Just how important is "clutch", really?

Long ago, based on "variance explained" (the square of the correlation) from YPA I estimated the QB to be responsible for 15-20% of the entire game's outcome. There are all kinds of asterisks next to that estimate, such as the underlying relationship needing to be linear (not true in the extremes but not a bad assumption otherwise) as well as YPA being dependent on both the QB and WR (but in some sense this will cancel out because you have other stats the QB is partly responsible for that are not QB stats, such as "WR" stats, etc..). But it's the only half-way decent attempt at quantifying how much of a game's outcome a QB is responsible for I've seen.

15-20% of the total probably means approximately 30-40% of the offense. As far as offensive stats are concerned, that's for me a "big dose", but clearly not the majority. And btw.. that's fairly intuitive if you ask me.

 

For his career, Brady's combined 3rd and 4th down conversion rate in the last 4 minutes of close games is 34%. Over that same time period, the league average in those situations was 34.4%, so Brady was about average in those "clutch" situations.

 

Understanding the 15-20% to be an estimate, I don't have a major quibble with that intuitively. But if we are really talking about 16-17 games (if random chance gave the Pats a 50% win rate, as opposed to something higher or lower), that may only account for 2-3 games over 16 years. If that's the case, I really don't see that as a very "big dose," but I guess we could agree to disagree about that.

 

No, it would account for 15-20% of W/L record, and since this applies to all QB's, it would account for differential W/L record too. So, if we're talking about Brady-led NE, then you'd say 15-20% of his 172-51 record, or 121 extra wins over 223 games, is due to Brady. That's 18-24 extra wins over basically 14 full seasons, so an average of 1.5 extra wins per season!

Which btw.. is also intuitive. I mean what would you estimate is the effect of having one of the best QB's in history on a team, say the Dolphins, in terms of wins. I'd say 1.5 extra wins is probably just about right.

 

So...Brady is responsible for 15% of each game, yet you believe that about 3/4 of their total wins are attributable to him? He's responsible for 121 out of 175 games?

Or am I missing something? I could be, I hate math.

 

Win differential is 121 (121 more wins than losses). 15% of 121 is 18.15 and 20% of 121 is 24.2. That's why I said it's "18-24" extra wins over 14 full seasons, which translates to 1.5 extra wins per season on average if you take the 21/14 = 1.5.

 

But that's Brady's effect on the Patriots overall, not his effect in clutch moments or close games. Sure, Brady has been a big part of the Patriots' success. This thread isn't about that. This thread is about clutch and your assertion was that Brady is entitled to a big dose of the credit for that 69%/50% difference. According to you, that 69% number is derived from 90-91 games. So for current purposes, let's just talk about those and not get sidetracked by all the Patriot blowouts, etc. As I said earlier, all else being equal, the average NFL team would win 50% of its close games. But all else isn't equal and even if it was, there are 32 teams so not all would be at precisely 50%, or 45 games. Based on chance alone, there's a pretty good chance that some teams would win 35 and other would win 55 games. But even if the Pats were in the middle of that pack and right at 50%/45 games, they would have won about one extra close game per year over Brady's career. Of those incremental 16 games, according to your own estimate, defense and special teams are responsible for about 60% and the QB is responsible for 15-20%. That 15-20% of those 16 wins is 2-3 wins over 16 years. Now if what you are saying is that Brady was probably responsible for 15-20% of the 62 or so close wins, that is something different, but it is also pure speculation. And it is contradicted by your own claims that in close games the QBs are basically playing at the same level. If that is the case, then the QB impact is presumably less than 15-20% because the play of the two QBs is basically a wash. And the stats show that in the late stages of those games (last 4 minutes), Brady really hasn't been very good. His rating is well below average and his 3rd/4th down conversion rate is a touch below average too.

