Saturday, September 09, 2006

Adjust Goal Scoring: Career

A natural next step to the sabermetrics and hockey problem of adjusting scoring from different eras that springs up after we look at the top 10 goal scoring seasons, assist scoring seasons and point scoring seasons is to look at careers. Who scored the most adjusted goals in their career?

This analysis is done using the formalism from the hockey outsider (Peter Albert), which is a good method that runs into problems because of a lack of an adjustment for quality of opposition and a false normalization of assists from the 1920's when there were few assists in the NHL.

Here are the top 10 adjusted goal scorers of all time:

Top 10 Adjusted Goal Scoring Careers of All Time
Name Teams Seasons Adjusted Goals Actual Goals
Gordie HoweDet Hou(WHA) NE(WHA) Har311090975
Bobby HullChi Win(WHA) Win Har24927913
Wayne GretzkyInd(WHA) Edm(WHA) Edm LA StL NYR21844940
Brett HullCgy StL Dal Det Phx20783741
Phil EspositoChi Bos NYR18702717
Luc RobitailleLA Pit NYR Det19694668
Steve YzermanDet22685692
Jaromir JagrPit Was NYR15675591
Mark MessierCin(WHA) Edm NYR Van26672695
Mike GartnerCin(WHA) Was Min NYR Tor Phx20669735


I have updated this list from the one on the hockey outsider website for last season. In order to make this list, one must have played a long career. The shortest career in the top ten adjusted goal scoring careers is that of Jaromir Jagr who has completed 15 NHL seasons - and is still going strong. He moved from 15th place all the way to 8th last season.

At the top of our list we find Gordie Howe, the man who had the longest professional hockey career ever. He played 31 years in the NHL and WHA. Howe scored 944 of his adjusted goals in the NHL. So even without his WHA play he would have finished first on this list. However, the second place position is decided by WHA play. Bobby Hull moves into second with his 7 WHA seasons included. Wayne Gretzky (who played one WHA season himself) is third, but would be second if the WHA years were excluded. This leads to the question of how best to incorporate WHA years when comparing all time stats. That will be the issue I address in a future post.

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