I've always been interested in players' primary to secondary assist ratios, and in what situations they record those assists. I've always valued primary assists more as I believe it is more indicative of a player's ability to create offense and of their playmaking ability in general. That isn't to say all primary assists are better than secondary assists by definition, but I think it's still more telling of a player's playmaking abilities over a period.
Notable Biases
- While many players and assist totals in certain situations here don't have enough information to be able to serve as a tool for any real type of analysis, they were included anyways, because, well... OCD?
- Defensemen, of course, are expected to have a higher ratio of secondary assists relative to forwards. One could also expect wingers to be expected to have a higher ratio of secondary assists relative to centers.
Data Descriptions
- I broke it down in every situation (5-on-5, 4-on-4, 5-on-4, 5-on-3, 4-on-5, Empty net) as I think every situation presents something unique that can create some type of bias. The Bruins did not score any goals on 3-on-3, 4-on-3 or 3-on-5, so I did not include those sections.
- The columns are fairly straightforward, with the situation listed (5on5, 4on5, etc.) and the P representing Primary Assists and the S representing Secondary Assists, and the list of players being sorted by total assists recorded on the season.
- In the last three columns I have provided the total number of primary and secondary assists, as well as the last column representing the percentage of assists a player records that are primary assists.
- While Empty Net Goals are included in 5-on-5 situations by the NHL, I have separated them here (so both primary and secondary assists under the 5-on-5 columns do not include ENG assist totals).
- This information only includes assists that were recorded by Bruins players, so Rolston, Mottau and Zanon's numbers only apply to what they recorded in a Bruins uniform (Mattau hasn't recorded an assist in Boston, so he hasn't been included).
- These are the final totals for the year.
Last edited by Trap Jesus: 04-09-2012 at 10:42 AM.
Reason: Updated to the end of the season
Where did you get those stats, ive been looking for a site like that.
I couldn't find a specific site that breaks it down this much or actually listed the primary/secondary assist totals. It was part looking at and converting primary/secondary ratios on behindthenet.ca, and part looking up individual box scores.
Here's a site that gives players primary and secondary assists per 60 minutes in 5 on 5, 5 on 4 and 4 on 5 situations:
That doesn't include all of the other situations though, but luckily the Bruins are a team that hasn't scored many goals in other situations than those 3 (which I found in the nhl.com team stats section).
So I just tracked down all of the Bruins 4-on-4 and 5-on-3 goals, and decided to do ENG while I'm at it, to see the individual goals so I could see the primary and secondary assists.
And then I looked and nhl.com's player stats section for assists, where it gives what situation they scored them in (ES, PP, PK), and accounted for the differences relative to the behindthenet ratios.
Did we not score any goals with our goalie pulled IE 6 on 5?
Good question. Doing a quick look through all our OT/SO games, the only one where we scored with the extra attacker was Lucic on a 6-on-4 goal vs. Nashville, with the primary assist going to Peverley, and the secondary assist going to Chara.
That of course doesn't take into consideration other goals scored late in games and still coming up short of forcing OT, along with scoring with the extra attacker on during delayed penalties. Thing about looking it up though is that there isn't anything to signify how many of these types of goals you'd be looking for like the others had, so the only way to look it up would be going through every box score to see if one of our goalies was on the ice on every goal.
But anyways, I don't think it's worth going through that trouble because I highly doubt there would be enough goals to draw any type of conclusion from. You could argue that it shows how clutch certain players are, but going through the OT/SO games more or less covered that portion of it, I think.
I couldn't find a specific site that breaks it down this much or actually listed the primary/secondary assist totals. It was part looking at and converting primary/secondary ratios on behindthenet.ca, and part looking up individual box scores.
Here's a site that gives players primary and secondary assists per 60 minutes in 5 on 5, 5 on 4 and 4 on 5 situations:
That doesn't include all of the other situations though, but luckily the Bruins are a team that hasn't scored many goals in other situations than those 3 (which I found in the nhl.com team stats section).
So I just tracked down all of the Bruins 4-on-4 and 5-on-3 goals, and decided to do ENG while I'm at it, to see the individual goals so I could see the primary and secondary assists.
And then I looked and nhl.com's player stats section for assists, where it gives what situation they scored them in (ES, PP, PK), and accounted for the differences relative to the behindthenet ratios.
Well that sucks. Thanks for the info and hard work. I like stats like this.
Primary/Secondary ratio would be 2.55 for Bergeron.
The calculation you are using is Primary/Total Assists.
Interesting though... thanks for the info.
i actually found the OP's method easier to understand. He's showing that 72% of Bergy's assists are primary, whereas you're saying what, that Bergy gets 2.55 primary assists to every 1 secondary assist? should he have named it the P/S average instead?
i actually found the OP's method easier to understand. He's showing that 72% of Bergy's assists are primary, whereas you're saying what, that Bergy gets 2.55 primary assists to every 1 secondary assist? should he have named it the P/S average instead?