 

That 15-20% figure is probably not going to change too much in close games because the correlation between QB rating overall and in close games is real high at 0.766. I'd have to go get the game-by-game stats for Brady's YPA in close games and find the correlation with win% there to settle it but the range is probably not too far off, especially since that's from taking the square of numbers between -1 and 1 (correlations). Taking the square of small numbers will diminish any differences unless their differences in magnitudes were already pretty big.

 

Since Brady's close, late game numbers are not great, how is he having this big impact that you believe he's having? In the last 4 minutes of close games, I'm seeing a career YPA of 6.2. That seems pretty bad. YPA late in close games is lower than at other times, but 6.2 is below the league average of 6.5 in such situations. According to your correlations, what win% does a 6.2 YPA correlate to?

 

It could, but my point is, are the clutch QBs making the throws when they have to(highest pressure throws), while non clutch QBs are missing the highest pressure throws.

 

What about 1st and 2nd down. (honest question, don't know).

 

You mean the rate that he gets a 1st down on 1st or 2nd down? All game or last 4 minutes?

 

What's your definition of clutch and non-clutch? Are those designations that you are giving based on your (or the general public's) perception of clutchness, or based on data/stats?

 

In the last 4 minutes of close games, Brady has gotten a first down on 33% of his combined 1st/2nd down passes. The NFL average is 28%. so Brady is a little better there, but since his 3rd/4th down numbers are average or slightly below, I don't really see those 1st/2nd down numbers as really being clutch. He does better than the league average because he is better than the league average.

 

That's actually a good question because it hinges on ability relative to opponent, not relative abilities in "leading" vs. "trailing" situations per se, and we know the performance metrics for both QB's are going to be similar, though like I pointed out in post #620 the better ones will still be at the higher end of the smaller range.

OK, so I looked at "Point differential" vs. "YPA" and also "Point differential" vs. "Passer rating" across Brady's career to get an idea of how many points you can expect Brady to score as a function of improvements in YPA or passer rating:
https://i.imgsafe.org/191639d45f.png
https://i.imgsafe.org/19a15ddd23.png

The equations for the best-fitting lines are:
PD = 4.67*YPA - 25 for YPA, and
PD = 0.36*PR - 23 for passer rating.

This means that for each unit increase in YPA, Brady (i.e. NE) scores 4.67 points, and for each unit increase in passer rating Brady scores 0.36 points over his career.

Now we can look at different stats and maybe see where the effect is coming from. Going back to that pro-football-reference game play finder, we find that Brady's YPA in the 4th quarter over his career when either tied or trailing by at most 7 points (this approximates the situation we're talking about: having to come through in the 4th) is 7.1 and his passer rating is 83.2. The league average YPA is 6.7 and average passer rating is 72.8. And it's good here that we're including all QB's.

So, based on the equations above, the 0.4 difference in YPA corresponds to 1.9 extra points, while the 10.4 difference in passer rating gives you 3.6 extra points (meaning 1.7 extra points are coming from something other than YPA). This is actually a reasonable figure if you think about it: Brady tends to give you 3.6 extra points in the 4th when down by at most 7 and is for me something in the ballpark of what I'd expect for a team that can go from 50% ahead at the end of the 3rd to 69% ahead at the end of the game when the final result is within a TD.

That doesn't tease apart Brady's contribution (no one can do that), but it does answer the question of how much of an effect YPA or passer rating is having on the outcome in those situations.

 

At the end of a game, if I need a drive, I'm going Brady, all the way. In 6 Superbowls, he's put his team in position to win all 6, and winning 4 of them. Both losses took amazing catches (one was not just amazing but out of this world) to get beat. That's a guy you can depend on .

 

Well, it's not really doing that. It is identifying a correlation, but not causation.

And I'm seeing slightly different numbers. I'm seeing Brady's 4th quarter rating at 84 and the league average at 74.7. And I'm seeing Brady's YPA at 7.0 and the league average at 6.8. Of course, there's nothing surprising about seeing Brady's numbers being better than average. We'd expect that because he is better than average. But his 84 rating is still pretty unremarkable and certainly not something that suggests that he is picking up his play much in those close games. Most of the top QBs have notably better numbers in that situation than Brady does.

