Morning Mashup: This Post Isn’t Clutch

by Jon Steitzer on September 3, 2012 in Morning Mashup - 423 Comments

The downside of long weekends is I forget that I’m supposed to write the Morning Mashup post for Monday. It took me until halfway through Breaking Bad that I owed you folks some links and a little Leafs talk.

So piggybacking on my earlier spreadsheet that I used for determining primary and secondary assists I thought I’d make a case against clutch scoring. This is also following up on the work of Gus Katsaros who put together a look at the Leafs scoring by period in a post at The Leafs Nation last week.

My argument is simple. The guys who score goals in clutch situations probably lead the team in any goal scoring situation. With the top five guys being Kessel, MacArthur, Grabovski, Bozak, and Lupul, I’d fathom that they’d be the leaders in any goal scoring situation in any period. Here are the top 3 goal scorers in a number of different situations.

Leafs Up 3 or more (it did happen):
Kessel 3
Lupul 2
MacArthur 2

Leafs Up 2
Kessel 3
Lupul 2
Bozak 2

Leafs Up 1
Lupul 5
Bozak 4
Grabovski, Kessel, and MacArthur 3

Tied
Kessel 11
Grabovski 9
MacArthur 9

Leafs Down 1
Kessel 7
Lupul 5
Bozak 3

Leafs Down 2
Kessel 6
Grabovski 4
Lupul 3

Leafs Down 3 or More (as known as March)
Grabovski 2
Kulemin 2
Phaneuf 2

So when it comes to in game goal differential it was only when the Leafs were down 3 or more that it broke from the Kessel, Grabovski, Lupul, MacArthur, Bozak norm.

As for by period (see the Leafs Nation post for greater detail)

In the first
Grabovski 9
MacArthur 8
Kessel 7

In the second
Kessel 15
Lupul 11
Bozak 8

In the third or overtime
Kessel 12
Grabovski 11
Lupul 8

Yep. It’s pretty much goal scorers scoring like their supposed to. There’s no great clutch contributor that hasn’t been accounted for.

Except…

Let’s take a look at situations where the Leafs entered the third losing and came back to win or force overtime. Who were the players responsible for the Leafs coming back and winning (or at least getting a point)?

Again it was Kessel who led the way with 5 goals, followed by MacArthur with 4. Connolly, Grabovski, Lupul, and MacArthur all had three. So not very surprising, but I will throw people who want to believe in clutch scoring a bone. Of Jake Gardiner’s 7 goals, three of them came in the third period when the Leafs were tied or down and came back for at least one point in the game.

Of the Game Winning Goals scored in the third period or overtime again your leaders are Phil Kessel and Clarke MacArthur.

If there is such a thing as a clutch goal scorer it certainly wasn’t evident by these statistics. All that is evident is that goal scorers score in most situations.

LINKS

Eagleson Shutout by Summit Series Players
I can’t say I blame the players here as their post hockey lives have been more difficult by Eagleson’s greed. This is the price he has to pay and it’s hard to sympathize with someone who drinks Coors Light.

Finding Bozak
Blue Chip Prospects takes a look at the tweener that is Tyler Bozak. Certainly he’s not the guy you want in the top six, and I’m not convinced he’d be a solid 3^rd line center either. Personally I’d like to see him on the wing.

A tip of the hat to Vintage Leafs Memories on Three Solid Years of Blogging
Michael has one of the finest blogs on the interwebs, it’s a pleasure to read his posts.

The Evolution of the Hockey Videogame
Since NHL ’13 might be the only thing resembling NHL hockey we see for a while take a trip down memory lane and remember when video games were awesome because they had fewer buttons (#old #getoffmylawn)

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