should be called Pluses and Minuses of NHL's +/- Stat

I was today years old when I found out that plus/minus doesn't include power play points...

Like the joke at the beginning of the video …” where is everybody going? … 😂😂

+/- without context is meaningless. But in context it can say a bunch.

+/- would unfairly destroy stats for penalty killers if powerplays counted.

Here's a random thing I recently looked at, Wayne Gretzky was a -80 in his last six seasons 😮

+/- is mostly a team stat, but you can still draw some decent conclusions if you compare teams in similar situations. Ex: Forsling this year was +10 better than the next player in the NHL, and +23 on the next guy on the team. So we can infer that Forsling had a great defensive season even beyond the team's great performance, especially when you consider his normal partner in Ekblad missed more than 30 games, and Gus still led in +/-. But no +/- is not an end all, be all, then again no stat should be an end all, be all. If you want to use +/- as a factor in determining a player's season it should at best a secondary or tertiary factor, not the primary. Basically, numbers can be misleading, just watch the guys play.

I'm one of Erik Karlsson's biggest fans, and +/- is a stat that doesn't do him any favours. Over his career he has been on the ice for 63 empty net goals for and 115 empty net goals against, so - 52. This really killed him on the Sharks - last season he was - 26 but actually - 10, and in 21-22 he was - 14 but actually even. Earlier in his career it wasn't as bad (in 10-11 he was - 30 but only - 3 in EN) but coaches pull goalies earlier now than they did in the early 2010s. In EK's career with SJ he was - 67 but without EN - 19 - that's how drastic the numbers can be for a guy with his deployment on bad teams. Also, he's the top PP guy on his teams but doesn't kill penalties, or rarely does, so he has been on for 72 PP goals against but only 20 shorthanded goals for, so - 52. (He's - 99 for career, those EN and special teams numbers are - 104). Compare that to his favourite partner in Ottawa, Methot, who had 1 PPGA and 18 SHGF, or +17. And though I don't know the specific numbers, his EN +/- was aided by the fact that he defended leads and was on for many empty net goals for. A lot of shutdown D-men types have good +/- because they aren't on for ENGA, on for many ENGF, and win the special teams +/- battle. Marcus Pettersson is a great example. And then there's also the little things that bother me about it. The past two years EK has had like seven assists at ES where he wasn't credited with the plus because he got off the ice just before the goal was scored. Or sometimes he isn't even off the ice yet but the player replacing him jumps on in that "buffer zone" and they get the plus instead. It's a very flawed stat, best to be used with all this context in mind, especially if looking over a career.

I LOVE the Solar Bears jersey!!! I didn't know you owned that one :D

Love the Solar Bears jersey! Thanks for explaining this!

Amother great video your the only person i heard talk about this and Thank you for that .

The Blackhawks players are highlighted in this video, so to should Alex Vlasic who played 76 games and was -4. I watched many Hawks games this year and unlike his teammates, Vlasic was strong along the boards and very reliable with the puck. It was noticeable and backed up in +/- compared to his peers. It is worth pointing this out, and I think his new contract is possibly the most team friendly in the NHL.

I've always kind of hated the +/-. It often tells more about the team than the players themselves and it gets more skewed the more playtime the player has.

Very informative! Thank you.

Great video Shannon! And especially talking about the Norris race. The numbers don't lie when it comes to defensive ability. Also love the jersey! i recently just bought the Avalanche colorado retro makar jersey XD My collection is slowly growing lol

I've never clicked on a THG video this fast. I love all your content, but the "boring" hockey talk is fascinating. Your research and in-depth analysis is such a refreshing change from the clickbaity content that most hockey accounts put out. Thanks!

I think maybe a better stat would be “plus minus relative to team average”. Usually the best teams will be mostly full of + players with a couple minuses who stand out. And vice versa for bad teams.

5:53 “he plays for Chicago Blackhawks”

I love this stat I know it’s not everything but it can definitely change how I feel about a player

"I'm gonna talk about plus/minus stats.... Where's every is going"? Funny. Dad joke stuff for sure. Love your content THG. Love from Finland P.s I see no Leaf's guys in either plus or minus side.??? One would think Toronto's defense would be high in minus stats.

As a defense man i can say you said the most important thing that its a stat you can use on a nightly basis to see if a player is on the ice for point production or defending points form being scored. I absolutely agree with you that the +/- stat should be used on not only PP but on PK as well

I think the stat is good for direct comparisons. Looks at the top 5 teams in GAA, goal diff, or scoring. Then look at the +/- of those top respective teams area (D men for top gaa teams, forwards for top scoring, etc) and i think you can clearly see who the top performers are in those areas.

IIRC, Larry Robinson has a career +/- of around + 612. A statistic that still blows my mind.

great dive brother

Loving the Solar Bears rep

Love the Solar Bears sweater. Been in FL for 23 years. Been to a few games.

I can't believe I caught this right away. I also totally love this discussion!

Makar deserves to win it again! Go Avs Go

Having PP goals count in +/- would make the stat even more useless, since then you wouldn’t be able to fairly compare team members with each other in this regard as not every player gets powerplay time (on which it’s way easier to score and not get scored on).

