[Ed. note: RMNB alum Neil Greenberg now writes for The Washington Post and ESPN Insider. He offers this special contribution.]

Baseball was my first love. I grew up as a Mets fan. I could hop on the subway and be at Shea Stadium in minutes. I’d watch every game in my bedroom on a small color TV with tinfoil on the antennae for better reception. At the stadium I would chant, “Give it a ride, Darryl! Give it a ride!” while the organ played, and I consumed my weight in pretzels before the fifth inning. I still can’t watch replays of Game 6 without tearing up when the ball gets by Buckner.

I joined a few fantasy baseball leagues. One of them had 16 teams and a $2,500 entry fee. Big money and lots of fun.

Then I found the 1987 Bill James Baseball Abstract at the bookstore and my life changed.

I learned that numbers could see the future. I learned about “new” statistics like baserunner errors, quality starts, total average, on base + slugging, and runs created. Then, in the 1988 version, James cited workload-related burnout as the reason the Abstract would stop. Yes, stop. No mas. So I went on a quest, searching on my bike every used bookstore I could find to buy the Abstracts from 1977-1986. Eventually, I had them all. Every Bill James Baseball Abstract was mine. And I truly knew baseball.

I knew the batting lineups of every team, including their averages, home run totals, and home and away splits. I knew every pitching rotation’s ERA and WHIP like you know the alphabet. I knew the numbers, but lost interest in the game itself.

So I drifted.

As hockey consumed more of my attention, I had an epiphany: why couldn’t I apply some of what I learned from baseball to hockey? So I did, right in this very space.

I wrote about how the Capitals wouldn’t be scoring as much after 2009-10 because they had a ton of puck luck that year. I wrote about how Ovechkin’s scoring would decline and his contract would be an albatross around this organization’s neck for years to come.

I wrote about what we could expect from Mathieu Perreault and Eric Fehr.

I moved on to other outlets and kept writing about the numbers. Always the numbers. Never the game. And then I realized: the numbers are wrong. #fancystats are a sham. A lifeforce-sucking, mood-dampening, hypocritical sham. Stats may fill column inches, but they will never tell you about a player’s heart. Ultimately, they just get in the way of what the sport really is.

You can’t boil this game down to 1s and 0s. It isn’t played on a spreadsheet. You can’t know for certain that Minnesota wouldn’t make the playoffs because they had too much puck luck. You can’t know that a strong puck-possession team like Los Angeles would upset Vancouver in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. You can’t know that Ovechkin likely won’t score 60 goals again. And you can’t discount how much wanting to beat the other team plays into wins and losses.

And that’s the hard lesson I have learned: this game is won or lost from the heart. Not by scoring goals or outshooting the competition. Not by acronyms or Excel formulas, but by wanting it more than the other guy.

I know that now. And with more time to watch the games I am going to be looking for that player that gives 110 percent at just the right time in order to put his team over the top.

Just like I did as a child.

Follow Neil Greenberg at @ngreenberg on Twitter and Fancystats on Facebook.

#Chimdog. (Photo credit: Mitchell Layton)

Something just doesn’t seem right when you see Jason Chimera among the league leaders in goals scored.

Ryan Kesler's mystery leg muscle

You expect it from Ryan Kesler Phil Kessel, who has scored over 30 goals each of the last three years. He has three in the season’s first two games and a muscle on his thigh I don’t really think exists, but I digress.

(I obviously had Kesler’s dreamy, muscular thighs on the brain and meant Phil Kessel, but I’ll leave Mr. Thigh Muscle up for your enjoyment. — Neil)

You expect it from Anze Kopitar, who I felt was an instant MVP candidate the moment they acquired Mike Richards.

But when Chimera is ahead of Alex Ovechkin in goals scored, you know things are a little wacky.

Chimera, of course, is not really known for his finishing ability. He’s a speedy, third line winger with an average shooting percentage of 7.8 percent over the past two seasons.

And no, Chimera will probably not be a 20-goal scorer.

Chimera has scored 101 goals on 1095 shots over his career. That means we can be reasonably sure (95%) that his shooting “talent” is between 7.5 and 10.9 percent. At this talent level he would need to take between 183 and 266 shots (two to three per game) over the course of an 82-game season to finish with 20 goals. He has averaged 161 shots the past two seasons.