 

That's fine, but he also could have easily lost 5 of 6 (Seattle, Rams, Carolina and Giants x 2). In the two losses, he put up only 14 and 17 points and had chances to win those games late. In the first one he had 2 timeouts left and was down a FG, but threw 3 incompletions and took a sack. In the second one, he got the ball back with a minute left and went 2-8 and took a sack in the last minute. When Tannehill (or any other QB) does that they are usually roundly criticized.

When down by 7 or less in the last 2 minutes, Brady's rating is 71.4 for his career. It's better than average, but not by that much.

 

btw.. here's an interesting sports figure when talking about clutch: Lionel Messi, arguably the greatest soccer player today and many consider him top 3 all time.

So.. no question his team (Argentina) is one of the very best in the world so no excuses about surrounding cast, but man.. he came in 2nd in 3 Copa America finals (2nd most important tournament for S. American soccer teams after the World Cup) and 2nd in the World Cup. He also missed a penalty kick in the shootout in yesterday's Copa America final (after Chile missed theirs, meaning the pressure was on Chile) after the game ended 0-0 and is now saying he'll retire from international soccer.

Gotta feel for the guy, and at least he won with his club team, but damn.. somewhere Maradona and Pele are happy they can always say they won the big one.

 

Well, there are a lot of other really good soccer teams out there too. I'm not a soccer expert, but I believe Argentina hasn't won a World Cup since before Messi was born, around 30 years. It's not like they were winning every world cup until he got on the team and then suddenly sucked. And I think its been like 15 years since they won the Copa America (again, long before Messi came along). Yeah, he missed a penalty kick. From what I understand, he has missed about 20% of his penalty kicks over his career, which is atypically bad. So for him it's roughly like a free throw in basketball for a slightly above average free throw shooter. But we've all seen great players and great free throw shooters miss free throws, in both clutch situations and regular situations. And if Wikipedia is correct, Messi has won 8 La Liga titles and 4 European championships, so its hard to say he's a choker.

 

He's a choker in the finals of the biggest tournaments in international soccer. Argentina is a world class team year in year out. You'd expect the world's greatest player to maybe put them over the top. And the World Cup is heads and shoulders beyond anything else in importance. Winning that is probably worth more than winning a SB because it happens once every 4 years.

Also.. his reaction to the loss - quitting - isn't exactly what you'd expect in a leader. I mean he's still in his prime, though of course he might reconsider after he cools down more emotionally. It is interesting that Maradona said the same thing before the tournament started: "he lacks the character to be a leader". I think the character side of this is worth looking at, though this won't be a stat-based argument. Can you imagine Brady saying he'll retire while in his prime because he tried but couldn't win the Super Bowl?

 

I'm not a soccer fan and know nothing about his character. But if he's won 8 league titles, 4 European championships and an Olympic gold medal it seems hard to believe he's some kind of loser. I suspect he's had some great, big moments along the way.

As to whether Argentina ever should have won a World Cup, it looks like he's really only had 2 chances. He was a 19 yr old kid battling injuries in 2006. So there was 2010 and 2014. Again, I'm not a soccer guy, but it has never been my understanding that Argentina was so dominant that it was some shocking failure that they didn't win one of those 2 World Cups. Wasn't Spain really dominant for a while? Germany certainly looked good last time. Brazil is always good. Italy? And it looks like Messi was chosen as the outstanding player of the 2014 World Cup.

And isn't Ronaldo considered Messi's rough equivalent? I know I've heard people who say they think Ronaldo is better. Has he won any World Cups? European championships?

What about Neymar? He's supposed to be really good too. Has he won any World Cups or Copa Americas?

