from Fluto Shinzawa of the Boston Globe,

According to research conducted by Harvard PhD student Stephen Pettigrew, the average NHL goal increases a team’s chance of winning by 17 percent. To that end, Pettigrew, who presented his research at MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, concluded that some players have a greater impact on their teams’ likelihood of winning than others.

Loui Eriksson, Pavel Datsyuk, Kyle Okposo, and Daniel Briere are examples of players whose goals — maybe they took place in the third period or overtime — had more than a 17 percent impact on their teams’ wins. In contrast, Antoine Vermette was below the 17 percent threshold. In conclusion, Pettigrew presented Matt Duchene (16-23—39) and Nazem Kadri (15-19—34) as comparable players based on standard statistics.

But based on Pettigrew’s statistic of added goal value, Duchene (plus-40.2 percent) had a bigger impact on win probability than Kadri (minus-42.2 percent), meaning the Colorado center is a better clutch player.

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