It’s doubtful he continues at a five shot-per-night pace, but it is likely he ends up around two shots per game, which would mean he needs to be at the upper level of his finishing talent to have a shot at 20 goals scored.

Overall, I put his chances at 3.2% to be at 20 goals or more so enjoy Beast Mode while it lasts, Chimdog.

Photo credit: Greg Fiume

The hard part is over. Mathieu Perreault led the Capitals with five points in four preseason games and snatched the final roster spot from favorites Cody Eakin and Mattias Sjogren.

Last season he showed the ability to drive puck possession, finishing with the fourth best Corsi relative to the competition on the team, behind only Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Alexander Semin.

Consistency, however, was a bigger issue. He earned all fourteen of his points in just nine of his 35 games played and wasn’t able to claim a center spot that was up for grabs.

But it’s a new year, and with Boudreau giving Matty P some time up top with Ovechkin and Troy Brouwer– plus hinting he may center the second line, it’s now time to turn our attention to what we can expect from him in his third NHL season.

Using Perreault’s NHL stats to match him with players who had comparable production at the same age, we can then use the development of those peers to generate a projection for 2011-12. Stats are normalized to the 2010-11 season, so they can be compared on a level playing field despite being in different eras.

Although he is frequently compared to Tampa Bay Lightning forward Martin St. Louis because of his size, Perreault’s statistical peer group includes Joel Lundqvist, Milan Kraft, Patrick Thoresen, and even Patrick Sharp, among others. As you can see, the group is a decent match for Perreault’s sophomore season:

The development curve of these similar players show Perreault will get better in year three. The peer group saw more ice time, took more shots and increased their scoring by 47 percent, mostly by doubling their assist count.

That would make sense. Skating on one of the top two lines, which is most likely where Perreault will see a majority of his time, would make him more of a set-up man to one of the Russian snipers.

In games played, the projection is a bit more optimistic. It is doubtful Perreault suits up for half the season, but if he does, expect him to produce seven goals and 14 assists over 44 games. An improvement, but not enough to claim a full time role with a Cup-caliber team.

Photo credit: Richard Wolowicz

Head coach Bruce Boudreau is not shying away from having Marcus Johansson center Alex Ovechkin on the top line, so it’s time to put the sophomore Swede under the microscope. Specifically, what can fans expect him to produce in his second season?

Last year, without any NHL history to guide us, centers who played more than 20 games at the age of 20 as a rookie told us it’s reasonable to expect Johansson to play 58 games and register 31 points in his first season. Johansson ended up scoring 13 goals and 14 assists for 27 points in 69 games.

This time, we will use Johansson’s actual NHL stats to match him with players who had comparable production at the same age and then use the development of those peers to generate a projection for 2011-12. Stats are normalized to the 2010-11 season so they can be compared on a level playing field despite being in different eras.

Although he is frequently compared to Washington’s other Swedish center, Nicklas Backstrom, Johansson’s statistical peer group includes Henrik Sedin, Martin Hanzal, and Nikolai Antropov, among others. As you can see, the group is a pretty close match for Johansson’s rookie season:

Almost identical down the line, including Puck Prospectus’ goals versus threshold, which is the value of a player, in goals, above what a replacement player would have contributed.

Even after a solid rookie season, the peer group shows Johansson will get better in year two. Similar players increased their scoring by 12.5 percent and a third of those doubled their GVT the following year.

The big difference, of course, could be in Johansson’s linemates. Centering Ovechkin and Alexander Semin can put the young Swede into the upper bracket of his peer group’s production, leading to a more optimistic projection. But even that would be only a slight improvement to his boxcar stats.

That projection may look low based on Johansson’s performance in the second half of the season, but even if we take a 40-game moving average of his scoring (playoffs included), he still only maxed out to a 43-point pace over an 82-game season.

After a sluggish start, Johansson began to improve game-by-game and by the All-Star break was showing the poise and talent that justified Washington selecting him in the first round of the 2009 entry draft. However, a breakthrough season seems to be at least another year away.

Before Moneyball (the book, not the movie), there was Bill James.

For those of you who may not know, James is the grandfather of Sabermetrics (baseball #fancystats) and is currently a senior advisor on baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox.

Part of my personal #fancystats book collection

He began writing The Bill James Baseball Abstract in 1977 which was “the first of its kind to scientifically analyze and study baseball, often through the use of statistical data, in an attempt to determine why teams win and lose.”