Lots of great players have retired after repeatedly trying, but failing, to win championships.

 

Yeah the 8 league titles mean nothing because those are such top-heavy leagues. It's really a competition each year between Barcelona and Real Madrid, and maybe a 3rd team depending on the year. You'd expect 50% chance success at that really (he's on Barcelona). Champions League does mean something, so one can't dismiss that, but it's nothing compared to the World Cup. Olympics also mean nothing because that's not the full national team. It's the under-23 except for 3 above 23 players. Winning soccer gold for the women means a lot more because those are full teams.

Regarding powers in soccer, everything waxes and wanes. Brazil really isn't that good right now, while Argentina is and has been good not just throughout Messi's time but right before it (they did get 2nd place in the Copa America right before Messi came on the scene). So Messi came into a situation where the surrounding cast was never an excuse. And yeah Spain was playing at an otherworldly level for like 4 years. Today Germany and Argentina are some of the best.

Thing about Messi is that he's actually consistently good, regardless of situation. This is very interesting because he's like the poster child for what you're arguing in that pressure or no pressure doesn't seem to matter, the guy plays very good. That's true in the Copa America's and in the World Cup too. The difference is that he plays well but never seems to do what it takes to win in those big international tourney finals. That's different from say Maradona, who was like on and off in different tournaments but when he won he played like magic.

So in the statistical sense (though it's hard to use statistics in soccer on a game-by-game basis) Messi is "clutch", but not in terms of results. Maradona really said it best (and it's something people have said about Messi).. he just doesn't lead and elevate the team in crucial moments. Instead, he's just another player but one that always plays really well. That's why I brought him into the discussion because it's a form of "clutch" that depends on leadership more than it depends on individual play. In any case, under Messi Argentina never scored even one goal in their 3 Copa America finals or their WC final.

Oh, and Neymar and Ronaldo are two guys where you actually could argue the team isn't good enough compared to the very best. Brazil isn't as solid as it historically has been and Portugal had only a brief period where maybe that excuse was not there. Can't say that with Messi.

 

In terms of clutch, a championship is a championship. A top heavy league doesn't diminish that at all. The NBA has been a top heavy league for virtually my entire life. In any given year only 2-4 teams have any kind of realistic chance of winning the title. But when you get there and are playing another great team it is still a big deal. When the Bulls were winning their titles, there were only 2-3 teams (including the Bulls) that had any real chance at the title. Does that make them phony titles? Of course not.

As for the Olympics, whether all of the best players are there or not, it is still a huge stage. From a clutch/pressure standpoint it is still big.

Yeah, so that was what I recall of Spain even though I am not a soccer fan. I recall some talk of them being the greatest team of all-time regardless of sport. Have no idea how legit that is, but it does sound like Messi should not be criticized for failing to beat that team.

Again, I don't know much about soccer, but isn't there a bad relationship between Messi and Maradona such that maybe Maradona's comments about him should be taken with a grain of salt. And wasn't Maradona the Argentina coach for a while and a notoriously bad one at that? Isn't it possible that Maradona's criticism of Messi's leadership is a way to deflect criticism of his own failings as coach? Either way, to the extent Messi isn't a great leader it sounds like that's just his personality. It doesn't sound like he's a fiery leader in small games, but cowers in big ones. It sounds like maybe that's just who he is. But again, I don't really know -- I'm just trying to piece together what I'm hearing. But if I'm right, it sounds like that has nothing to do with clutch. Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul Jabbar was never a fiery leader. He has always been kinda aloof. But his teams won 3 NCAA championships and 6 NBA titles. Did his apparent lack of fiery leadership make him non-clutch?

So it sounds like Messi is consistently good in both big games and small ones. It sounds like the worst that can be said is that he hasn't been able to put his team on his back to win the big one on the international stage (except the Olympics), even though he's done it in Europe many times. Sounds like what they have said about every player who hasn't won the big one -- until they win the big one.

