Goin’ to WAR with Our Penguins (’25 Edition)

In what’s quickly becoming a rite of summer at PenguinPoop, I decided to post another Goin’ to WAR with Our Penguins article. Players are organized into three main groups…Forwards, Defense and Prospects. There’s a special section just for Tristan Jarry.

Before we get to the numbers, a quickie review of WAR, short for Wins Above Replacement. In the simplest of terms, WAR 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 his role.

You’ll notice in a number of cases a player’s role doesn’t seem to line up with the way he’s actually used. For example, Philip Tomasino is categorized as a fourth liner even though he was most often cast in a middle-six role with the black-and-gold. That’s because a player’s role is determined by his position and ice time (TOI).

WAR can be expressed as a number, or in this case a percentage, with 50 percent being break-even or average. 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, along with a myriad of subcategories.

That cursory description aside? I haven’t a clue as to how WAR is actually calculated.

For the sake of simplicity, I’ve listed three categories of WAR…overall, even-strength offense, and even-strength defense. The equivalent of a 20,000-foot flyover. 

Data is courtesy of JFresh Hockey, TopDownHockey and AllThreeZones.

It’s important to note the numbers in most cases represent a three-year weighted average, with the obvious exceptions being rookies and players who’ve played less than three seasons.

Without further ado, here are the tables.

FORWARDS		WAR
Player	Role	Overall	EV. Off.	EV. Def.
Crosby	1st Liner	97	98	17
Rakell	1st Liner	79	56	93
Rust	1st Liner	58	93	6
Malkin	2nd Liner	68	77	8
Mantha	3rd Liner	84	71	99
Novak	4th Liner	89	86	21
Hayes, K.	4th Liner	62	68	61
Tomasino	4th Liner	53	50	25
Brazeau	4th Liner	50	55	67
Heinen	4th Liner	41	46	55
Lizotte	4th Liner	40	14	82
Dewar	4th Liner	33	13	87
Acciari	4th Liner	16	14	68

 

A few eye-openers among the forwards. Namely, the poor defensive WARs assigned to Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust and especially Sidney Crosby, always regarded as a stout two-way player. With a sterling even-strength defensive WAR of 93, Rickard Rakell picks up the backchecking slack for the top-six.

Among the supporting cast, Anthony Mantha, generally considered an underachiever, is remarkably strong across the board. Tommy Novak, who barely displayed his wares with us due to injury, has excellent overall and offensive inputs. Apparently, he’s a darling of the analytics sect.

Much-maligned Kevin Hayes grades out surprisingly well. Most of the rest of the pack, including Tomasino, are varying degrees of middling. Twin buzz-saws Connor Dewar and Blake Lizotte are short on oh-fense but tough defensively.

DEFENSE		WAR
Player	Role	Overall	EV. Off.	EV. Def.
Letang	No. 1	31	53	9
Karlsson	Top Pair	89	99	0
** Jones	2nd Pair	71	70	70
Wotherspoon	3rd Pair	93	80	86
Graves	Depth	65	64	54
* Alexeyev	Depth	54	13	88
Clifton	Depth	36	51	28
Dumba	Depth	7	32	12
* ’24 WAR Chart; ** ’23 WAR Chart

 

The defense pretty much mirrors the forwards, with top rearguards Kris Letang and Erik Karlsson earning exceedingly poor defensive ratings.

On the flip side, free-agent pickup Parker Wotherspoon has outstanding metrics a la Mantha. The former fourth-round pick of the Isles could prove to be a savvy addition.

The biggest surprise? The respectable WAR assigned to Ryan Graves, which sure doesn’t match the eye test. At the bottom of the pile, newcomer Matt Dumba appears to be a solid candidate for the Jack Johnson Award.

A potential sleeper? Signed to a two-way deal, Caleb Jones has had trouble keeping up with the Joneses…er…finding steady NHL duty of late. But early on the kid brother of Panthers star, Seth Jones, did decent work for an atrocious Blackhawks squad.

PROSPECTS
Player	Pos.	NHL Star	NHLer
Broz	Forward	1	2
Koivunen	Forward	10	79
McGroarty	Forward	15	80
Pickering	Defense	2	18

 

I confess, I find these ratings the most fascinating of all.

For the sake of readability, I abbreviated the two categories in the Prospects table. “NHL Star” is actually “Projected Chance at Becoming a Star.”

“NHLer” represents “Projected Chance at Becoming Full-Time NHLer.” Both are expressed as a percentage. 

For context, Owen Pickering’s ratings were affixed early on, prior to his 18th birthday. Rutger McGroarty’s were assigned at age 19, Ville Koivunen’s at age 20.

Tristan Broz? JFresh originally rated him a 4 and 14, respectively, just prior to his 18th birthday. Drastically downgraded at age 21 to the numbers displayed.

Yikes! Hopefully he’s missed the boat on Broz, who I personally have great hopes for.

GOALIE

Due to the dearth of WAR charts for our other goalies, Jarry has this category all to himself. With that in mind, I thought I’d post his chart.

The ratings, which pretty much speak for themselves, reflect Jarry’s checkered performance over the past couple of seasons.

With the way our defense is shaping up? I wouldn’t expect a dramatic turnaround.