Luckily, Hockey Prospectus is there to carry the torch into the Moneypuck era.

Since I got their inaugural copy last year I have been waiting for Hockey Prospectus to make their 2011-12 annual available. Finally, I got to download it last week.

For those not familiar, the book is, for the most part, an in-depth analysis of each NHL team. It certainly has a #fancystats element to it, so those who love stats will enjoy it. But make no mistake: this is for anyone interested increasing their knowledge of hockey, sounding smarter on Twitter or just as a guideline for expectations for the 2011-12 season.

For example, here’s a look at some of the Washington Capitals content:

 This team is pretty loaded with offensive talent, and just needs to take advantage of it. For instance, the second-best player in the world, Alexander Ovechkin, cannot possibly be worse than he was last season, can he? Expect the most physically dominant player in the world to at least eclipse 45 goals next season.

His linemate Nicklas Backstrom did not have an impressive season or playoff campaign. Some suspected Backstrom was playing with the weight of his contract extension on his shoulders, which may be true, but he also faced tougher competition and was put in less favorable offensive situations. Combine that with his poor shooting percentage, and it is at least a partial explanation for his offensive totals. With some favorable bounces, and increased intensity (he lost a lot of puck battles during the playoffs, seemingly looking lazy at times), there is no reason he should not bounce back to be a top NHL scorer.

There are also projections for every player. Here is friend of the blog Andrew Gordon’s who hopes to catch on with Anahaim:

I even used their VUKOTA projections to draft in my ESPN league.

And lastly, there are some great essays, including revisiting Corsi, Timo Seppa’s Ultimate Faceoff Percentage and how age affects a player’s development.

The PDF version is $10 bucks (also available on Amazon) and is money well spent. Just think, you’ll be able to tell people “before Moneypuck, there was Hockey Prospectus.”

Anze Kopitar celebrates a goal last year against the Blackhawks. (Photo credit: Harry How)

Editor’s note: You can win a 1-year subscription to ESPN Insider and a $25 gift certificate to Front Page VA by guessing Neil’s first two draft picks tonight. Check out the details on our Facebook page.

As part of ESPN.com’s NHL family, I was invited to participate in their fantasy hockey draft this past Tuesday. Just me and guys like Craig Custance, John Buccigross, and Scott Cullen.

No pressure.

Victoria Matiash has already given a bird’s eye view of the draft, but I thought I would run through my thought process on various picks and give you some ideas for your fantasy draft. Plus, you can see how I do for the season because we are making the results public.

Here were the ground rules for the draft:

Participants included, in original order, Craig Custance, Tristan Cockcroft, Tim Kavanagh, John Buccigross, Pierre Becquey, Michael Hume, Victoria Matiash, Neil Greenberg, Sean Allen and Scott Cullen. Categories include goals, assists, power-play points, plus/minus, penalty minutes, shots on goal and average time on ice for skaters and wins, save percentage and goals-against average for goaltenders. Slots to fill include nine forwards, five defensemen, one “utility” skater, two goaltenders and a five-man bench.

My philosophy was simple: grab young, healthy, talented players with upside. Let others worry if Patrick Kane would be healthy or if Sergei Kostitsyn can once again score 20 goals on less than 100 shots.

I had the eight pick. With my editor Mike Hume drafting before me (he knows which players I fancy) and Cullen having back-to-back picks behind me I knew I had to make strategic decisions.

Not surprisingly, Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, and Daniel Sedin went in the first three picks. Hume knows I think Corey Perry was no fluke, so the chances of him dropping to me were nil. That left me with Anze Kopitar (who I think will contend for the Art Ross) or Henrik Lundqvist as my first pick. Luckily for me, I got both of them.

My third choice was also an easy one: Duncan Keith. His boxcar stats may have fallen, but he is as fundamentally sound as he has ever been, and he remains my preseason favorite for another Norris-caliber performance.

My next pick caused some raised eyebrows:

Also noteworthy was Greenberg’s choice of Jeff Skinner ahead of Eric Staal. Ranked higher in ESPN.com’s projections, the captain of the Carolina Hurricanes is expected to put up superior numbers across the board. But obviously, Greenberg preferred to put his fantasy faith in the reigning Calder Trophy winner.

Fantasy hockey is about looking forward. While there is no doubt Eric Staal is a 70-point player, Jeff Skinner is (conservatively) a 60-point player who could put up over 70 points next year. So I got a player who may put up five points less or 10-15 points more than Eric Staal. In a rotisserie league with hockey geniuses it was worth the gamble, in my opinion.

