Expected Goals, Actual Opinions: Thoughts on the NHL - February 11th

Expected Goals, Actual Opinions: Thoughts on the NHL 
By: Alex Moretto, Director of Content at the Hammer Betting Network

1.) Last year’s 4 Nations was a huge success, but I remember the discourse after it being about the impact it had on teams and players coming out of the break. I took a deeper look to get a better idea of that impact. Matthew Tkachuk and Shea Theodore suffered significant injuries that kept them out a while, while a few others missed a game or two with minor bruises, or for rest. I looked at the teams with at least four skaters (not including goalies) at the tournament to see how they fared before and after the pause:

Cleary there was no dip for any of these teams. I even shortened the sample size, just looking at numbers from the month before the break and the two weeks after it. By doing so there’s obviously way more room for variance, but I wanted to get a sense of how these teams were playing right before the pause, and if they were a little slow getting back to form coming out of it:

There’s nothing here. It’s a small sample, and it was a smaller tournament with a shorter break than a traditional Olympics, so I also went back to 2014 – the last time the NHL sent players to the Olympics – and went through the same exercise, while moving the goalposts slightly to look at teams who sent at least five skaters due to the expanded field. In the chart below, GP is the amount of games played during the 2013-14 season for each team by players at the 2014 Olympics, and PTS is the amount of points they cumulatively scored for that team during the year.

We did see a dip here from a handful of the teams near the top, but it was marginal, and with others improving their play there was nothing consistent enough to signal anything more than randomness. The Penguins were without top defensemen Kris Letang and Paul Martin for most of February and all of March, explaining their dip. Other teams suffered injuries, or made trades, while some were simply locked into a playoff spot without a whole lot to play for down the stretch. But what is noteworthy is the top eight teams all made the playoffs, with six of them advancing to the second round and four of them the Conference Finals. It’s fair to conclude there was no lasting impact of sending guys to the Olympics (at least not for that season).

I again made the sample smaller to take a micro look at how they were playing right before the Olympics vs. how they did in the immediacy post-Sochi:

This is a really long-winded way of saying there’s no need to make any adjustments post-Olympic break, aside from any injuries that may carry over. I mentioned on a show a few weeks ago that I may take a break from betting the NHL for a week or two after the restart to allow things to settle back into place, because I remembered some wonky results after 4 Nations last year. Looking back at my bets, and the above data, that wasn’t the case. The few wonky results I remember were simply variance in small samples that happen throughout the entire season. It’ll be business as usual for me on February 25, while being mindful of some guys potentially sitting the first game or two back.

2.)I also went back and grabbed data from the goalies who partook in each of the last three international tournaments. In each of the below charts you’ll find the goalie, their total appearances at the listed tournament, and their goals saved above expected (GSAx) in each of their first three starts back (1st, 2nd, 3rd).

4 Nations (minimum two appearances):

2014 Sochi Olympics (minimum three appearances):

*Price missed the first three weeks after the break with an injury

2010 Vancouver Olympics (minimum three appearances):

You can draw your own conclusions from this data dump, but I won’t be making any adjustments upon the NHL’s return to play.

3.)Goal leaders at the last four Olympics with NHLers present, listed as “Player, Country (Goals, Games Played)”:

Every year there are a couple of real surprises at the top, which should be expected for such a short tournament. Anything can happen over a 4-7 game sample. In 2014, Michael Grabner scored a hat trick in an 8-4 opening loss to Finland and added another two in a 3-1 win over Norway. That was enough to make him joint-top scorer. Lauris Darzins was one off the lead for a Latvia team that won just one game. In 2010, a hat trick in a 5-4 loss to Switzerland saw Tore Vikingstad come close to matching leader Iginla in three fewer games – Norway lost every game at the tournament. In 2006, Kazakhstan scored the second-fewest goals at the tournament but Yevgeniy Koreshkov nearly won top scorer before being edged out by Olli Jokinen and Teemu Selanne, who went the distance with Finland.

In all likelihood, it will be a player from one of the top-four finishers who winds up top scorer, but given the structure of the tournament it’s entirely possible those teams get a bye to the quarters and only wind up playing one extra game than a team that sneaks into the quarters via an easier matchup in the playoff. And with how loaded these top teams are, I’d expect minutes to be more evenly distributed, with scoring contributions from up and down the lineup. For the weaker teams, scoring will likely come from the same source. All it takes is one big game from someone to make things interesting, and that really opens things up in the top scorer market.

For my bets, I targeted players who will feature in a prominent offensive role (top six, first power play) for weaker nations that have the potential to put up goals. Slovakia jumped out as a team I expect to play in some high-scoring games, and they have a game against Italy to rack up goals. To a lesser extent, Denmark and Switzerland also apply here. With that logic in mind, I came up with a few long shots worth small bets to lead the Olympics in goals:

Juraj Slafkovsky, SVK (80-1)
Oliver Bjorkstrand, DEN (100-1)
Anton Lundell, FIN (175-1)*
Dalibor Dvorsky, SVK (250-1)
Tomas Tatar, SVK (300-1)
Denis Malgin, SUI (300-1)

*Lundell doesn’t fit the same mould, but he’s being undervalued given the role I expect him to have for a Finland team that could play the full seven games in Milan (don’t receive an auto-quarterfinal berth but still reach the medal games).

4.)We are taking a content pause at The Hammer next week as we spend the week planning and getting organized for an exciting year ahead. With that being said, there will be no newsletter next week, and thus no column. I’ll be back with the next edition on February 25 – the day the NHL returns. I plan on looking at some futures in there, identifying ideal trade deadline targets for each team, and maybe doing some sort of rest-of-season ranking I haven’t quite figured out yet. If there’s anything you want to see included, let me know in the #nhl channel in the Hammer Discord, or DM me on X. 

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