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Carey Price’s season has been a runaway success. He’s been the talk of the NHL all season. Meanwhile, enhanced stats continue to wash over the league. Hockey fans are being drowned in the data that is available for evaluating their favourite players and teams.

30 years ago, fans might have said:

Wayne Gretzky scores a lot of goals. And he gets a lot of assists!

Troy Murray is an outstanding two-way forward. He has a +32 rating!

John Vanbiesbrouck leads the NHL in wins…give him the Vezina!

* note: Vanbiesbrouck did win the Vezina, sporting a .887 SV% (tied for ninth among goalies) and a 3.32 GAA (fifth).

Today, those conversations sound more like…

Pavel Datsyuk is superior to Henrik Zetterberg because his shot attempts percentage during 5v5 is better.

Patrice Bergeron deserves the Selke because his possession rate is so strong, especially relative to his team and especially because of his defensive zone starts percentage.

TROPHY TRACKER: With 3/4 of 2014-15 done, Bergeron leads the Selke Trophy race. http://t.co/HG5u9LOQjY #NHLAwards pic.twitter.com/5VwPSAAFcz — NHL (@NHL) March 2, 2015

Despite Jaroslav Halak’s tremendous wins total, his adjusted save percentage ranks 16th among starters. I don’t think he’s really that special.

The 80s seem so far away.

Remember the 1980s All Glass boards at the HS hockey tournament? pic.twitter.com/5m0RRLcCeg — Lisa Bolen (@MnSportsChick19) March 4, 2015

The proliferation of enhanced stats has forced even casual fans to change the way they talk about the game. And while each new stat has something to offer, one analytic offers hope for capturing the entire value of a player in a single number; goals versus threshold.

Goals versus threshold (GVT) is a catch-all player analytic invented by Tom Awad at Hockey Prospectus. Resembling baseball’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) stat, Awad’s GVT offers a single figure that sums up a player’s value.

In Awad’s words:

[GVT] is the value of a player, in goals, above what a replacement player would have contributed. The fact that GVT is measured in goals is crucial…players’ contributions always come down to scoring goals and preventing them. A player cannot ‘win’ a game…Each player’s role, no matter his position, is to try and increase the goal differential in favor of his team.

Even though GVT is expressed in goals, defensemen and goalies are ranked by this analytic as well. The idea is that every player contributes to his team’s goal differential – that contribution can be positive or negative.

Awad adds:

An offensive player who scores a hat trick only to see his teammates allow 4 goals against has nevertheless done his job; a goaltender who stops 39 of 40 shots only to lose 1-0 has likewise performed well. Using this standard, all players can be compared by the same yardstick: how much did they help (or harm) their team’s goal differential?

For more on the statistic itself, dig around a little at Hockey Prospectus here.

But back to Carey Price. With the use of GVT, it’s possible to examine just how valuable he has been to the Montreal Canadiens. Now, let’s get to the Atlantic Division Player Rankings.

Atlantic Division GVT Rankings

Check out the latest #NHL Atlantic Division power rankings. From @ChrisWasselDFS #Habs #Senshttp://t.co/dBEin3T9J3 pic.twitter.com/Y6gGCiPs0c — Today's Slapshot (@TodaysSlapshot) March 6, 2015

Using GVT, it’s possible to take a look at the most valuable players in the Atlantic Division so far this season. Here’s a spoiler alert: Carey Price reigns supreme.

Let’s take a look at the chart and tease out a couple of takeaways:

Top Ten GVT Ranks Atlantic Division Players Only (all stats as of 2/17 – the site’s last update) Atlantic

Rank NHL

Rank Team Position Name GVT 1 1 Montreal Canadiens G Carey Price 30.1 2 6 Tampa Bay Lightning F Tyler Johnson 16.8 3 9 Ottawa Senators G Craig Anderson 15.3 4 10 Tampa Bay Lightning F Nikita Kucherov 15.1 5 14 Boston Bruins G Tuukka Rask 14.2 6 21 Montreal Canadiens F Max Pacioretty 13.5 7 24 Florida Panthers G Roberto Luongo 13 8 45 Detroit Red Wings F Tomas Tatar 11.1 9 49 Tampa Bay Lightning F Steven Stamkos 10.9 10 50 Detroit Red Wings F Pavel Datsyuk 10.8

The GVT Takeaways…

1. Carey Price is Phenomenal

Carey Price shared his thoughts after registering his 7th shutout of the season.

