How good is Hemsky?

The topic of Ales Hemsky's status amongst the top players in this league has been debated a lot this summer. Not only is he the Oilers best player, but he's someone you got to love for his great skill, fluidity, and zeal to go at it regardless of what is being thrown at him.

A lot of people think Hemsky has 100-point potential, and I don't disagree, but I don't think we should be thriving on something as subjective as potential when talking about an established 25-year old player like Hemsky.

Let's talk about how he did last season stacked up against some comparable players, as well as some of the superstars of this league.

It's pretty easy to look at the overall point totals and rank Hemsky with the Brieres and Frolovs of the league. But once you take into account games played, minutes played, quality of competition and teammates (QC and QT), and breakdown of minutes played, Hemsky emerges in a completely different light (all this thanks to Desjardins)

Even Strength
Hemsky played the entire season on the first line, but had to put up with an entire half-season alongside Marty Reasoner and an out-of-shape, inconsistent Dustin Penner. He was the only legit first-line player on the team when Horcoff was out, yet managed to put up some respectable numbers along the way.
QC: 0.08
QT: 0.08
ESP/60: 2.36

Let's look at some other guys in the league that Hemsky gets compared to:

Name	QC	QT	ΔQ	ESP/60
Ales Hemsky	0.08	0.08	0	2.36
Martin Havlat	0	0.25	0.25	2.61
Marc Savard	0.1	0.15	0.05	2.32
Patrick Kane	0.02	0.36	0.34	2.32
Ryan Getzlaf	-0.04	0.32	0.36	2.26
Eric Staal	0.07	0	-0.07	2.24
Mike Richards	0.05	0.11	0.06	2.21
Marion Gaborik	0.04	0.1	0.06	2.77
Daniel Sedin	-0.01	0.14	0.15	2.09
Rick Nash	0.08	0.06	-0.02	2.01
Alexander Frolov	-0.04	0.09	0.13	2.76

Anze Kopitar

0.02

-0.06

-0.08

1.86

The ΔQ is a denomination I kind of invented here to show the advantage/disadvantage gained by these players through the difference between their QC and QT. As you see, Hemsky not only does better than most of these players, but he does it without the significant advantage they have.
Let's compare Hemsky to some of the superstars of this league.

Name	QC	QT	ΔQ	ESP/60
Ales Hemsky	0.08	0.08	0	2.36
Sidney Crosby	0.03	0.22	0.19	3.38
Evgeni Malkin	0.05	0.2	0.15	3.20
Alexander Ovechkin	0.03	0.37	0.34	3.00
Vincent Lecavalier	0.13	0.02	-0.11	2.42
Joe Thornton	-0.04	0.4	0.36	2.84
Martin St. Louis	0.11	-0.05	-0.16	2.03
Jarome Iginla	0.04	0.03	0.34	2.85
Marian Hossa	0.04	0.15	0.11	2.07
Henrik Zetterberg	0.13	0.56	0.43	2.83
Pavel Datsyuk	0.09	0.49	0.40	2.76

Something we see here is that a lot of these players get a ridiculous advantage with the ΔQ thanks to playing with other legit first-line linemates and defenders. There's no way we can compare him to the elite-3 (Malkin, Crosby, Ovechkin), but it's interesting to see how his offensive production can be compared to the likes of Zetterberg, Iginla, Datsyuk, and Thornton, who all capitalize upon an enormous advantage via the ΔQ to put up higher ESP/60. Another thing to note is how Hemsky has managed to usurp the likes of Hossa and St. Louis in terms of overall offensive effeciency at ES.

I think Hemsky has hit a level that puts him above the perennial 70-80 point scorers of the league when it comes to ES production. He's not ready to ride with the home-run hitters atop the leader board, but he's definitely up there with the 90 point scorers like Iginla, Thornton, and Datsyuk when you consider the ΔQ.
I think the biggest problem is Hemsky doesn't get enough ES time, something that has happened each season since the lockout. The aforementioned players really eat up the big minutes at ES with their respective clubs, and I think it's something we really need to look into for Hemsky. It'll not only help to lower his QC (other teams' shutdown pairings need a break, too), but will give him more chances to translate his great ESP/60 into higher totals in the points column.

Power Play
Here we hit Hemsky's specialty. Hemsky was the lone bright spot on an otherwise atrocious Oilers PP last season. He suffered through the losses of Horcoff and Souray for extended amounts of time, but managed to turn it up in the 2nd half of the year. We're not going to get any QC/QT values here, but I think it's safe to say Hemsky didn't have any significant advantages over other guys in the league in terms of QC considering the sorry state of the Oilers PP last year.
Here again are the guys we called "comparables" to Hemsky.

Name	PPP/60
Ales Hemsky	5.93
Martin Havlat	2.25
Marc Savard	5.57
Patrick Kane	4.62
Ryan Getzlaf	5.83
Eric Staal	4.57
Mike Richards	4.46
Marion Gaborik	5.46
Daniel Sedin	4.87
Rick Nash	4.55
Alexander Frolov	3.33
Anze Kopitar	5.87

Hemsky easily wins out here, playing on a significantly lesser powerplay than these guys did.
Now, the superstars:

Name	PPP/60
Ales Hemsky	5.93
Sidney Crosby	5.02
Evgeni Malkin	5.13
Alexander Ovechkin	4.55
Vincent Lecavalier	4.51
Joe Thornton	4.13
Martin St. Louis	4.79
Jarome Iginla	5.37
Marian Hossa	3.98
Henrik Zetterberg	5.20
Pavel Datsyuk	5.74

Hemsky trounces all of these guys in terms of powerplay point production. In fact, after Kovalev, Forsberg, Lehtinen, and Morrison, he was the 5th most effective powerplay forward in the league (even more impressive is that he and Kovalev were the only 2 to play more than 70 games).
Hemsky adds substance to what would otherwise be a bottom-5 PP in the league. Last year, Kovalev had a great supporting cast with Markov, Plekanec, and Kostitsyn to play with. Hemsky didn't have anywhere near the kind of talent to play with, but still put up all-star calibre numbers.
I wouldn't be surprised to see Hemsky get double-shifted in some games on the PP next season in order to improve the overall output of both units.

Summary
It's not hard to tell that Hemsky is one of the most offensively-gifted players in the league. He has shown amazing output in terms of ESP/60 and PPP/60, making him at least a top-15 player in the league when it comes to production in these situations. The problem that I see is that MacTavish is running a tight ship right now, and is not willing to hand out minutes like other teams are to their superstars. Hemsky rarely gets more than 18-19 minutes a game (compared to 21+ for a lot of the others), but has managed to put up amazing numbers regardless.

I think if Hemsky is going to take that next step, he's going to have to get more minutes. He has never shown signs of exhaustion in the past, and I think it's time for Mac-T to disregard any potential defensive troubles that arise with Hemsky on the ice, and look at what the team gains offensively with his presence. He should even consider trying him on the PK just to see how it goes (hey, even Ryan Smyth learned to become an effective penalty killer)

Now, I don't know the validity of Desjardins, but I've seen many other bloggers put out some legitimate arguments using these numbers. Regardless, I think it's safe to say that in Hemsky, the Oilers have an elite-level player who is ready to break out given the opportunity to do so.