Shortly after the Wings' season ended, I got an email from reader ChuckyD about the CSSI and some ideas he had to make improvements to the stats-tracking system. Turns out he knew a thing or two(hundred) about programming and we started working together on what would be available for next season to make the tracking and adjustments that much better. As the season nears, so does the finished product, and I can say that what ChuckyD has put together so far will likely liquefy your brain. CSSI next year is going to be incredible.

As part of the system he's working on, ChuckyD has been playing with the stats to bring them into a database like I haven't seen anywhere else. Everything is getting ready to go into final testing, but individual stats tests have confirmed that his data is accurate and, as a result, I've been glued to a specific piece for a few weeks now. Part of the system tracks shared time on ice for every Red Wings player as well as goals for and against stats.  I wanted to take a deeper look at those stats to see what they could tell us about last season.

For today's look, I went through shared ice time and GF/GA for every combination of forwards who played over 30 games (leaving out Mursak, Tatar, and Emmerton) and I created what I like to call a scoring efficiency index.  Keep following through the jump for more.

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Since Chris Osgood's retirement on July 19th, the talk of his Hall of Fame credentials got me thinking. No, I don't want to re-open the case as everybody has had plenty of opportunity to weigh in on that subject, but the talk about Osgood's save percentage being a huge limiting factor made me take another look at Howard's save percentage this season and to bounce that off of the going discussion in regards to last year and the Red Wings' ability (or lack thereof) to keep the puck out of their own net.

The average save percentage of an NHL goalie who played in at least 30 games last season was .913. For comparison, Jimmy Howard's was .908. If Howard had provided an average save percentage, he would have given up 9 fewer goals last season. That would have jumped Detroit up from 23rd in the league to a tie for 17th in goals allowed. So why aren't we, as a collective of fans known for being very hard on our goalies, running Jimmy Howard out of town on the first bus available?

Because the eyeball test tells us that the team defense in front of him played like crap.

Ok, really, it's an exaggeration to say that people aren't saying Howard has to play better. I think we can all agree that he deserves some blame for the defensive woes last season. I don't think it's a stretch to say that people feel the defense in front of him is MORE at fault than he was though. Ultimately, I think the CSSI stats back that up, too.

Keep reading to find out how.

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Finishing off the overview of the last set of adjustments for the Common Sense Scoring Index, we now turn our attention to the goalie stats that came out of this season. These stats had very little to do with the players' points adjustments, but had quite a few impacts on plus/minus hits. In general, when a goaltender gave up a bad goal or a half-bad goal, the rule of thumb was to clear all (or half) of the player minuses. After all, while there should be some attempt by players to prevent a shot, there should be no reason to punish him for a shot taken which should not be expected to beat the goaltender. Plenty of times, players were allowed to keep minuses on bad goals, but those were all tied to adjustable events.

For the goalie analysis, I did not go back through and create additional categories. A bad goal is a bad goal is a bad goal and there are simply too many variables that make up what constituted a "big save" to further reduce statistically. I did add assists to goaltenders as I saw fit, but those happened so rarely that they didn't warrant discussion in the points adjustment post. Four assists over 60 games for Jimmy Howard is always nice to see, but he's no Turco or Brodeur when it comes to helping his offense start the other way.

One thing to mention before we get deeper into the analysis, the GP line is not official. I did some minor rounding when coming to the figures. You'll notice that Thomas McCollum's 14:37 of 0.625 save % hockey doesn't appear anywhere and that the GP chart does not match up with NHL.com's stats. I will discuss this and more about the chart below the jump.

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When we last left you on on the subject, we took a look back at the season-long CSSI numbers for points adjustments. Those numbers gave us a very good indication of how each of the Red Wings' players did in driving Detroit's offense this season. I intended the points adjustments to help us factor in the things that players do to help the team score goals that they don't necessarily get credit for on the official scoresheet. Today, we'll look at the other side of the coin in the CSSI adjustments, the plus/minus adjustments.

For context, nobody can quite agree upon what exactly a person's official plus/minus tells you. As a statistic, it is only meaningful to give an indication of what happened at even-strength, but does a horrible job of telling us why. There are so many factors that a player cannot control which impact his official plus/minus score that the statistic as-is does nothing more for us than fit neatly together with other (and sometimes contrary) statistics to tell us what we want to hear. A puzzle piece which fits together with dozens of other pieces tells us nothing about the overall picture.

What I tried to accomplish with plus/minus adjustments was a ratings system that made sense, one that people can look at and from which they can discern a meaningful comparison without myriad arguments about how situational ice time, relative goalie strength, and overall ability of linemates and competitors would skew the numbers. I wanted to try to get as close as possible to achieving the goal of creating a statistic that could best be used as a measure of a player's defensive ability. I think that with the help of the readers this season, we accomplished this feat.  Join us below the jump for a look at the numbers.

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When I took on the challenge of creating a new statistical rating system for the Red Wings this season based on the original work by Chris Hollis at The Production Line, I had a firm grasp of the scope of the task, but not quite the breadth.  The purpose of the Common Sense Scoring Index was to break through the messy and blunt statistical categories given to us by traditional (and even some nontraditional) hockey metrics to create a ratings system that would give us a precise look at what the Detroit Red Wings' players brought to the team; I wanted to find a way to make the intangible something that could be counted, averaged, compared, and rated. Through a few tweaks and some excellent reader feedback, we were able to succeed in that goal.

