back in the days when i truly cared about the NHL, i always though +/- was the ultimate stat for judging anyone who wasn’t regarded as a “goal scorer.” I was always dismayed that the writers seemed to ignore the seemingly vital stat when assessing who should win the best defensemen or defensive forward awards (the exact names of which I can’t recall at the moment.)

Given the structure of hockey, with the constant shift changes, smaller number of players involved at any given moment, higher number of goals per game, and larger sample-set of games, it strikes me as a more applicable stat to hockey than soccer, where a hard-working Alonso type can be undone by a gaffe from a right-back on a play he had no chance or responsibility to cover.

As always, however, it seems a stat that can only be improved over as large a sample-set as possible (like so many baseball stats, like BA and ERA that only really have meanings over the course of seasons). I’m certainly not a stat-o-phobe, and I’m a “numbers guy” to boot, so its at least interesting to include this in the “list of arguments.”