As for Ronaldo and Neymar, I thought the argument was that the great players are supposed to put their teams on their back and will them to victory? Sounds like as great as they are they haven't done that either on the international stage.

 

Counting top-heavy league championships makes sense if you can win far more than 1/N where N is the number of top teams. That's not the case with Barcelona. And there's one problem in talking about Euro championships with teams such as Barcelona and Real Madrid. I mean those are just superstar loaded teams. It's almost like two dream teams going after the crown, so it's hard to give Messi anywhere as much credit as you would if Argentina (which plays through him) won. And counting Olympics is like counting stats in a minor league baseball championship when talking about the World Series. Not gonna work. That's U-23's.

In any case, I'm not attacking anyone for failing to beat Spain in the knockout rounds of the 2010 WC. That really was a special team. But 2014 against Germany? That was Messi's equivalent moment to 1986 when Argentina faced West Germany in the finals and Maradona helped guide that team through one of the most magical tourneys you'll see.

And yeah Maradona is a coke head and shouldn't always be taken seriously, but this lack of leadership thing is a common observation so on this issue it's fine to point it out. Point is though, no leader quits while in his prime like Messi is doing. I really can't think of any elite player in any team sport who's done that for the same reason. Shows mental weakness in a guy that generally plays extremely well.

With Ronaldo and Neymar, like I said while they haven't willed their team to win, you really could make the argument it's more difficult for them to take their teams all the way. Ronaldo just will never have the cast with Portugal (good not great team), and Neymar is young. I think you can attack Neymar for failure to win if he hasn't done it by the time he retires (assuming no serious injury) because Brazil is only temporarily not too good. They'll be back for sure.

 

The athlete that most defines clutch, that I can think of, is Claude Lemieux, because it is absolutely undeniable.

Claude was a defensive forward, he was a finalist for the Selke(best defensive forward) award 3 times, never won it, never in an all star game, only scored 30 or more goals in his 25 year career 5 times, with his high of 41 being the only time he eclipsed 40.

Compare that to the much more well known Lemieux(no relation), Super Mario, who played 17 seasons, in seasons where he played at least 50 games, he exceeded 40 goals in all but 1, near the end of his career, with highs of 85, 70 and 69 twice.

Mario eclipsed 30 in 11 seasons, in the 6 seasons he didn't, 5 of those seasons he played in 26 games or less, he eclipsed 40 goals ten times, he eclipsed 50 six times, 60 four times, 70 twice, and the afore mentioned 85.

The reason I bring up Super Mario is just to illustrate that Claude was not a goal scorer, for those who are not hockey fans and don't understand goal scoring totals, and they played during the same time frame.

So Claude was an avg to below avg goal scorer, and an avg hockey player, only once getting consideration for the all star game, but not enough consideration, because he didn't make the team.

Claude is 109th in goals scored in NHL history, he's 86th in game winning goals(GWG), he has no awards of any type.

That however, this is regular season Claude, his post season history is like that of a different player.

Claude led all goal scorers in the playoffs twice in his career, and one of those times he didn't even reach the finals, he also led in GWG twice.(Mario led in goals once, and GWG twice)

Claude scored more goals in the playoffs than in the regular season 3 times in his career.

One of those years, he played 45 games and scored 6 goals, then scored 13 goals in 20 playoff games, leading all goal scorers and winning the Conn Smythe trophy, the NHLs MVP of the playoffs.

He never got blanked in the post season until he was 36, that was after taking a year off due to retirement.

For anyone that watched him play, there was a significant, palpable difference in this player once the post season started, he played like a man possessed, he went from a good defensive forward, to a great defensive forward and a dangerous goal scorer, he went from role player, to game changer.

Claude is 9th all time in post season goals with 80, and 4th all time in post season GWG, with 19, and one of 42 Conn Smythe winners.

For anyone who thinks that players can't "up their game" in clutch situations, Claude Lemieux is living, undeniable proof against that theory.

