Goin’ to WAR with Our Penguins (’24 Edition)
In what’s become a rite of summer at PenguinPoop, I decided to publish my annual Goin’ to WAR with Our Penguins article, vintage 2024. Following last summer’s format, I’ve organized the tables into three separate groups…Forwards, Defense and Departures.
Before we get to the numbers, a quickie review of WAR, short for Wins Above Replacement. Just so I’m not reinventing the wheel, I’m going to pirate my explanation from last summer’s article.
WAR is a stat you may be familiar with from baseball. In the simplest of terms, it measures a player’s contributions (or wins) for his team, while at the same time providing a method of comparing a player to his peers based on his role.
You’ll notice in some cases a player’s role doesn’t seem to line up with the way he’s actually used. For example, Michael Bunting is categorized as a third liner even though he’s often been utilized in a top-six role. The same goes for Drew O’Connor.
In hockey a player’s role is determined by his position and ice time (TOI).
WAR can be expressed as a number or in this case, a percentage, with 50 percent being the break-even mark.