Love the solar bears sweater

Solar Bears! That jersey is fantastic, I only have the white one.

I remember back in 17-18, when OEL was still an elite d-man, he had sth like -31, and analyst said that thing takes nothing away from him because he was the only great d-man on that coyote team so whenever they were scored on, he was on the ice all the time.

Im 1000% in agreement with you about powerplay counting for +/-. Preach!

Great opening! I had to stay for the whole video just because of that. I loved your Bedard analysis. Perfect.

18:38 described what happen to Calen Addison in Minnesota.

Would love to see a comparison of the top +/- over the years and see where they ended up in the Norris race.

I agree. I think Makar has shown more defensive capabilities in his stat line than Hughes i.e. penalties taken/drawn and giveaways/takeaways. I guess we will see what happens, but I am guessing they are going to give it to Hughes, because of his point TOTAL and +/-.

Powerplay points are a factor, although it doesn't change the picture amongst Norris finalists this year. All 3 of them are close with Josi 33 PPP, Hughes 38 PPP and Makar 39 PPP.

Should power play shots be counted seperately from even strengthed shots?

I've always liked +/-. No, it's not an all-encompassing stat that determines how good a player is at defense, but it's actually fairly handy to compare it in the aggregate across a whole team over time, or a player over their whole career. The key is that you have to know the context of the team a player played on, or an era a team played in. But within that context, it can be useful.

Bedard 18 and starting at first line center wing to put up them points is AMAZING all on its own!

I like the stat in small sample sizes, like loss/win streaks or playoff series, but I think that it’s more a stat about the coach’s decisions rather than the player’s performance.

the plus minus of plus minus?

Couldn’t agree more on plus/minus and the pplay..

The players know who is the best at their position. Only they should vote.

I think is great for like a 5-7 game stretch

Im a new hockey fan and to me +/- feels kind of similar to pitcher wins in baseball.

Including PP in plus-minus stats would skew the plus side toward the few players who play on the PP special team. Think about it... teams put their best players out on the PP and that's when goals are more likely to happen. Third and fourth line forwards get shafted.

Who was the guy behind the bench when the goal was scored?

So based on all of your knowledge and observation, who do you think deserves the Norris this year?

+/- is the stat I laugh at the most. People always bring it up as a means of a "gotcha". It's like Goalie Wins. A goalie could have 40 wins, but each game could have been won 5-4. It's just a general, old, outdated stat. It's a Team Stat, not an indiviudal stat.

You can make this argument for every stat. assists.... 1st compared to 2nd. (pass to the playmaker..... 2nd assist) goals...... be on McDavid's line and turn into a 50+ goal scorer. Being on a really strong team will boost your stats, same as being on a weak team. etc. etc.

How about if you did something like an adjusted plus/minus (not sure what the appropriate name for this stat would be), where instead of looking at the raw plus/minus of the individual player, you instead look at the difference between their raw plus/minus and the average plus/minus of the rest of their team? Think this could go a long way toward removing the bias in the stat inherent with being on a good or bad team. Regarding the power play, how about a compromise? Count power play goals as a plus for the players on the scoring team, but not as a negative against the players on the negative team.

plus/minus always seemed like a real “arbitrary” sabermetric stat where it’s supposed to be a catch-all stat, but in reality doesn’t say much of anything, like OPS in baseball. the layman can look at the stat and get the impression that a player is having a great season/series when they haven’t really been playing that well.

Close to -20 of Bedard's -44 was 6 on 5 empty netters.

You should get press passes and get to vote. How do we make that happen?

Maybe they can do a +/- | - It would show how far above/below specific players are in comparison to their teammates collective average +/-

Let the #THG4AwardsVoter campaign commence.

It's a good stat, shows which defensemen are on the ice when the opponent scores. Plenty of minuses = bad defending.

I think the +/- is a decent measure for a players performance for a single game but doesn’t say much beyond that.

I love plus/minus. After “advanced” stats became a thing, I thought of p/m as the original advanced stat. As with any data point, it should not be used exclusively, but rather as part of a whole to give the number context.

Orr and Robinson should be up there as footnotes.

I think plus monus is a very good stat. Back in the day, David Backes had at least one season where he had 30 goals, 30 assists, and + 30. If i had 6 players like that on my team, i get the cup every year. I do agree with your logic on the pp and pk. That never made sense.

I always viewed the +\- stat as relative to the whole team. If everybody else on your team has a (-40) then it can’t be expected from somebody like Bedard to have a positive. The +\- stat is only really relevant when one player is highly above or below the average for the rest of the team

The NHL needs a good stat to measure defensive performance. +/- is used because the NHL does not make advanced defensive stats more accessible to fans and the media.

+/- is best used to compare against team mates. For instance, if you are the only plus, or only minus, on a team over a certain stretch, then it can be used to help dig deeper into how a player is performing vis-a-vis their team mates. When used to compare with players on other teams, it begins to fall apart and is pretty useless.

Pavel Datsyuk "won" the NHL's "Best +/- award" a few years in a row, then suddenly the award disappeared.