 

I know very little about hockey so I can't address it. But there could be all kinds of things that might explain those numbers. I just don't know enough about hockey to be able to speak to it.

That said, it could also be that he's simply a statistical outlier. Those happen. Of all the athletes who have played professional sports, even by simple random chance, one would expect a few to appear to have anomalous results. It looks like CLemieux played 234 playoff games. To simulate that sample size, I used a coin flipping app to produce results for several sets of 234 flips to see how many come up heads. In 30 sets of 234 flips, one came up heads only 103 times. Another came up heads 133 times. So there was roughly a 30% variance even in a small group of 30 sets. The number of professional athletes all-time in all sports is much, much higher than 30. So even with a purely random chance event, one would expect some to appear to be much better "coin flippers" than others even though they are not.

For CLemieux, it could also be that he was simply a slacker/underachiever in the regular season. I have no idea. But maybe he was a guy who only gave 80% in the regular season but turned it on in the playoffs. That seems unlikely if he was a very good defender, as defense generally requires effort as much as anything else, but if his anomalous numbers were for his offense, it could be that he was used differently in the playoffs for some reason.

 

Just a few things on the stats side. Your coin flip calculator needs to calculate everything using a biased coin. Results are very different then. You're using a fair coin. The bias should be a probability of scoring a goal = 379/1215 from the regular season based on this link:
http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/l/lemiecl01.html

Also.. 103 to 133 difference isn't a "variance", it's a range.. (variance is a technical term in this context).

In any case, what one should calculate is the probability that any hockey player would get at least 80 goals out of 234 (playoff) games given that he scored 379 goals out of 1215 games in the regular season. So, by "at least" I mean 80 or more goals.

What Lemieux did actually isn't very unlikely. It turns out that probability is just under 18%, meaning basically one out of 6 players will have records that unlikely. So looking at overall regular season vs. playoff goal scoring percentages you'd easily say that's just due to chance.

However, that's NOT true if you pick out individual seasons. For example, The 1996-97 season where he scored 13 out of 17 games would occur by chance 0.003% of the time (and again I mean "at least 13 out of 20"), while the 1994-95 season with 13 out of 20 games is 0.04% likely. Of course, these are season+player combinations. He played 20+ seasons, so multiply those numbers by 20 first of all. Then how many players are there? Basically, it's saying 1 out of maybe 120 players would do something as unlikely as what he did in 1994-95, and 1 out of maybe 1700 players would do what he did in 1996-97.

So.. just looking at the stats, the claim Lemieux was clutch in the playoffs through much of his career won't hold at all, but what he did in some individual seasons is highly unlikely to occur by chance.

 

I used the coin flip calculator just to illustrate a point. I wasn't saying or implying that CLemieux's playoff experience had the same odds as a coin flip, or that scoring a goal has the same odds as a coin flip. But your more focused stats do make the point that his overall career playoff experience is not that unlikely even as a matter of pure chance.

As you point out, even looking at the odds of his best individual playoff seasons the odds of it happening by pure chance are not as low as they appear. There have been 1474 team-seasons in the NHL. It is my understanding that an NHL roster has 23 players, but that may have changed over the years. For current purposes, if we assume 20 players per team per season, that would be 29,480 player-seasons. So the odds are actually pretty good that someone would do that just by chance. And even for events where the odds aren't good, they sometimes happen and it isn't necessarily because of clutch.

 

Gotta divide that 30k by 20 since I assumed each player plays 20 seasons. So one of Lemieux's seasons is maybe arguably so rare you might only see it once or a few times in the history of the league but the others not.

 

Clutch is the most important thing in the history of the universe.

 

Ok, 18 skaters and 2 goalies(G) dress for games, 6 defenseman(D) for the three D lines, and 12 forwards(F) for the four F lines, so you can't count Ds and Gs in any goal scoring scenarios.

