LW

1st Liner

90

99

2

83

98

1

Rust

RW

1st Liner

76

63

26

69

63

23

Malkin

C

2nd Liner

93

95

11

97

94

16

Rakell

RW/LW

2nd Liner

33

70

16

70

78

43

Carter

C/RW

2nd Liner

38

56

34

24

38

22

Zucker

LW

3rd Liner

71

58

52

43

73

74

Kapanen

RW

3rd Liner

59

34

27

40

32

49

Blueger

C

3rd Liner

53

14

90

59

31

89

McGinn

LW/RW

3rd Liner

57

23

78

42

26

65

Poehling

C/LW

4th Liner

11

34

16

NA

NA

NA

 

3-Year Weighted Average WAR (%)

2021-22 WAR (%)

Defense

Pos

Role (TOI)

Overall

EV Off.

EV Def.

Overall

EV Off.

EV Def.

Letang

RD

No. 1 D

75

84

14

74

74

15

Petry

RD

Top Pair

79

89

48

NA

NA

NA

Dumoulin

LD

2nd Pair

54

17

72

50

15

68

Rutta

RD

3rd Pair

33

41

54

NA

NA

NA

Smith

LD

3rd Pair

6

41

4

NA

NA

NA

Pettersson

LD

Depth

75

41

96

74

29

97

Ruhwedel

RD

Depth

85

62

94

97

73

93

Friedman

LD/RD

Depth

91

93

48

NA

NA

NA

 

3-Year Weighted Average WAR (%)

2021-22 WAR (%)

Unsigned

Pos

Role (TOI)

Overall

EV Off.

EV Def.

Overall

EV Off.

EV Def.

Rodrigues

F

3rd Liner

62

72

76

65

90

88

Heinen

LW/RW

4th Liner

55

50

68

75

77

78

Boyle

LW/C

4th Liner

45

12

44

53

12

60

 

3-Year Weighted Average WAR (%)

2021-22 WAR (%)

Traded

Pos

Role (TOI)

Overall

EV Off.

EV Def.

Overall

EV Off.

EV Def.

Marino

RD

2nd Pair

78

35

80

NA

NA

NA

Matheson

LD

3rd Pair

70

79

49

NA

NA

NA

 

Rick Buker

View Comments

  • Rick
    Even though I'm not a numbers job this was very interesting and if I'm reading it right I can now
    see why the Pen's / Sullivan like Zucker on Malkin's line.
    Also, i just saw were the Pen's re-signed Heinen for 1 year at 1 million. To get him for a million
    per is huge and really starts to give our bottom six a different look.
    GO PENS

    • Hey Mike,

      I saw that signing and I do think it is a good signing. If you remember, I wanted all the RFAs signed so that we would not lose anymore players for free. However, it makes me wonder how they will get Cap compliant. They were already well over the limit before the signing and needed to be creative to get close, now they are further above the Cap.

      • The Other Rick
        I think their plan is to deport a couple of players back to WBS that do not require them to clear
        waivers and I still see them trading a Defenseman.
        I also think the signing of Archibald was a waste of 900K. Especially now that they signed Heinen.
        Go Pens

        • Agree, signing Archibald was a mistake. Not to knock him but at his age and his skill set, it made no sense.

          I have no problem with risking certain player on the waiver wire, I am wondering who?

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