Motivation and the NHL

In sports its unsure when the next big star is going to be playing on the rink. The pick in the draft or the player you traded for can become the next member of the hall of fame, or a bust that you easily want to forget about. What if there was a way to predict the whether the next player you get will be a stud or dud? According to these articles “Predictors of Performance in the National Hockey League” by Daniel Voyer, Edward Wright and “The Effect on Performance of Being Traded During The Season: The Case of The National Hockey League” by Philip White and William McTeer, and “The Impact of Free Agency on Competitive Balance in North American Professional Team Sports Leagues”, to predict if a hockey player will be good after acquiring him one has to look at his motivation of play from other seasons.

Let us start off with players already playing in the NHL with trade cases (moving players around with other teams) as written in White and McTeer’s article. Performance was measured by graphing the average number of scores (goals and assists) by Centers and Wingers, splitting the stats up by all players, players who played less than 269 games, and players who played more than 270 games into 4 time periods: The season before the trade, before the trade took place, after the trade took place and season after the trade.

White and McTeer found that players went through the four time periods. Between the season before the trade, and before the trade, all 3 subject categories had a significant drop in their average scores with all players going from an average of .298 scores per season prior to the trade to .225 before the trade happened. The average score shot up after trade to about the regular average from .225 scores to .296, an increase of about .071 which is nearly, the same as the season prior. According to White and McTeer, “These players improved in the post-trade period by a rate of almost a goal a game but reverted to their 'normal' level of performance the following year.” Season after trade it leveled off to about the same average it was season prior the trade, and after the trade. With these stats it is seen that the motivation of a new team increased the average scoring from a poor amount before the trade to equal that of the season before trade.

White and McTeer discuss many theories on why these players could be so motivated when moving to a new team. They point out that all “players who are traded to new teams seem to respond to the change with increased effort resulting in improved performance.” Before a trade, a player may under-perform because they may be feeling mistreated on their team for various reasons. Reasons such as coaching staff could be under-utilizing the player because of bad play, personal or contractual reasons giving the player less opportunity to score, all which reduce the performance of the player. Trade to a new team could reduce stress that started with problems on the old team and motivate the player with new teammates; new coaching, and also getting more playing time then on the old team that could improve their stats.

White and McTeer go also into what attribution theorists think in regards to why players play better after being traded. They take an experienced player who probably has a few good years under his belt, if he is in bad streak and playing poorly, he will more likely blame outside causes such as bad luck or bad people around such as coaches and other players. These attributes may cause negative consequences on the players motivation, and effort believing he's putting the maximum effort but it is not being shown due to the lack of people around him. Soon after a trade is made for him he may reassess his chances for success, being moved from an unproductive environment to a new one which is more optimistic. This helps back up that motivation is key for player’s performance because of optimism in the new environment, he'll be more motivated and probably have an increase in performance.

From those trade cases does it differ for players that are scouted and drafted? According to Voyer and Wright it is much like how White and McTeer found, that by looking into the past and seeing the past prediction of playing to see how well they will perform in the League. They got these results with a multiple regression analysis that determined the variables that help predict performance in NHL. For control purposes, values were dependent on the number of games played by individual players and were calculated on a per game basis in their experiment. They used several variables as predictors: points scored per game in the juniors (minor leagues), goals scored per game, assists scored per game, and penalty minutes per game, along with the player’s height and weight. The number of points per regular season games and playoff games in the NHL were dependent variables. They separated the regression analyses for each dependent variable. For this paper we will only focus on the first analysis, which was the whole sample of players.

The results that Voyer and Wright found were not out of the ordinary. For the regular season the number of points per regular season game in the juniors is the best predictor for number of points in the NHL. Other good predictors are awards won in the juniors, number of penalty minutes per playoff game in juniors, the number of goals in junior playoff games; number of penalty minutes per junior regular season games, and predictor was goals per junior regular season games. The relationship in this table is positive between the predictors and the dependent variable. For number of points per playoff game they found the best predictor was still number of points per junior regular season games, then number of goals per playoff game, followed by number of penalty minutes in junior playoff games, number of junior awards, penalty minutes in junior regular season and finally weight. The relationship was the same in table 1 as in table 2. As seen in the findings, the best predictor of performance is points in junior games, but the best predictors overall are in playoff games which helps with the theory of motivation in performance. Players seem to do better in higher-stakes games which will put their abilities to full-performance to get into the NHL. Higher-stakes equal better performance.

Finally from experienced players and trade to new players just starting in NHL in the draft will dive into free agency and money if that has any part of motivation with players and the NHL. In Maxcy and Mondello’s article, they study how free agency has either helped create competitive balance, or if it hasn't. They created a standard deviation of winning every year between 1951-2004 for various leagues NBA, NFL, and NHL. What results is gradual balance over time in the NHL with a standard deviation of winning percentage from 0.2 to 0.1 from the years 1951 to 2004. Out of all the leagues they studied the NHL has shown the most improvement as they went from strict reserve system to restricted free agency, and also significant shift to where players have more access to unrestricted free agency. Thus, the standard deviation of winning has leveled out throughout the league with the talent spreading out. This goes back to motivation because it shows that players can sign anywhere and still have a good opportunity to make the playoffs or winning the Stanley Cup being more motivated to do well with their team and keep their performance up.

Motivation is what drives the players in the NHL in all ways: trades, young players in the draft and finally free agency. As said before these three articles have shown to predict if a hockey player will be good after acquiring him one has to look at his motivation of play from other seasons. So next time a new player comes to town and unsure whether he'll be a great acquisition, or a bust do some research first then, decide what to think about him.

Works Cited

Maxcy, Joel, and Micheal Mondello. "The Impact of Free Agency on Competitive Balance in North American Professional Team Sports Leagues." Journal of Sport Management 20 (2006): 345-65. EBSCOhost. July 2006. EBSCOhost. 4 Mar. 2012.

Voyer, Daniel, and Edward F. Wright. "PREDICTORS OF PERFORMANCE IN THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE." Journal of Sport Behavior 21 (1995). EBSCOhost. Dec. 1998. EBSCOhost. 1 Mar. 2012.

White, Phillip G., and William G. McTeer. "THE EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE OF BEING TRADED DURING THE SEASON: THE CASE OF THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE*." Journal of Sport Behavior 14 (1991).