Top-Six Debate

I thought I would break down every team's top-six forwards and decide which teams has the most EFFICIENT set. Now, I'm saying the word efficient... not the best. A top-six forward's main objective is to score goals and create chances, I think we can all agree on that, so I thought it would be interesting to find out who is doing that job more effectively and has the stats to show for it. Before I even get started, it was actually tough to find the top-six forwards for some teams with injuries and rookies taking over their spots. I made a few judgment calls (Jere Lehtinen and Marian Gaborik were included on their team, Sam Gagner and A. Kostitsyn were not), but for the most part I think I for them hammered down pretty well. I also didn't pay attention to 2LW, 2RW, 2C, I just took the top 6 forwards, regardless of position. I took into account five main statistical categories: the three main ones are fairly obvious (goals, assists, points) and I also took into account the players +/- because it is a stat that shows whether a player is creating goals/chances or having them created against him. The last stat I used was PIM because it's important to throw the body around and everyone seems to make a big deal out of a forward scoring 100 PTS and having 100 PIM, so they must be somewhat important. So, here is how every team was broken down... (category leaders in bold)

	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM
Anaheim (Getzlaf, Perry, Selanne, Kunitz, Morrison, R. Niedermayer)	43	69	112	0	147
Atlanta (Kovalchuk, Kozlov, White, Little, Williams, Armstrong)	48	61	109	-8	73
Boston (Savard, Kessel, Bergeron, Lucic, Ryder, Sturm)	44	68	112	+53	121
Buffalo (Vanek, Pominville, Roy, Afinogenov, Connolly, Stafford)	38	45	83	-15	52
Calgary (Iginla, Bertuzzi, Langkow, Cammaleri, Conroy, Lombardi)	39	62	101	-19	88
Carolina (Whitney, Ruutu, Stall, Brind'Amour, Samsonov, Eaves)	33	43	76	-24	94
Chicago (Kane, Toews, Sharp, Havlat, Versteeg, Ladd)	48	71	119	+30	89
Colorado (Sakic, Smyth, Wolski, Svatos, Hejduk, Stastny)	35	56	91	-31	88
Colombus (Nash, Brassard, Huselius, Umberger, Voracek, Modin)	46	54	100	+14	76
Dallas (Richards, Modano, Ribeiro, Morrow, Lehtinen, Brunnstrom)	33	52	85	-21	77
Detroit (Datsyuk, Zetterberg, Hossa, Franzen, Holmstrom, Filppula)	53	62	115	+29	78
Edmonton (Hemsky, Horcoff, Penner, Cole, Nilsson, Cogliano)	33	47	80	+7	86
Florida (Horton, Weiss, Booth, Olesz, Zednik, Stillman)	31	32	63	+8	52
Los Angeles (Kopitar, Frolov, Brown, O'Sullivan, Handzus, Stoll)	42	45	87	+11	94
Minnesota (Koivu, Brunette, Bouchard, Gaborik, Nolan, Miettinen)	36	52	88	0	52
Montreal (Kovalev, Koivu, Higgins, Tanguay, Lang, Plekanec)	40	57	97	+27	82
Nashville (Dumont, Arnott, Erat, Legwand, Hornqvist, Fiddler)	35	52	87	+1	72
New Jersey (Parise, Gionta, Elias, Maddon, Langenbrunner, Zubrus)	43	72	115	+38	101
New York Islanders (Weight, Hunter, Guerin, Comrie, Okposo, Hilbert)	35	51	86	-26	81
New York Rangers (Gomez, Drury, Zherdev, Naslund, Dubinsky, Callahan)	42	61	103	-16	107
Ottawa (Alfredsson, Heatley, Spezza, Fisher, Vermette, Foligno)	37	48	85	-14	89
Philadelphia (Briere, Gagne, Richards, Carter, Knuble, Hartnell)	62	58	120	+23	106
Phoenix (Doan, Jokinen, Hanzal, Mueller, Turris, Boedker)	37	55	92	+3	101
Pittsburgh (Malkin, Crosby, Satan, Sykora, Stall, Fedotenko)	53	83	136	+33	91
San Jose (Thornton, Cheechoo, Marleau, Setoguchi, Clowe, Michalek)	55	84	139	+48	79
St. Louis (Boyes, Kariya, Tkachuk, McDonald, Perron, Steen)	35	53	88	-34	73
Tampa Bay (Lecavalier, St. Louis, Recchi, Prospal, Malone, Stamkos)	37	56	93	-22	90
Toronto (Antropov, Ponikarovsky, Grabovski, Stempniak, Hagman, Stajan)	46	65	111	-8	62
Vancouver (D. Sedin, H. Sedin, Demitra, Wellwood, Kesler, Burrows)	45	60	105	29	85
Washington (Ovechkin, Semin, Backstrom, Nylander, Fedorov, Kozlov)	45	77	122	+34	92

Then, I decided to add all of their points together, with ½ of their +/- and ¼ of their PIM to find out who really is the most efficient and effective top-six; then I decided that 200.00 would be a bench-mark of 100%. Here is how it all broke down...

1. San Jose - 182.75 = 91.375%

2. Anaheim - 175.75 = 87.875%

3. Pittsburgh - 175.25 = 87.625%

4. Boston - 168.75 = 84.375%

5. Washington - 162.00 = 81.000%

6. NJD - 159.25 = 79.625%

7. Philadelphia - 158.00 = 79.000%

8. Chicago - 156.25 = 78.125%

9. Detroit - 149.00 = 74.500%

10. Vancouver - 140.75 = 70.375%

11. Calgary - 132.50 = 66.250%

12. Montreal - 131.00 = 65.500%

13. Columbus - 126.00 = 63.000%

14. Atlanta - 123.25 = 61.625%

15. Toronto - 122.50 = 61.250%

16. NYR - 121.75 = 60.875%

17. Phoenix - 118.75 = 59.375%

18. Los Angeles - 116.00 = 58.000%

19. Nashville - 105.50 = 52.750%

20. Edmonton - 105.00 = 52.500%

21. Tampa Bay - 104.50 = 52.250%

22. Minnesota - 101.00 = 50.500%

23. Ottawa - 100.25 = 50.125%

24. Colorado - 97.50 = 48.750%

25. Carolina – 97.50 = 48.750%

26. Dallas - 93.75 = 46.875%

27. NYI - 93.25 = 46.625%

28. St. Louis - 89.25 = 44.625%

29. Buffalo - 88.50 = 44.250%

30. Florida - 80.00 = 40.000%

So, take away what you wish from it, just thought I would dig up some stats and establish who really is the most effective group of six in the NHL, not necessarily the best. It's interesting to note that the top 12 teams are all in the playoffs and of that 12, six are from the West and six are from the East. Tomorrow, I'll take a look at the top six Dmen on NHL teams.

Cheers.
-Smith