I struggled with my fifth pick a little. I had Phil Kessel, John Tavares, and Loui Eriksson queued up but pulled the trigger on Kessel, thinking that one or both of the others would be there for me on my next picks.

I was right about Loui Eriksson, who I took with my sixth pick, but not Tavares, who went three picks before me in round seven.

With Tavares and Matt Duchene off the board, both of whom I think can post 30 goals in 2011-12, I decided to shore up my goaltending and took Jimmy Howard.

A quick note on goaltenders: I only considered drafting Henrik Lundqvist, Pekka Rinne, Cam Ward, Jimmy Howard, or Corey Crawford. Why? Too long to explain here, but I did some analysis on when goaltenders have their breakout season based on age and experience and these five fit the bill. I did the same thing last year and had only two goaltenders on my list: Pekka Rinne and Cam Ward.

In round eight I took Joe Pavelski, which was a solid pick there and then my first miscalculation of the draft came at the hands of Scott Cullen.

I feel Jamie Benn is this year’s sleeper. I think he has 30-goal potential and could end up surprising many people. With my ninth pick I took Evander Kane, thinking Benn would slip past another four picks. Nope.

Cullen: “I’ve been touting Jamie Benn going back to the second half of last year, when his ice time went up dramatically; he’s been my preferred pick as a breakthrough/sleeper forward since. So, by the ninth round, when I had already addressed all my positions to some degree, it felt right to take a young player that has a chance at 70 points. “

If you have a chance to pick up Benn in your league, do it.

Right now. I’ll wait.

It will be him and Eriksson that pick up the slack left by Brad Richard’s departure, not Michael Ryder. In the draft room Hume asked how many of Benn’s goals the last two years came via a Brad Richards primary assist. One. And Richards had only one secondary assist the year before that. Benn is the real deal.

I took Alex Pietrangelo after I misjudged the “sleepiness” of Benn. The D corps looked to be thinning after Dion Phaneuf and James Wisniewski were taken off the board, so I grabbed Pietrangelo. “Good for 45 points, I think he’s a solid fantasy pick.”

Next picks were unremarkable, but ones I believe have some big upside: Erik Karlsson, Tyler Ennis, Patric Hornqvist, Tyler Kennedy, Mikael Backlund, Patrik Berglund, Jakub Voracek and Nathan Gerbe.

I did have two moments of weakness where I got homesick and drafted Dennis Wideman (15th round) and Brooks Laich (20th round).

So there you have it. Be sure to check out how I am doing from time to time. Also, if you would have drafted differently or just want to comment on the draft in general, let us know in the comments.

Photo credit: Bruce Bennett

Nicklas Backstrom and Alex Ovechkin, who spent much of the past two seasons on a line together, may have broken up.

Boudreau hasn’t officially announced anything, but he has put Marcus Johansson, Washington’s first round pick in 2009, on the Capitals’ top line with Alex Ovechkin for nearly a week of practice. This would seemingly set the stage to have Nicklas Backstrom on the second line with Alex Semin.

It would give the Capitals, who have two Swedes who could theoretically anchor either one of Washington’s top two lines, an effective scoring unit to put out immediately after a penalty kill while leveraging a potent combination for Washington over these past three years.

By looking at how the pair did in close games (the game is tied or within 1 goal in the first and second periods or tied in the third period) together and apart these past three years, we can see that it is a smart decision. Restricting the data to only 5v5 play when the score is close removes any score effects since teams will play differently when they are either trailing or leading.  Data courtesy of hockeyanalysis.com.

When skating with Alex Semin, Backstrom has been on the ice for 1.4 goals-for per 20 minutes of 5v5 play. They have also seen 56 percent of all shots directed at net go in their favor. Apart, they are on the ice for about a third fewer goals. Backstrom and Ovechkin see only one goal per 20 minutes, almost 24 percent less than when Ovechkin is apart from Backstrom.

The pairing of Semin and Backstrom is also more efficient. They score on 6.2 percent of all shots directed at net, compared to only 4.5 percent when the Swede is paired with Ovechkin.

No matter how Boudreau assembles his lines this season, it’s one of the things to like about the team this season: You’d be confident with any of the two pivots starting on the top line the first game.

