Friday, April 25, 2014

Grit Chart

Hi Mike! (you will probably be the only one reading this) I didn't want to try and fight with 140 characters to explain all my thoughts about GritChart on twitter so here we are.



So I base everything off this graphic. At first glance it is just 4 stats, well 3 stats and one that isn't tracked very well. I had fun at the beginning of the year, and photoshopped what 2013 would look like and noticed that with the rankings, the ability of not getting penalty minutes is considered grit. Which makes sense.. You have all the hitting, and fighting. being nasty without taking the penalty (although 5 for fighting); Grit could help you win the game.

So after a lot of tweaking to get a formula to calculate Grit, I came up with this:

       (Hits) + (Blocked Shots)
 (((Penalty Mintues - (Fights X 5) +1 ) /2)      + (Fights X 2))


Now explained in English. I would consider Hits and Blocked Shots equal stats in the GritChart, therefore add them together. Then divide it by the number of Penalty minutes (took all the 5 minutes fighting majors out) divided by 2 because it shouldn't be twice the stat Hits or Blocked shots is. The addition of 1 in the formula is in case a team goes without taking a penalty and then you are unable to divide by 0. In that case, it would just be Hits + Blocked Shots = Super High Grit!!! Then lastly you add the number of fights multiplied by 2 because it should be considered the most Grittiest stat of them all.

Example -

Game 4 of Tampa Bay and Montreal


Lots of hits and blocked shots with low penalty minutes created a high grit number. Everything looks fine.

Here is my problem with Sportsnet's GritChart. It doesn't take in consideration the type of penalty. The last 2 games of the Anaheim/Dallas series has been really chippy near the end with lots of visual Grit. The ref's and linesmen have been breaking up the fights before they happen and handing out 10 minute game misconducts like candy on Halloween. So the more penalty minutes lead to a smaller Grit number.

Game 3 of Anaheim and Dallas

Letting them fight would triple the GritChart score, but they probably would still get the 10 minutes misconducts anyway. So maybe to get an accurate GritChart score, you would only need to use penalty minutes which put the team on the penalty kill. Any time two guys get kicked out, for wanting to have more grit, shouldn't count. Anytime two players both get roughing calls, the team's GritChart score shouldn't be penalized for showing that grit.


This seems more accurate to me, or am I thinking too much into this. Should it just be straight numbers found on he stat sheet or should the type of penalty be in consideration. Either way, Sportsnet's Grit Chart is just too simple and not well explained.