POST-GAME -> http://t.co/eUaYG7BveA #GoHabsGo — Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) March 8, 2015

Though wins don’t factor into GVT, creating goal differentials does. Carey Price’s stats, .936 save percentage and his 1.89 goals against average don’t factor into his GVT either. But, the stats are MVP-calibre. Just ask Bruce Arthur (here), Aruny Siv (here), Chris Peters (here), Dan Rosen (here), Ryan Kennedy (here), Stu Cowen (here), or Sean Gordon (here).

And the list goes on.

By preventing goals at an historic rate and creating a highly positive goal differential for the Canadiens, Carey Price’s GVT supports the Hart chatter. His GVT is 30.1 goals above a replacement level player. This mark is the NHL’s best and second place in the Atlantic Division has posted almost half of Price’s GVT score.

This season, there is simply no player more valuable than Price.

2. Tampa Bay’s Depth

HIGHLIGHT: Nikita Kucherov takes a sharp angle shot to put the Bolts up 2-1 in the first period. http://t.co/4XyfyV07mK — Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) March 8, 2015

With Tyler Johnson (16.8 GVT), Nikita Kucherov (15.1). and Steven Stamkos (10.9) in the Atlantic’s top ten, the Bolts boast high-quality depth on their roster. It’s no surprise to see Stamkos in the division’s top ten – in fact, it’s a little surprising he’s only tenth (50th overall in the NHL). But the emergence of Johnson and Kucherov as highly irreplaceable players has buoyed the Lightnings’ fortunes this season.

After losing Martin St. Louis last year, the emergence of these youngsters as well-above replacement level players gives the Lightning the chance to erase memories of last year’s first round playoff debacle against the Montreal Canadiens.

Unless, of course, they run ito Carey Price again.

3. Goaltenders Dominate

The Panthers will let fans try out to become their backup practice goalie: http://t.co/VLyigdsX63 pic.twitter.com/03BPpoGjbZ — SI NHL (@SI_NHL) March 6, 2015

Awad’s metric doesn’t weight goalies in any special way. In fact, wins – typically a key goalie stat – are completely excluded from the GVT formula. Same with goals against average, shutouts, and save percentage.

Instead, Awad’s formula rewards goalies for the only factor they control – blocking shots (though, Awad does include a slight adjustment called the “Brodeur factor” to account for good puckhandling goalies who reduce the number of shots they face).

The point is, Awad’s catch-all analytic doesn’t provide goalies with any statistic-padding advantage. Yet, four of the Atlantic Division’s top ten players are goalies – Carey Price, Craig Anderson, Tuukka Rask, and Roberto Luongo.

NHL-wide, ten of the top 30 GVT ranks belong to goalies, including each of the top-three ranks.

The takeaway? Elite-level goaltending is irreplaceable.

For teams beginning rebuilds (Edmonton, Arizona, Buffalo, Carolina, Toronto, etc…) the value that top goaltenders produce relative to forwards and defensemen shows that “building from the net out” is the way to go.

Will the Senators' sensational Hamburgler be another flash in the pan? http://t.co/2myLYrzO1i pic.twitter.com/rPQn9sPh6s — SI NHL (@SI_NHL) March 6, 2015

The business of creating a single statistic that capture all of the contributions of players that play such different roles is ambitious.

However, Tom Awad’s work in generating the Goals Versus Threshold advanced stat provides analytics enthusiasts with a way to measure and compare player performance in a way that has never been possible in hockey before. The metric passes the eye test too – Carey Price’s season has been one for the ages.

The NHL may not be ready to add GVT to its enhanced stats section yet. But, hockey’s answer to baseball’s WAR and VORP is an analytic that is sure to gain traction as advanced stats conversations grow in the next few seasons.

What do you think, hockey fans? Are you comfortable with a single statistic that evaluates and compares players, regardless of position?