Looking back at the season, I wanted to attempt to further break down the context of the stats and create a system by which we could see some differentiation in how the numbers for each player came to be.  As a result, I've gone back over the regular season and have broken down every single adjustment into sub-categories to give us more insight to how the project worked out and to give us a more in-depth look at exactly what we were trying to capture in the first place, a way to count all the ways the Red Wings contributed to their team this season. 

Follow me after the jump for a look at the points adjustments made this season..

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Hell of a way to lose a series, but the Wings showed a lot of heart.  Congratulations to San Jose for turning their season around and proving my November prediction wrong.  Whatever finger-wagging you want to do, go ahead (after all, I did say "I fully expect to be crucified if they get outplayed.").  I will say that I was not wrong at the time, but that's not important.  Ultimately, I was wrong.  San Jose turned their season around and are now going to be a lot of people's favorites to win the cup.  Adding guys like White and Wellwood helped, but more crucial was that, as a team, they were able to dig deep enough to find the will to win.  Again, for that I say congrats.

The refs did a pretty good job of not making a difference in this game.  I thought this was one of the better-reffed games of the playoffs.  The Wings' power play had their chances and could not finish any of the four they earned.  On the other side, the Sharks scored on the first of their three opportunities.  Detroit was playing catch-up for most of the game, which would likely explain the 40-30 shots advantage.

CSSI Playoff Tracking Chart here
CSSI Methodology Explanation here

Goalie Ratings

Jimmy Howard played another great game for Detroit.  I have all the confidence in the world that the contract he got this season was the right call.  He did look shaky a couple of times, as he bobbled the puck, but his head was completely in the game and I don't think any of the three goals that got through him were soft.  Howard made four big saves on the night:  The first was off a Kyle Wellwood chance in the first when he brought the puck to the front of the net and Howard was strong behind his paddle to keep it out.  #2 was on a Thornton/Heatley 2-on-0 shorthanded chance in the first where he stoned Heatley.  The third was a very strong challenge on Ryane Clowe during a Sharks' 2nd period PP where he kept the puck close to the chest after a great shot.  Later on the same PK, he grabbed and held a puck in traffic with two Sharks on the doorstep.  Howard's rating is +4.

Scoring and plus/minus analysis after the jump

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The Wings went into game 6 looking to put together a better game than the previous one that many felt they were able to steal after being outplayed.  What resulted was perhaps the most complete sixty-minute effort Detroit has put in all year.  If not for some outstanding saves by Antti Niemi and some unfortunate luck in the Sharks' favor, this one might have turned into a drubbing.

The refs were hit-and-miss in this game, letting them play some times and then suddenly deciding to stop letting them play.  Detroit had six power plays, but less than one minute of man advantage time per PP opportunity (5:35 PP time total).  San Jose got 5:25 PP time in their four man advantage chances.  Neither team was able to capitalize, but Detroit did a better job of using the man advantage to build off momentum and the PK to gain it back.  Detroit ended up outshooting San Jose 45-25.

CSSI Playoff Tracking Chart here
CSSI Methodology Explanation here

Goalie Ratings

Jimmy Howard was not tested as much as he had been previously, but I felt he had an oustanding game in the old Red Wings tradition of only getting to see 20-25 shots, but having to face a high percentage of good quality chances.  I'm not happy that he let the Sharks' goal squeak through him like he did though.  Ultimately, he made five big saves in the game, including one absolutely HUGE opportunity on a Devin Setoguchi break in late in the third to preserve the Wings' lead.  Two others were seeing-eye glove saves through traffic (one off Demers, the other Boyle).  He also stoned Ben Ferriero in the first period on a semi-breakaway and held his top corner angle very well on a scary Dany Heatley chance.  His rating with the half-bad goal figured in works out to +4.5.

Scoring and plus/minus analysis after the jump

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Just getting caught up now after a long and fun weeekend.  Sorry to go out of order, but sometimes these things happen.  Game 4 was the Wings' best game of the series (even looking two days into the future from there at game 5).  The Wings jumped out early and controlled play.  Unfortunately, they let the Sharks back into it and put themselves into very real danger of being swept but not for some late heroics by a young fan favorite.

Detroit went 1-for-4 with the man advantage and got two huge kills of their own with their struggling PK unit.  I don't like to admit this, but I felt the refs gave Detroit more breaks than they gave the Sharks in this one.  Still, special teams had a chance to be the difference and the Wings made it work in their favor, ultimately outshooting the Sharks 40-28.

CSSI Playoff Tracking Chart here
CSSI Methodology Explanation here

Goalie Ratings

This one was perhaps Howards' weakest performance of the playoffs to date.  It's not that he was bad, just that he was not noticeable.  Chalk that up to a combination of Detroit outplaying the Sharks and him not focusing as well as he could have when the Wings went up 3-0.  I only counted 2 big saves from him during the game.  One came in the 2nd period off a quality chance Demers had on the doorstep after Howard gave Clowe two opportunities he shouldn't have had.  The other was a good stop of a Pavelski chance bringing the puck out front from behind the net during a third period power play.  Unfortunately, those two big saves are partially tempered by the soft goal he gave up in the first.  I'll generally give a goalie the benefit of the doubt on a tipped shot, but he has to stop that first one.  His rating for the game was +1.

Scoring and plus/minus analysis after the jump

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