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Quantifying The Injury Woes

A thread on the Caps message board pointed to an interesting post on the Behindthenet Blog regarding the cost, points-wise, of losing top players.

Basically, over the past five seasons, teams have lost 3.07 standings points per 82 games for every ~19 minute forward and 8.44 standings points per 82 games for every ~21 minute defenseman missing from the lineup.

It just so happens that the Caps have a few players out of their current lineup who fit the bill, so let’s see what these injuries have cost the team:

Player POS TOI/G

Games Missed

Points Lost

Mike Green D 25:13 8 .82
Tom Poti D 22:07 9 .93
Alex Semin F 19:11 10 .37

In other words, the Caps have likely lost more than two points in the standings already due to the injuries to these three players alone (and this doesn’t even include 20-minute man Jeff Schultz or 18.5 minute guy Sergei Fedorov‘s absences).

Put another way, for each game this trio misses, the Caps lose nearly a quarter of a point in the standings – tonight’s win over the Islanders, then, really only netted the Caps 1.75 points.

Obviously, actual mileage may vary here, but one thing is pretty clear – as the injuries pile up, so do the lost points, and while the Caps may get those players back at some point (hopefully soon), those points are lost forever.

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