HabsWorld.net -- 

(Note: Points as of Game 81 vs Ottawa.)

Everyone knows Carey Price is the Habs’
undisputed MVP of the 2010-11 season.  But how much of the success is
attributable to him compared to someone like Tomas Plekanec, the top point
getter, or Brian Gionta, the top goal scorer?  Fortunately, there is a
metric out there that can quantify just how many points Price and every other
player has brought to the table.

The system is called point shares.  More
or less, it takes goals and marginal goals created into play for skaters, shots
faced and goals allowed for goalies, and time on ice with goals against for
defencemen.  This is a real simplified version, I suggest reading more

about point shares from hockey-reference.com where the data is coming from.

The information below is broken into 3
categories, offensive point shares (OPS), defensive point shares (DPS), and
total point shares (TPS).  (Goalie shares are in the total category as
they’re separate from the offensive and defensive ones).  For more
information including the formulas used, check the link above.  Here are
the results from the Habs:

Now, the sum of the PS doesn’t equal the Habs’
current point total of 94 (it totals 92.6) but note that all numbers are rounded
(which also means that the sum of OPS and DPS may slightly differ from TPS by a
tenth here and there) while there is also a small allowance for errors which is
noted in the link above.  At 92.6, it’s pretty close though.  For
players like Wisniewski and Mara who have played on multiple teams, their
contributions from the table are only from their play with the Habs. 

As we can see, Price is responsible for 15 of
the 92.6 points from the table, or 16.2% of the total.  For those
wondering, there are only 2 goalies in the league with a higher rating, Cam Ward
(16.6) and Tim Thomas (15.7).  Hamrlik’s recent Jacques Beauchamp trophy
seems justified here as he is responsible for the 3rd most points yet has
received little recognition for it.  At the other end of the spectrum, Tom
Pyatt’s continued struggles offensively have been costly as his defensive
performance hasn’t made up for the relative ineptness in the offensive end. 
As he’s not that far from 0 overall, you can’t really say he has been a terrible
liability either.

Of course, this doesn’t take into effect cap
hits to see which player is providing most ‘bang for the buck.’  Using the
trusty HW
Capsheet, we can consider that side as well by dividing the cost to date (as
of April 8th) by total point shares; the lower the cost per point share, the
better value for the money.  Here are those results:

Note that for players who have less than 1
TPS, their ratio exceeds their cap hit since the player is below 1 TPS; the ratio shows how much cost it would take for the player to reach 1.  I removed the minor league callups plus Markov
who has been out most of the year so his ratio is too heavily skewed, as well as
Boyd and Pyatt as their negative TPS stats yielded negative ratios.

Not surprisingly, most of the cheaper players
inhabit the top few spots as Subban, 2nd in total TPS, is the most efficient
while productive callups in Desharnais and White are also at the top.  Mara
has brought some surprising value since his acquisition as well, not bad for the
cost of a mid-round draft pick.  In the bottom 5 we see Gomez and
Cammalleri, a pair of struggling offensive players though the former’s ratio is
much worse than the latter.  Sopel hasn’t been much of an impact player as
evidenced by his ratio being 10x greater than his cap hit to date.

For those wondering what players acquired by
the Habs midseason had for point share ratings with their old teams, here are
their numbers:

Brent Sopel (ATL): 2.4
James Wisniewski (NYI): 1.9
Paul Mara (ANA): 0.9
Nigel Dawes (ATL): -0.3

So there you have it, a compilation of just how
much each player who has suited up for the Habs has contributed to their success
in the standings this season, as well as a look at how efficient they’ve been
relative to their cap hit.  Going through all the numbers, there was really
only one that jumped out at me as being particularly surprising, that being
Andrei Markov who, in just 7 games of action, nearly contributed a full point to
the Habs’ total.  Almost makes you wonder what could have been had he been
healthy all season…