Rebound Shooters of Renown

by Dirk Hoag on Aug 8, 2007 12:12 AM EDT

Following up on yesterday's piece covering team-by-team Rebounds Shots taken and given up, it's time to see which individual players dominated in front of the net. Here are your top shooters in terms of Rebound Shots taken in the 2006-7 season. A rebound shot is here defined as a shot taken within 5 seconds of another shot, without any intervening event such as a faceoff.

Click to enlarge

Interestingly, the diminuitive Martin St. Louis leads the pack, due in part to his gifted teammates like Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalier, and the endurance that lets him play over 24 minutes per game, tops among all NHL forwards. One interesting note is how Tomas Holmstrom comes in among the league leaders, but on a team-by-team basis, Detroit gets the fewest rebound opportunities as a percentage of their overall shots.

And for MikeP who wondered yesterday where Ryan Smyth compared to Dustin Penner (the once and future crease-crashers for Edmonton), Smyth garnered only 14 rebound shots last year, well below this list. This raises an interesting question.

Given the age of the two players, the talk that Smyth wanted a contract averaging $5 million-plus to stay in Edmonton, and the fact that the Oilers just landed Penner for less than that figure (setting aside the balance between the compensation Edmonton yielded to Anaheim for Penner, and the value they received for the Smyth trade), is it possible that Edmonton will get more out of Penner over the next five years than they would have expected to get from Captain Canada?

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Cool, thanks. I guess Smytty's renown for living in front of the net hammering home rebounds is gone like run and gun hockey and the best ice in the NHL.

I suppose there's still deflections to save Smyth's bacon. Apologists will say, of course, that Smyth gets less points than he ought to, because many goals go in while he's distracting the goaltender. They won't be entirely incorrect either, I suppose.

by MikeP on Aug 8, 2007 8:15 AM EDT reply actions

Isn't 5 seconds a little long between shots to still be considered a rebound? For example, 3 times in NHL history a player has scored 2 goals in 5 seconds or less. If there is time for another faceoff at centre ice and all the play to lead up to a goal, thats far too long to be a rebound.

Alan Ryder at www.hockeyanalytics.com defines a rebound as any shot taken within 2 seconds of a previous shot and with a distance of 25 feet or less. This is a very different definition from your 5 seconds. I think Ryder's definition may be too restrictive (some legit rebounds are left out) and yours too inclusive (some shots counted as rebounds are not actual rebounds).

Are you results posted here significantly influenced by the definition of rebound that is used? If so, they must be taken with a large grain of salt. I realize answering that question may be a bit time consuming, but I think it is necessary to be answered to show any validity of these results.

by The Puck Stops Here on Aug 10, 2007 8:41 AM EDT reply actions

Two responses:

1) As part of my definition of a Rebound Shot, I do not allow for any intervening events such as a faceoff.
2) When Alan Ryder is using 2 seconds as his barometer for Rebounds, he's interested in the fact that a quick rebound shot has a much higher chance of scoring, so he's using 2 seconds as a measure of how quickly a goalie may be able to recover his position. When I ran the numbers using 5 seconds as the window of opportunity, those shots still went in twice as often as Shot Quality would otherwise predict (based on distance, shot type, and PP/SH/EV strength situation). Basically, I'm leaving room for the situation where a player finds a loose puck and takes a stride or two before shooting (picking up the rebound on one side of the crease and moving laterally for a clear shot, for example).

I think the case where my data may pick up a shot that's not the result of a rebound would be if you had a shot, and the defending team played the puck and immediately gave it away for a quick shot against them (and the PBP files don't record that Giveaway or a Takeaway on the turnover). I'm comfortable that that's probably a pretty minor gap, and there's nothing to be done about it until we get more accurate in-game info from the NHL.

I can re-run the numbers using various windows (4 seconds, 3 seconds, etc.) this evening, but I doubt it will change the picture too much.

by The Forechecker on Aug 10, 2007 9:52 AM EDT reply actions

In a 5 second window, you are also including the case where player A picks up a rebound and passes to player B who shoots (or even paases to player C who shoots). On a team by team basis, this is likely correct to be called a rebound, but when creditted to individual players it is incorrect. Recieving a pass from a player who picks up a rebound and shooting is not the same thing as recieving the rebound and shooting yourself. I'm not sure how big an error this is in your individual totals, but I think it should be not a particularly uncommon scenario.

by The Puck Stops Here on Aug 10, 2007 10:26 AM EDT reply actions

True, for individuals the teammate's pass could cloud things, but since we don't have that level of detail available to us, the only method we have to accomodate it is to pick an arbitrary time window.

I suppose on goals you could find instances when player A took the first shotn player B scored on a rebound, and player C got an assist in between. I'll wager that's a pretty uncommon occurrence.

by The Forechecker on Aug 10, 2007 11:05 AM EDT reply actions