This will be the last thing I write for a while on good ol' Mikael Backlund- I can't say I expect it to change anyone's mind, but I can hope.

I went to Hockey-Reference to generate three lists of players (Kent Wilson helped me pick the ranges, as generating statistics isn't something I have a ton of experience with). Here's what I used and why:

Age: 21-24. With Backlund currently 22 and turning 23 in about a month, a range was necessary. 21-24 kept both ages he'll be during this season in the middle.

Year: 2nd. Same as Mickis.

Seasons: 2001-02 to 2011-12. Ten years is a decent sample size and keeps the game within the same style of play (no terrible 80's goalies inflating points)

Position: Forward. Duh.

Points: I have three different ranges: 10-25, 25-35, and 40-50. To be more specific, those are the points players would have if they played a full season. The actual filter is points per game with a minimum games played of 43 (over half a season) to rule out call-ups who show up for a game, score a point, and go back to the AHL.

Tables after the jump!

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Granted, I'm a few days late on this, however I had trouble finding some stats I wanted to use.

Certainly the All-Star game and draft aren't perfect and not everybody loves them, but as I enthused in the open-thread on Thursday, I'm enthralled with them, particularly now that players have to be mini-GMs of a sort. From picking teams to deciding on lines and participants in the Skills Competitions, it's fascinating to see who has a better understanding of the players available.

Of course, looking at the winner of a single game is hardly indicative of who did a better job. If the Stanley Cup playoffs were only one game per series, history would be entirely different. So given the nature of the All-Star Game (all offense, zero defense) who could we reasonably expect to win an All-Star game series?

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I ran a similar report to this about 1/5 of the way into the season, but now that we have a larger sample size and a better idea of what this team really is this season, re-running the spreadsheet seems like a smart thing to do. Table after the jump.

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Sometimes something gets said and people immediately latch onto it. Even reputable media like the Globe and Mail start to repeat it. 

Iginla, a notoriously slow starter, has two goals (one on the power play) and two assists. Tanguay has a goal and seven assists to lead the team with eight points. Allan Maki - Nov 1, 2011 ~ The Globe and Mail

Jarome has started slow now for two seasons in a row but he is not notoriously a slow starter, not by history. 

This type of myth creation has more to do with what people want to believe. Flames fans may not want to admit Jarome Iginla is slowing down today maybe no one does.

The idea of Iginla "always" starts slow really took hold last year, especially after he exploded for points in the 2nd half of the season. The notion that there is nothing to be concerned about continues with the perpetuation of the myth that he has always started slow.

The facts do not back that claim up. 

Two years ago was when this started to circulate but it really took root last year. I decided to look up his production in the first 15 games of the last 10 seasons. Take those numbers to find a point per game projection and project his start out on the season and compare it to the actual results. 

The results are after the jump and it is actually the exact opposite. Jarome has actually for the majority of his career started extremely strong and tapered off slightly or maintained his starting production as the season goes on. 

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Despite my post yesterday on Butler/Bouwmeester, Smith, and Stempniak all having pretty good underlying numbers for the Flames- it's not all sunshine and roses and tasty beer. Okay, maybe there's a lot of tasty beer regardless.

The point is, the Calgary Flames are sitting at 6-6-1, with no signs of either improvement or worsening. So if so many players are surprising us with great play, why the mediocrity? And who else has some surprises for Calgary?

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We spend a lot of time dwelling on the faults of the Flames, so much so that we (and by we, I mean "I") get accused of not even being Flames fans. So I'd like to spend some time today dwelling on who the best players based on advanced stats are this season.

And as a side note, I'd like to remind you that you are NOT tripping when you read the list of names after the jump.

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It’s no secret that I’m a big proponent of advanced stats. I feel like they add to the game and they’ve changed the way I view players’ effectiveness.

Some of the earliest developers of advanced stats are the guys over at hockey prospectus. Their sister publication, Baseball Prospectus, basically started the advanced stats revolution (outside of the Oakland A's) with this article. What I’m saying is that these guys know their stuff.

Every year HP publishes their hockey annual-also known as the farmer’s almanac of hockey. I’ve purchased a copy the past two years and I’m a pretty big fan. Now, just because the book mentions things like GVT and VUKOTA doesn’t mean the average fan can’t enjoy it; as the team write-ups are quite detailed and every team has a player-by-player breakdown. These tell you what to expect for the teams and players in the upcoming season using past performance, as well as other things.

I found myself quite enamoured with the Flames section-written by Editor Emeritus, Kent Wilson-as it basically reaffirmed my thoughts on the team going into the season. It’s interesting to see the projections HP have come up with and create an argument in your mind as to why the projection might be wrong…or why it might be right.

If that’s not your thing (and if it isn’t, what gives?), there are articles in there that explain Corsi methodologies and what’s needed to introduce these types of stats to the community at large. They’re written by guys like Tom Awad and Gabe Desjardins, so they’re guaranteed to be good.

Of course the projections (specifically VUKOTA) aren’t perfect, as they use history and don’t really take into account a player’s current team. Other then that, though, I don’t really see why you shouldn’t be plunking down 10 bucks for the 400+ pages offered.

If you'd like to purchase a copy (and I strongly recommend that you do) click here.

Full disclosure: one of the contributors to the Hockey Prospectus Annual-Ryan Poplichak-is also a contributor here. I bought and paid $9.90 for my own copy of the PDF, but one was offered to me for free. Timo Seppa (the Managing Editor at Hockey Prospectus) asked me to write a review of sorts and this is what I came up with.

Advanced stats are not perfect and are mostly useless as evaluators of talent (like pretty much any other stat) without context, and the bigger the sample size the more accurate a stat will become-ideally, for hockey, this means at least an 82 game season.

I understand some people might have issues when we bring up things like PDO, GVT, CorsiREL and other non-traditional ways of evaluation. In my opinion, these stats add to the game, and I don't want someone to be lost when they read an article here because they don't know what the hell Zone Start is or how it impacts a player's stature. 

By no means am I an expert when it comes to these things: I, too, still have a lot to learn. These are my interpretations; if I have something wrong please bring it up and I'll edit the article accordingly. 

With those things in mind, I present to you the sixth and final part in a glossary of advanced stat terminology.

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