Second assist is silly sometimes

Do you think the NHL should have an all-defensive team with 3 forwards and 2 defensemen on first and second teams? Just like the NBA has with all-defensive team and MLB with the gold glove.

I don't think that +/- should include empty net goals or special teams. I think we should use separate stats to track those situations. For the special situations, I think it should be a net goals per minute stat rather than a total +/-. Then you could look at a good penalty killer having better than 0.1 net goals per minute conceded, or a good power play scorer having more than 0.1 net goals per minute scored type of thing. And something similar could be done for empty net goals and goals scored with the extra attacker (although how to handle situations where it's not 6 on 5 while the net is empty, because of players in the penalty box, and how to handle delayed penalty extra attackers is certainly complicated). You make a good point about scoring a few seconds after a power play ends, but I don't know of a good way to try to account for those situations.

There are so many debatable metrics to weigh on this one that it certainly deserves the 22 min breakdown from THG. Sometimes it does matter and other times it’s deceiving is where I leave it 😂

THG should be able to vote.

If you are take the penalty, you should also get dinged on the plus/ minus. [Probably not for things like bench minors].

Jason Dickinson was +4 for Chicago while playing every game during the regular season and having the 5th most time on excluding goalies so what does that say about him?

Imagine what Sakic's career plus minus would be if you counted all his points on the PP!

One problem with including power plays - some teams use their first unit almost the entire power play.. The Rangers, usually figure they are AT LEAST 1:20, unless they just got off the ice. You get a player who may be +10, say, 5-on-5, and another is +5. If Mr. +10 is on the PP, if you count the PP, he may be +30!! Makes the difference look HUGE. Show you how much PP stats inflate numbers - who was second on the Rangers in 5-on-5 goals this year behind Panarin? Kreider? Trocheck? Zibanejad? No. Lafreniere. 26. Same number Kreider had a couple years ago... when he had 52 overall... but Laffs doesn't get much PP time.

I suspect the thinking for excluding PP goals when the stat was created was it was unfair to give penalty killers, who are operating at a significant disadvantage, the same minus as for even strength goals. Which led to the idea of not giving minuses or pluses to either side for PP goals. Maybe use - call it a power plus minus - which gives pluses to skaters on the ice for PP goals without giving minuses to the opposing penalty killers? Not sure this would be any more meaningful.

+/- shouldn't include PP because it serves to measure the contribution the player has on his team scoring more goals. If you include PK, then it moves that stat down for PK players => it does the opposite of what we're trying to show. Here's a simple trick to keep your +/- higher than the rest of your team in Shannon's stat world: take a lot of penalties!

People arguing Faber over Bedard for Calder, while citing +/- as a consequential reason, is pretty ridiculous to me.

why did the preds get rid of ekholm

Remember when Ovechkin scored 51 goals while going minus-35? Capitals didn’t make the Playoffs that year. The next three years, out in two rounds. Then they won their Cup vs. Vegas Ovechkin was +40 those four years, while scoring 78 PPG’s. Yes it’s a flawed stat; it can also be quite telling.

Its an important complimentary stat

OMG a Solar Bears sweater 😢

Where’s everybody going? Went to the store and I’m back with snacks to enjoy the video :>

Are these the small magnets that THG been talking about that he has hundreds of lol

Forsling +56, Montour +1, same team, top minutes.

This is why, for me, even though I love Hughes, Makar is the Norris winner.

A game between Calgary and Carolina is tied 4-4 going into the third period. Carolina scores to take a 5-4 lead, and no more scoring happens. Carolina wins in regulation; no overtime is played. A game between Montreal and Detroit is tied 4-4 going into the third period. Detroit gets a penalty, and on the resulting power play Montreal scores, taking a 5-4 lead. No more scoring happens. Does the game go into overtime? No? Then power play goals count just as much as other goals. If you don't want power play goals, you can do two things: a) improve your penalty killing or b) don't commit penalties.

14:13 I can't imagine what game inspired this tangent 😢

I’ll pitch a wild idea, but what about giving 0.5 +/- point to PP goals, and reward PK players with 0.5 +/- point as well when they kill a penalty? I don’t think you should penalize a team for pk goals. Tho might be tricky to determine who gets those pk +/- lol

I think plus minus is an underrated stat that shouldn’t be taken at face value and will always need more context when looking at a players plus minus. There are a lot of factors that can either boost or negatively impact a players plus minus.

I believe, plus / minus get credited during 4 on 4 & 3 on 3 situations - also... Correct me, IF I am wrong.

Shannon is right about how flawed the plus/minus stat is. A better stat would be a differential stat minus that compares the players performance against others playing the same position. Anyone that uses one stat to measure a player doesn't understand hockey.

Best Sweater Ever!

I hate the plus/minus stat, always have. Hockey is a team sport-why should an individual who just stepped on the ice seconds before a goal is scored be hit with a minus? Get rid of it!

I might piss off the stats needs, but Corsi and Fenwick always felt like fancy +/- to me

Ovechkin was a -35 in 2013-14. I remember people saying how awful he was He had 39 power play points that year. Really didnt make sense to me

Why no Adam fox?

As an even further rabbit hole does +/- count goals scored on delayed penalties

New magnets?