Goal Asymmetry Experienced by Team Above Normal.  Here's GAETAN in two sentences: 

GAETAN tells us how many more or fewer goals a player's team scored and allowed while he was on the ice than we would have expected from an average player.  To calculate GAETAN, we first determine how many goals for and goals against would have occurred while an average player played the same number of minutes as a particular player, and then we compare those numbers to the actual goals for and goals against that occurred while the particular player was on the ice. 

Using Gould Old Days' method, instead of rating players against league averages, I wanted to rate players against their team averages, to correct (at least partly) for the quality of the team for which a player players on.

This method isn't a perfect adjustment for the team a player plays on--a great player on a great team may look worse than a good player on a terrible team--nor does it account for quality of competition and some other situation effects, but I feel that it's a step in the right direction, like relative plus minus as opposed to raw plus minus. 

In order to get team averages, I simply used team power play, penalty kill, and even strength goal differentials per minute (most of which Gould Old Days was kind enough to provide in his spreadsheet in the above link). These values only differ because of penalties drawn to taken values (for obvious reasons). I used those team-adjusted values to calculate expected goals for and goals against values while the player was on ice. I did not account for players having changed teams, however. Each traded/waived-and-claimed player was judged against his initial team. I did not make the assumption that players do not affect shooting percentages to any significant degree and base this off of shots as opposed to goals, moreover, so shooting/goaltending luck (along with any shooting percentage skill) is included. I did not adjust team situational values for goaltending skill, moreoever, since it is so difficult to estimate.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet. You'll notice that I listed GAETAN versus league-wide rates, GAETAN versus team rates, and GAETAN (team) per game. For the rest of this post, "tGAETAN" refers to team-adjusted GAETAN.

Top ten forwards in the league, sorted first by descending tGAETAN, then by tGAETAN per game, then alphabetically:

(Sorry the last three columns do not line up perfectly)

The "Care Bears" finished just outside the top ten. Going a bit further down the list, Anaheim's super group five of Perry-Getzlaf-Ryan and Lydman-Visnovsky shows up early and the Sedins are both near the top. Meanwhile, "Toews for MVP" was probably a more legitimate argument than I'd given it credit for.

Crosby's tGAETAN rate was in a league of its own. He ranked first among players with at least 40 games played, with the next highest as Getzlaf's 0.39. Among players with at least 30 GP, Ryan Whitney was at 0.55 and Grant Clitsome as 0.41.

And top ten defensemen:

We see three defensemen that saw mid-season trades land them on better squads. I think that is most of the reason why Kaberle, Hannan, and Babchuk finish so high. Meanwhile, keep an eye on Andrew Macdonald among other young Islanders blueliners (Ty Wishart has a strong showing despite a downgrade in team in moving from Tampa to Long Island, and I bet Travis Hamonic would have a strong showing as well, but for some reason he is absent from the spreadsheet).

Shea Weber is noticeably absent, even though his partner shows up...

Caps leaders:

Thanks to the Caps' below-average power play and above-average penalty kill, players who played a little less on the power play jumped ahead of players who played more, like Alexander Semin ahead of Nicklas Backstrom. Towards the bottom of the list we continue to see tough minutes and terrible players. Note that Schultz, Erskine, Bradley, and Hendricks are, in part, so low because they played so many minutes.

I think you could make a case that Semin was the best forward on the Caps this past season. I doubt any GM will be buying that story, though, unfortunately.

Here is how tGAETAN compares with GAETAN for players with at least 20 games played:

via i987.photobucket.com

The x-axis is GAETAN, the y-axis is this tGAETAN. I like that the range of y values (~70) is less than the range of x values (~100). Even though this concept is not the same as that underlying goals-versus threshold (GVT), the highest GVTs on record belong to Dominik Hasek, in the low-to-mid 50 goals-above-replacement, and the top value in GAETAN this past season was Daniel Sedin at nearly 60, which, considering Hasek's GVT, I find little high for my liking, personally. I think Visnovsky's 31 in tGAETAN sounds a little more realistic in terms of painting a picture of player value, although I'm not about to start championing Visnovsky-for-Hart anytime soon (or ever, probably). 

That's all for the time being. Any suggestions or ideas?