Unconventional Wisdom – Catchall Stats

I remember a decade or so ago I used to have fun looking at the catchall NHL statistics that were available. Back then we had Goals vs Threshold (GvT) created by Tom Awad and Hockey Analysis Rating (HART) created by David Johnson, but both of those no longer exist. We also had Hockey-Reference’s Point Shares (PS), which do still exist, but use an outdated model that uses plus/minus to determine defensive performance. However, the modern trend is to use Goals Above Replacement (GAR) or its derivatives and Game Score (GS). So today I wanted to look at the various GAR and GS models for the current Pittsburgh Penguins roster. So today we are going to look at GAR from three sites: Evolving-Hockey, HockeyStats, and HockeyAlchemy as well as looking at GS from HockeyStatCards and for old times sake PS from Hockey-Reference. I was also going to include the MoneyPuck GS stat, but theirs doesn’t have an offense/defense breakdown so it doesn’t translate well into graphs.

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2026 Pittsburgh Penguins Rookie Tournament

The Pittsburgh Penguins announced their roster for the 2026 Rookie Tournament so it seemed like a good time to write up a post to go over who all is attending this year. For the most part it is the players we expected, even the invites we had discussed on Twitter some time ago, but there are a couple that we didn’t expect. I had mixed things up and thought the CBA was worded to suggest player eligibility was determined by professional games played, but in actuality it was all players who had fewer than 50 NHL games accrued last season who are eligible to play. So that opened up the potential roster further than I had originally anticipated, it is always good to correct your mistakes.

The rookies are able to start practicing on Friday September 11, but the actual tournament begins on Saturday. The Pens begin with a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday September 12, then against the host Detroit Red Wings on Sunday September 13. They get a break on Monday, then the final game against the Dallas Stars on Tuesday September 15. The games will be run by AHL Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins Head Coach Kirk MacDonald and his assistants Nick Luuko and Brad Malone, with assistance from ECHL Florida Everblades HC Brad Ralph, but his AC does not seem to be participating. The NHL Training Camp begins on September 16, with the first on-ice practice sessions on September 17, so most of these players should be in town for that.

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Seattle Kraken 2026 Rookie Camp

With the start of NHL rookie tournaments a week away the Seattle Kraken announced rosters on Friday for the Rookie Camp as well as their Training Camp. For today we are going to focus on the Rookie Camp, since NHL Training Camp will not begin until the rookies are done. The Kraken’s Rookie Camp kicks off with a practice on Friday September 11, then they travel to British Columbia for the Prospects Showcase in Abbotsford, playing games against the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday September 12 and Sunday September 13. They do not have any other open practices listed, but technically NHL rookie camps run through September 15 since NHL training camps begin on September 16. So now let’s take a look at the roster of players who will be participating.

Unconventional Wisdom – Zone Starts vs Zone Time

Last time when we were looking at the NHL Edge data part of what we were looking at was Zone Time, that is what percentage of the player’s time on ice was spent in the offensive zone versus what percent was spent in the defensive zone. However, when I was looking at those charts I was struck with the question of how it would compare to where the coaching staff deploys them on the ice. If I player gets deployed in mostly O-zone starts then their ability to maintain O-zone time is expected, but if they get a lot of OZ starts but a low OZ% it suggests they struggled to keep the puck to pressure their opponents. Likewise, if a player gets heavy D-zone starts and skates heavy minutes in the D-zone that is not too surprisingly, but if they get a lot of DZ starts but a low DZ% it means they are good at exiting the zone and transitioning the puck up ice. So we are going to take a look at the current Pittsburgh Penguins roster and compare their 2025-26 stats in zone time and zone starts.

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Unconventional Wisdom – NHL Edge Data

And now for something completely different… We still have a week to wait until the annual Rookie Tournament begins and then the Pittsburgh Penguins main NHL Training Camp kicks off after that wraps up. So I have been passing the time looking at data for the Pens current roster and it was been a while since I have perused the NHL Edge data. The issue of course is that we can only view it one season at a time, the general public does not have access to the game by game data or the raw numbers so I can’t calculate a 3-year average on my own. That means we are going to be looking at just the data from the 2025-26 season, but that should give us some idea of what we have on the roster.

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