Further more, all F are not equal, not everyone gets the same ice time, looking at games played is not an efficient way of determining anything in hockey, ice time is the key there, as 1st lines usually play a lot more, and 4th lines play a lot less, but it's different for every team, and differs depending on opponent.

Then there are different assignments for different lines, and individual players, so any coin flip type of scenarios aren't going to be valid.

Claude was what is known in hockey circles as a "shadow", his job was on a defensive F line, as a F who would "shadow" an opposing F, usually the best scorer on the ice, basically trying to eliminate that player from even getting the puck.

It's similar to basketball, if Dennis Rodman and Michael Jordan are in the same "coin flip" scenario, you have a faulty scenario.

 

Well.. give us an estimate of how many players in the entire history of the league Lemieux should be compared to (and why you chose that group of players since not everyone here knows much hockey).

 

Can it be said that his role in those playoffs wasn't so much as a shadow, but rather as a scorer? Maybe due to match ups? Any single-season playoff run is against only a few teams. Maybe one or two of those series were against teams with no big-time scorer to shadow so he became more of an offensive player? As I said, I don't know enough about hockey to be able to say.

But I have seen those kinds of things happen in basketball. Just this past season Bismack Biyombo emerged in the playoffs in a way very inconsistent with his play over several previous seasons. But he did just about all of it against a Heat team without Whiteside and a Cavs team that wasn't playing a real center at all. Is Biyombo uber clutch? I highly doubt it. I think he had favorable match ups and circumstances against two teams.


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Here's an interesting article about whether Lemieux was really clutch.

http://www.allaboutthejersey.com/20...ring-claude-lemieux-not-clutch-just-very-good

Looking at his playoffs season by season it looks like his numbers are really boosted by just 2 of his 18 playoff seasons -- 1995 and 1997. Without those two seasons, he scored 56 goals in 197 playoff games, a rate of just 0.284 goals per playoff game. That is below his overall career 0.311 goals per game. So if it was really "clutch" -- some kind of innate ability to rise to the occasion on the big stage, why did he only do it in 2 of his 18 playoff seasons. Why was he below his career average for goal scoring over his other 197 playoff games?

 

Yeah, there's a question as to how you categorize someone who does something that is arguably too unlikely to occur by chance in the history of the league, but he does it in only one season (or maybe two) and never otherwise. That's clearly a different type of (statistically) clutch player than with someone like Brady where you can use career numbers and compare to peers.

Thing is, if it's too unlikely to occur by chance, then you have to search for a different explanation, and that might very well be something within the player (e.g. mental or emotional state) that isn't too easy for that person to replicate. I don't know, and we'll see if Lemieux fits that category (depends on Finster's answer about how many players we can compare him to), but whether Lemieux is that type of player or not it does suggest there isn't just a single type of statistically clutch player.

 

Lol, therein lies the problem, firstly, he should only be compared to his contemporaries, like most sports, hockey rules, and play tendencies have changed over the years, but to pare down a number of players he should be judged against would take a committee of hockey experts.

The fact that he was a "shadow", and is 86th all time in GWG, and is 9th in postseason goals, and 4th in postseason GWG is crazy, he has been part of championship teams at the junior level, where he was a post season MVP, NHL, where again he was a post season MVP and also at the international level.

This is a player that helps you win championships.

He is famous in hockey circles for his playoff prowess, and infamous in hockey circles for being an instigator/chippy/dirty/anything to win player.

 

Sounds like he's a very good player. Very good players help you win championships. It looks like in 18 playoff seasons, he had 2 outliers from an offensive perspective and was a little below his career norms from a goal-scoring perspective over the other 16 playoffs.

 

There's multiple problems with your analysis, he was a very good player in the post season, he was an avg player in the regular season.

You are equating all playoff seasons as equal, when his vary from 4 games to 23.

That problem leads to the next, in saying he had 2 outliers, which is false.