How Does Leon Draisaitl Stack Up Analytically to Past Hart Winners?

please don't get mad at me

Our long national nightmare is over: Leon Draisaitl has won the 2020 Hart Trophy, capping months of tedious and repetitive arguments over the relative merits of offence and defence, even strength and powerplay points, and WAR and the stats page on NHL.com. Of course the sniping didn’t actually end, as evidenced by the Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn being forced to issue a 3000 word explanation of his ballot amid rage from Oilers fans and childish consternation from some of his less professional peers from the Edmonton media. (Amusingly, he is now being accused of crafting an elaborate scheme to draw people to said explanation article by deliberately submitting a controversial ballot.)

I’ve said everything I have to say about Draisaitl’s candidacy, and have no interest at all in relitigating the award - hey Oilers fans, your guy won! Who cares if it wasn’t unanimous? But with a lot of stats going around (like Drai being the first MVP to finish with a negative plus/minus) I did think it would be interesting to see how he ranks compared to other Hart winners in various analytical categories - not just goals and points. Because these stats only exist back to 2007-08, we have a set of eleven other forwards to compare him to. I’ll be sticking mostly to 5v5 and even strength stats, because powerplay analytics aren’t particularly strong or telling and even strength play comprises the vast majority of game time.

Stats here are taken from EvolvingHockey.com.

5v5 Point Rates

Draisaitl is middle of the pack across the board in terms of his 5v5 scoring rates. He ranks 6th in goals, primary assists, and primary points per 60 minutes, comparable overall to 2017 Connor McDavid and 2016 Patrick Kane. 2012 Malkin’s in a league of his own in this category, while 2011 Corey Perry lags behind (get used to that).

Raw On-Ice Stats

As noted above, Draisaitl is the only Hart winner to ever finish with a negative +/-. This is a misleading stat because it punishes players who play on the powerplay and with the extra attacker (goals against in those situations are counted as a minus despite not coming at even strength). A better stat based on the principle of +/- is goals for percentage, and Draisaitl isn’t a negative in that category. His 52.8% mark ranks well ahead of 2011 Perry, but still 11th. He also ranks second-last in expected goals for percentage ahead of 2016 Kane. He did finish 4th in on-ice goals for, but last in on-ice expected goals against (better to use than actual goals against in this case because it removes the goalie from the equation).

RAPM-Isolated On-Ice Impacts

RAPM (regularized adjusted plus/minus) is a stat adapted for hockey by EvolvingWild which takes those on-ice stats above and uses ridge regression to estimate how an individual player influenced those outcomes. These numbers are adjusted for teammates, competition, venue, zone starts, score situation, etc. to filter out anything that might have distorted them. The ones relevant to a forward are goals for, expected goals (scoring chances) for, and expected goals against. Generally speaking, the first thing you should look for in a forward is how they impacted actual goals for and expected goals against (because skaters can affect finishing but can’t control goaltending). By these measures, Draisaitl is clearly in the lower portion but he’s not at the bottom; two of Ovechkin’s bids and - once again - Perry finish below him overall. That being said, Drai’s defensive impact once again ranks the lowest out of everyone.

Wins Above Replacement

And now to Wins Above Replacement, a stat built by EvolvingWild that takes the RAPM stats, adjusts them further, compares them to a replacement level player, and translates them into goals and then wins to estimate how a player contributed to his team. I scaled these numbers to an 82 game pace, compiled even strength offensive, defence, and total numbers, and then finally displayed total WAR (which also includes special teams and penalty impacts). Here, Draisaitl ranks 7th offensively, last defensively, and second-last in both even strength and total wins above replacement. The guy behind him? Say it with me: 2011 Perry.

Conclusion

I’m well aware that this will change absolutely zero minds about Draisaitl’s Hart-worthiness, which is totally fine by me - I hope Oilers fans appreciate the win and don’t let a few scattered disagreements get them down. I do think it’s interesting to compare these seasons, especially considering that many of these stats were not developed at the time that most of these trophies were awarded. McDavid’s generational 2017 campaign, Malkin’s absurd 2012 production, and Sedin’s 2010 dominance of on-ice goals all look even better put into this larger context. It also begs the question - how the hell did Corey Perry win the Hart Trophy in 2011?! Draisaitl’s win last night is not one that anyone in the analytics community will have actively advocated, but winning a Hart Trophy is a legacy-defining achievement that will be remembered long after everyone forgets about the exhausting Twitter and Reddit arguments.