March 11, 2009
Howe and Why
Reverse Career Projection

by Robert Vollman

Who were your favorite players growing up? Probably, the players whose careers you followed most devotedly from team-to-team, whose statistics you can still recite and whose hockey trading cards you still have tucked away in a shoebox somewhere.

One of mine was Mike Gartner. He was from my old hometown of Ottawa, Ontario, and he was absolutely amazing. He flew down the ice like the wind and was almost impossible to keep away from the net. He bagged 30 goals a season like clockwork, his record of 15 consecutive seasons of 30 or more goals still stands today. Sadly, he never got to play for the Stanley Cup and is probably the greatest player never to win an individual award.

I would love to see Mike Gartner play again, just as you would probably love to see your favorite players in action again. Unfortunately, your favorite players are probably retired. However, we could use reverse career projections as the next best thing.

In order to find the next Mike Gartner, let's take a good look at his career NHL statistics, including running totals. This is all the information we'll need to scour today's NHL to find some modern-day equivalents.

Season   GP  G  A PTS PIM   GP    G   A  PTS  PIM

1979-80  77 36 32  68  66    
1980-81  80 48 46  94 100   77   36  32   68   66
1981-82  80 35 45  80 121  157   84  78  162  166
1982-83  73 38 38  76  54  237  119 123  242  287 
1983-84  80 40 45  85  90  310  157 161  318  341
1984-85  80 50 52 102  71  390  197 206  403  431
1985-86  74 35 40  75  63  470  247 258  505  502
1986-87  78 41 32  73  61  544  282 298  580  565
1987-88  80 48 33  81  73  622  323 330  653  626
1988-89  69 33 36  69  73  702  371 363  734  699
1989-90  79 45 41  86  38  771  404 399  803  772
1990-91  79 49 20  69  53  850  449 440  889  810
1991-92  76 40 41  81  55  929  498 460  958  863
1992-93  84 45 23  68  59 1005  538 501 1039  918
1993-94  81 34 30  64  62 1089  583 524 1107  977
1994-95  38 12  8  20   6 1170  617 554 1171 1039
1995-96  82 35 19  54  52 1208  629 562 1191 1045
1996-97  82 32 31  63  38 1290  664 581 1245 1097
1997-98  60 12 15  27  24 1372  696 612 1308 1135

We can use Similarity Scores to find today's Mike Gartner's from these basic statistics. Here's how we proceed:

For each player in the NHL last season, we calculate a Similarity Score against each of Gartner's 18 seasons beyond his first. This Similarity Score compares the current season, the previous season, and the career totals prior between Gartner and each active player's most recent season.

Having calculated a Similarity Scores for each active player against each of Gartner's season, we take the minimum of the 18 Similarity Scores to match each individual player against the point in Gartner's career that's most applicable to them.

The top matches will be whoever has the lowest Similarity Score against any of Gartner's seasons. In essence, they will be the players that most closely match Gartner at some point in his career. Let's look at the top two matches.

Dany Heatley GP   G   A PTS PIM

Prior       272 130 154 284 218 
2006-07      82  50  55 105  74
2007-08      71  41  41  82  76
2008-09*     62  30  28  58  72

Ilya Kovalchuk GP   G   A PTS PIM

Prior         305 160 143 303 216 
2006-07        82  42  34  76  66
2007-08        79  52  35  87  52
2008-09*       64  35  37  72  35

It's not surprising to find Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuk at the top of the list. The former linemates are both extremely fast and exciting players to watch and share Gartner's same knack for scoring. I find it quite uncanny that they're already among my favorite players today. The only significant difference between them and Mike Gartner appears to be that they've both already won individual awards, and one of them has already competed for the Cup.

Speaking of which, Mats Sunin showed up on the list. There's another player I love, and who is known for his Gartner-like consistency, scoring 70 points or more in every single full season after his first. Sundin shares the distinction of also never having competed for the Stanley Cup, and his amazing career has somehow managed to be kept almost free of individual award (twice a 2nd-team all-star). If there were a “Mike Gartner” award, Sundin would undoubtedly have a closet full of them.

Mats Sundin GP   G   A  PTS PIM

Prior     1231 523 720 1243 989 
2006-07     75  27  49   76  62
2007-08     74  32  46   78  76
2008-09*    22   6   9   15  18

I always wondered how well Mike Gartner would have played had he continued for just another season or two. The two players today that most closely matched Gartner near the end of his career are Mike Modano and Jeremy Roenick. By watching them we can get a taste of how Gartner would have produced had he played through until the end of the century.

Mike Modano GP   G   A  PTS PIM

Prior     1083 465 632 1097 730 
2006-07     59  22  21   43  34
2007-08     82  21  36   57  48
2008-09*    62  15  25   40  36

Jeremy Roenick GP   G   A  PTS  PIM

Prior        1252 495 675 1170 1413 
2006-07        70  11  17   28   32
2007-08        69  14  19   33   26
2008-09*       33   3   7   10   22

Evgeni Malkin, Marian Gaborik, Olli Jokinen, Teemu Selanne and Eric Staal also showed up near the top of the list.

There may be only one Mike Gartner, but I'm quite satisfied with the list and I look forward to future explorations to find the next Brian Trottier or Ray Bourque. It will be interesting to see what we come up with as player comparables for those two.

Today we've demonstrated that Similarity Scores can be useful for more than just establishing career projections for active players. For example,

What if your favourite player was Pat LaFontaine, Al Iafrate, Cam Neely or anyone else whose career was cut short by injury? Find similar players, and study how their careers progressed from there.

If you think your favorite player is underpaid, we can find similar players and compare salaries.

We can now also find the next Gilbert Perreault.

While I head off to eBay to bid on some Dany Heatley and Ilya Kovalchuk merchandise, I'll leave you with one final question to ponder: What other uses can you think of for Similarity Scores?

Afternote: Hockey historians probably noted that I ignored Mike Gartner's single season with the Cincinnati Stingers of the WHA. He scored 27 goals and 25 assists in 78 games playing with Mark Messier.

Season  GP  G  A PTS PIM

1978-79 78 27 25  52 123

How significantly can we improve our career projections if we included the WHA [ed. note - yay WHA!] in our historical database? Could it help us find the next Andre Lacroix, Marc Tardif or Real Cloutier? Stay tuned!

Robert Vollman is an author of Hockey Prospectus. You can contact Robert by clicking here or click here to see Robert's other articles.