Photo credit: Chris Gordon

A 24-year-old Mike Knuble, then a promising forward prospect, played nine games for the Detroit Red Wings during the 1996-97 season.

Players who were still playing during Knuble’s first season in the NHL include Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek, Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Mark Messier, Dino Ciccarelli, Brian Leetch, Grant Fuhr, and Ron Hextall.

Just days after Knuble’s first game, Phil Collins announced that he was leaving Genesis to focus on his solo career, M.C. Hammer wasn’t yet bankrupt, and it would be months before The Daily Show debuts on Comedy Central.

I guess what I am trying to say is Knuble is old getting up there in years, but don’t tell him that.

“I’m out there playing for another deal,” he said. “I’m not riding off into the sunset. I want to make that point clear to everybody. This is no farewell song.”

I agree with him, but it is one of the last tracks on a darn good Greatest Hits album.

Players like Knuble who are productive over the age of 35 tend to keep their production rates in the league relatively stable as they age. Knuble was also a late bloomer: He had averaged eight goals per season his first three years and has almost tripled that production in his last three.

Using wingers who played at 39 years old post-lockout, we can make an educated guess on Knuble’s production for 2011-12. I will caution you that the entire player pool from which to draw from is limited, containing only Bill Guerin, Brendan Shanahan, Mark Recchi, and Teemu Selanne.

Using these players as a guide, we can speculate that Knuble will play 75 games, score 34 points (21 G and 13A) while taking 188 shots on goal.

Here are some probabilities for goals and point scored:

“It’s going to be a challenging year, definitely, with more competition,” cautioned Knuble. “Nothing is guaranteed.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Photo credit: Greg Fiume

Alex Ovechkin, who will turn 26 this year, is a special player. Indisputable. Full stop.

The Great 8 has won the Calder Memorial Trophy (best NHL rookie), the Art Ross (most points), two Harts (MVP) that beat as one, two Richards (most goals), and three Ted Lindsay Awards (best player voted by peers). He has also been named to seven NHL All-Star teams.

But that doesn’t mean he is a lock to score 50 goals ever again.

Eighty seven players have scored 50 goals in the modern era. And only half of them did it more than once. Ovechkin is also one of only 12 active players remaining who have hit the mark.

Quite a few of them did it early, with two-thirds having their first 50-goal season before age 25. More than a third performed the feat before turning 22, but only 7 percent managed to score 50 after age 26.

It is a pretty steep decline after age 25, a trend that has continued post-lockout.

Here’s another number: one. That’s how many players scored 50 goals last season.

Since the lockout, there has been a decline in scoring. Most of that is due to fewer power play opportunities, thus fewer power play goals scored.

This is why– even if Ovechkin posts a season under 50 goals– it is not a disappointment nor an indication he is any less spectacular.

It just means that at age 26, in this scoring climate, the odds weren’t in his favor.

(Photo credit: Bruce Bennett)

Matt Hendricks did a lot of the “dirty work” for the Capitals last season. He led Washington with 14 fights- four more than Matt Bradley and only six fewer than the entire team had during the 2009-10 season. His 169 hits were second on the team only to Alex Ovechkin.

So where does he want to improve his game? Scoring, naturally.

“I had nine goals goals my first year in the NHL with Colorado,” Matt Hendricks told Tarik El-Bashir. “I played 56 games that year. Last year, I played in 77 games and had nine goals. I need to figure out a way to get over that hump.”

Is that a “hump” or are you just happy to see me the apex of his scoring ability?

As Hendricks said, he has never had more than 9 goals in either of his two full NHL seasons. During the 2009-10 season he needed an above average shooting percentage (14.3%) to get there and last year he needed almost twice the amount of shots. He can “fine tune his accuracy” and work on “hunting down and putting back rebounds” all he wants, but on a line that generates approximately four to five even-strength shots per game it is unlikely there will be much to work with.

Hendricks also doesn’t get any power-play time. Sure, something could happen during his 18 seconds per game with the man advantage, but I doubt it will be significant.

Since the lockout there have been 544 skaters who have played 40 games or more but averaged less than 12 min per night. Almost three-fourths of those scored less than 14 points for the season.

Over the past five years the average fourth liner has scored 11 points, plus or minus 7. Hendricks scored 25 points last year, putting him in the 96th percentile of fourth liners.

The truth is we have most likely seen Hendricks produce the most that could reasonably be expected out of a fourth line player.