Goin’ to WAR with Our Penguins (’26 Edition)

In what’s become a rite of summer at PenguinPoop, here’s the latest Goin’ to WAR with Our Penguins article. Forwards and defensemen are displayed in separate tables, with a special category for goalie Arturs Šilovs.

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

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

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. That’s because a player’s role is determined by his ice time (TOI). For example, Egor Chinakhov is categorized as a fourth liner even though he skated almost exclusively in the top-six with the black-and-gold. That’s due to the fact that Chinakhov averaged barely 10 minutes of ice time for the CBJ prior to his arrival.

In other cases, most notably forwards Nicholas Robertson and Elmer Söderblom, the overall WAR doesn’t seem to jibe with their EVO and EVD ratings. That’s because WAR takes into account factors such as 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 other microstats.

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

Without further ado, here are the tables. Data is courtesy of JFresh Hockey and HockeyStats.com.

Glancing at the numbers, one gets the distinct impression that Kyle Dubas and his staff rely on WAR or similar analytics when making their personnel decisions.

This especially seems true with the likes of Tommy Novak and newcomer Andrei Kuzmenko, who have strong WARs across the board. I confess to being shocked by Kuzmenko’s numbers, given his one-trick pony rep. However, his 5v5 metrics are remarkably good, which WAR appears to support.

It’s difficult to overlook the exceedingly poor defensive WARs of Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust and yes…Sidney Crosby. Fortunately, the trio have exceptional offensive WARs.

Elsewhere, Kindel’s numbers are outstanding, especially for an 18-year-old kid.

Reinforcing the notion that Dubas & Co. embrace WAR, the numbers for recent additions Kaeden Korczak and Trevor van Riemsdyk are quite good. The same goes for Sam Girard, acquired in February.

Two other Dubas adds, Declan Carlile and Ilya Solovyov, boast decent WARs as well.

At the top of the heap, Erik Karlsson reflects our front-line forwards, with outstanding overall and offensive WARs coupled with a weak (but improving) defensive WAR.

WAR clearly reflects the unfortunate and precipitous decline in Kris Letang’s game.

GOALIE

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

Yikes. WAR clearly doesn’t think too highly of the 25-year-old Latvian.