Melbourne Ice winger Austin Albrecht is undoubtedly one of the very best players in the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL). Recently he set the record for the least games to put up 100 AIHL points, and has 44 points in the 12 games since he arrived in Melbourne. While the Ice are still flying, sitting equal top of the league, they have looked more vulnerable in recent weeks.

This article, unabashedly stolen from the insights provided on commentary by Eric Balnar over the weekend, poses the ridiculous question – is the AIHL’s best player making his team worse?

Melbourne Ice BAA (Before Austin Albrecht)

Throw your mind back just over a month ago, to May 12th. The Ice had just beaten the Canberra Brave for the third game in a row, taking their ninth-straight win to start the season, and about to set a club record winning streak. The only points the Ice had dropped was courtesy of a shootout win in Canberra, and were steamrolling teams with an average goal differential of a full 4.0 goals per game, and putting up over 16 more shots per game than their opponents. The addition of yellow to the jersey helps Joey Hughes make the return to Melbourne, and the Ice are dominant.

This is when the Ice added a player coming off a 2023 AIHL season that saw 76 points in 19 games – a cool 4 points per game for the (then) CBR Brave. So, like a large purple comic-book character, there would be no stopping the Ice as they gathered the latest shiny object in their collection.

At this point, the Ice are averaging 5.8 goals per game, and keeping their opponents to only 1.8. The powerplay is humming along at 31.6%, good enough for 3rd in the league and they’re about to add their trump card.

Melbourne Ice WAA (with Austin Albrecht)

Albrecht joined the Ice, and they only got better with his almost 3.6 points per game, sailing off into the sunset so convincingly, they already engraved the Goodall Cup.

Okay, maybe they didn’t.

How has the performance of the Ice changed? Overall, they are collecting less points – Table 1 shows the Ice went from taking 96.3% of the points before his arrival, to a truly terrible 75.0% – worse than only themselves, and the Bears.

Table 1: Melbourne Ice points percentage with and without Austin Albrecht

So, the Ice didn’t win everything since Albrecht arrived – but still won a lot.

What about scoring?

Since his arrival, the Ice have actually scored a little less – which is surprising. Figure 1 shows that the Ice declined from 5.8 goals per game to 5.4 – a small decrease overall. Part of this is the Ice are shooting considerably less – falling by 6.4 shots per game after Albrecht’s arrival.

Figure 1: Melbourne Ice’s goals scored and goals allowed per game – with and without Austin Albrecht

The bigger change, however, has been at the other end of the ice. Opponents have scored an extra 1.4 goals per game, on the back of an extra 5.3 shots per game. Combined, this means the Ice’s goal difference moved from +4.000 per game, to +2.250 per game.

Special teams

The story on special teams stands out – something Eric pointed out on commentary over the weekend as well. As mentioned above, pre-Albrecht Ice had a powerplay running at 31.6%, and since his arrival this has fallen to 19.7% – below league average (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Melbourne Ice’s special teams performance – with and without Austin Albrecht

The other side of special teams is a very different picture- the Ice penalty kill is actually improved since Albrecht got here. Clearly he is a candidate for the AIHL equivalent of the Selke – and that is where the focus is. Really, don’t all hockey players aspire to be Jay McClement and collect first place Selke votes like they’re going out of fashion?

So, is Albrecht making the Ice worse?

Of course he isn’t – and that isn’t something anyone has seriously claimed. Nine other AIHL teams would happily fit him into their rosters.

I have mentioned Eric Balnar a couple of times here, and he was very clear when he talked about it – the idea that adding someone who might be the best player in the AIHL to a team, does not make it worse.

Something else has happened though. The Ice got on the road. After the first nine games saw only the trip to Canberra, the Ice have had 3 home games in the 12 Albrecht has played, plus one derby hosted by the Mustangs. The other 8 games have been at the end of flights – and the Ice’s away record is weaker than their home one (see Figure 3), for a range of reasons.

Figure 3: Melbourne Ice home vs away goals scored and allowed

Chief amongst these reasons is roster availability. Some of the Ice’s guns (Hughes, Webster, Bourke to pick three) have families at home and aren’t always available for a trip away. On top of this was the 6 game suspension to Joakim Erdugan.

This has led to greater concentration in scoring. Without Albrecht, the Ice’s top three scorers (Hughes, Erdugan and Webster) had 41.5% of the team’s points. With Albrecht, the top three (Albrecht, Caruana, Kraemer) have 53.1%. Secondary scoring hasn’t quite been there for the Ice lately – at least like it was earlier in the season. Albrecht himself has a point on 67.7% of Ice goals since he arrived.

Should the Ice dump Albrecht?

Yes, they should, definitely. Signed, nine other teams.

This article has been mostly some nonsense – but I do want to thank Eric Balnar for his insight into looking at this, it has been fun to dig into.