Season Preview: Alex Tanguay

BUT,

I wouldn’t go so far as to say: “and a portion can be blamed on poor luck (indicated by his PDO of 100.4 compared to 107.8 the previous year with Montreal)” and then reason that with his shooting percentage being only 11%.

A PDO of over 100, generally means that luck is on your side. In Tanguay’s case, it looks like he was about dead normal. Sure, his Mtl numbers are higher (107.8), but that shouldn’t be expected to remain, and it didn’t.

If his PDO was 940 or something, I would expect a big change, and say he had some bad luck…but… As well, continuing with this, 11% shooting isn’t bad at all. Anything over 9% ranges from ok to very good. Although Tanguay averages 18%!!!! I wouldn’t count on that this year.

So, what does this mean? 37pts on 91 shots on Tampa Bay isn’t awful, what’s awful is a guy like Tanguay only getting off 91 shots in 80 games. This is his big criticism, that he never shoots. His career average is about 110 shots/season. He’s not gonna shoot 20% forever…so he better start shooting more.

If he doesn’t aim for double the shots on Calgary, or at least 140-150 range (like career-high range) I wouldn’t expect a big difference in points, and …. as a result, not much of a difference maker.

The only caveat is he racks up 50-70 assists, in which case he better hope Jokinen ain’t shooting 6% again, and hitting 15 thousand posts.

At 50 assists,he would likely be the team leader and would definitely be a steal at the $1.7M.
He has made the 50 assists plateau just 3 times in his 10 year career. 70 is extremely optimistic considering he’s never broken 60.
140 shots will not happen – he’s only done that once, and the career average is 108. Disagree with Lawrence that more shots are the answer – taking lower percentage shots just to pad the shot totals is a waste of time. Clearly his instinct is to shoot only when he’s got a great chance to score, with 6 seasons of 20% or over. Harping on him to shoot only gets him second guessing himself on the ice and I’d rather have guys playing with the instincts that have brought them success.

My prediction, if he is healthy, is around 100 shots with hopefully a 15% percentage and that he can get to 40 assists as he did 3 seasons ago here. More than 50 points, but less than 60.

It’s not luck that he is 18.8% career; the guy has a high shooting percentage because he takes high percentage shots. It’s not luck that gets a guy a high sp, it’s a combination of getting in good position, making good decisions and having a good shot. Luck factors in over a short period of time, maybe a month or so, but bad luck factors in too and over a whole season( or career) it evens out. His numbers are like that for all of his career for a reason, and the reason is he doesn’t waste his shots on low percentage opportunities.
Forwards have better shooting percentages than defencemen becasue they generally shoot from closer in. Tanguay is that rare guy who won’t take the 30 foot unscreened wrist shot that the goalie will easily see and stop. He looks for the pass instead in that situation. If he took 50 or 60 more of those type of shots he might score 3 or 4 more goals in a year, but he may have passed up 45 opportunities to make a good pass to someone in a better shooting position. Does that pass always result in a shot – no, but more often than not it probably results in a higher percentage opportunity. He only took 91 shots last year probably because he is slowing down and not getting in the good positions he used to. If he took 150, I guarantee a bunch of them are going to be low percentage shots, and thats 50 or 60 less opportunities for him to make a play. He’s never going to approach an Ovechkin like 350 shots a year.

In 72 the Russians flabbergasted the Canadians because they wouldn’t shoot the puck. Tarasov’s philosophy was that if you passed more, you had control of the puck and therefore the game. It’s the same theory as shooting the puck in, there is a place for it, but why give the puck away easily ? I know people get frustrated sometimes with guys who won’t shoot, but I get equally frustrated with guys who take low percentage shots, that the goalie freezes killing any kind of a sustained rally. ( especially bloody frustrating to take an unscreened 50 footer on the PP as Phanuef would sometimes do)

If i understand PDO, correctly it is ES shooting % plus Es Sv % ; with the theory that it if you are high it is likely to come down and if you are low likely to come up . To me that is somewhat interesting but gives no accounting for where a guy shoots from, or what is happening on the ice when the shot is taken( screen shots, rebounds etc) , essentially it doesn’t measure how a guy makes his own luck. Simply stating that Tanguay needs to take more shots is a simplistic view that more shots no matter where they are taken from and who is taking them is the answer. I think more shots and hoping the goalie misses it is relying more on luck than “hoping for high percentages”. If he takes more shots, it probably means fewer for his linemates as well, so is that neccesarily a good thing ?
Tanguay will always have a high shooting percentage and they day he becomes average or below average, that’s the day you say goodbye to him.
The bottom line is the team finished 24th in shots and 25th in shooting percentage – they could use a healthy improvment in both or 29th in goals may happen again.

I kow the above statement seems painfully obvious, but it seems that there is some actual debate about it.

We track shots totals, Corsi & Fenwick because it is an indicator of possession and correlates well with scoring chances and winning. That doesn’t mean that all shots are equal.

This article by Gabe at BTN is fantastic and he even talks about Tanguay as one of only 2 players with a discernable shooting talent (the other is Kovalchuk). The more important factor than shooting talent is the location.

http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2010/5/24/1482659/a-tale-of-two-talents-one-true-and

For your own sanity – I would ignore that Kotalik gets to the worst shooting locations in the league (for fwds).

As instructive as some of these analytical statistics are they leave out the qualitative analysis that a coach makes watching his player. A guy can generate a bunch of shots on net, or even shots at net and look good on paper in PDO or Corsi or whatever, but those stats fail to measure the decisions made by the player on the ice. Was it a good opportunity to shoot, should he have passed instead, or hung on to the puck and cycled or turned back and relaunched the attack.
I want to be on the team that wins on the scoring chance battle not just the shots battle. I’d far rather have a team that gets 27 shots per game and shoots 10% than a team that gets 33 shots and shoots 8% because that means probably 10 fewer times per game we are turning the puck over to the other team.

As far as volumes and top players go – I agree that the top goal scorers will be in the 300 range, part of that is mentality, but most of it is postion – Ovechkin is beating guys all over the ice to get in good shooting areas. If you look at guys like H Sedin, Thornton and even Getzlaf they were all well under 200 shots, with Thornton and Getz only at 140 something. Tanguay certainly not a top goal scorer – more in line with these guys in style; 100 shots doesn’t look bad compared to Thornton.

The years that Joker was well over 300 shots were of course the years he was a one man army and were the winters he was 27, 28 and 29. This winter he will be 32. If he gets 300 shots this year, I would suggest that if you could measure the quality of those shots, the 300 he takes this winter wont be as high of quality because he has lost a step or two. Same goes for Iggy, the last year he scored 50 (at 30) he generated 4 shots per game. Last year he got 3 shots per game. I would postulate that the only reason his shot total is down is that he is just not in the positions he used to get into. You can ask him( and Joker and Tanguay) to ramp up his total to those early years, but I think that probably means quite a few more desperation, low percentage plays.
Joker’s fall from elite centre to frustrating plodder, is seen in both fewer shots and lower percentage; from 350 shots and 11% to 236 and 6.4 %, one could accept one or the other from a guy moving in to his 30’s but both ? Iggy’s decline far more gradual.