Page 70 of Hard to Get

“Okay, that I get.”

“These are the results for the top ten offensive players in the league.”

I scan over the list. “Yeah, I’d agree with that.”

“All of it?”

“Is it weird that there’s a defenceman on there?”

She smiles. “Not weird, but interesting.”

“Okay, also Burckhalter. That surprises me.”

She nods and scrolls with her mouse. “Here are the top ten defensive players in the league for OPM.”

I review these also and nod, frowning.

“And here’s DPM. We exclude players that play less than seven hundred minutes. We also had to exclude goalies, because they all had incredibly high scores, partly because they play so many minutes.”

“So… why do defencemen have lower ratings than forwards? That doesn’t seem right.”

“Good question! It does look like forwards contribute more to defence per sixty minutes of ice time than defencemen do, but look at how small the difference is. It’s likely due to noise.”

“Noise?”

“That’s… uh, unwanted, random variations or errors.”

“Okay, got it.”

“This is the top ten defencemen in APM.”

“I’m on that list,” he says slowly. “In last spot.” He grimaces.

“Yeah. This is what I wanted to show you. This metric is independent of your teammates and opponents.”

“This is gonna sound creeptastic, but… I am so hot for you right now.”

She turns and gives me big eyes. “Uh…”

“Sorry. Can’t help myself.”

“I… okay.” She tucks her hair behind one ear, her cheeks the colour of bubble gum.

Her discomfort is almost funny. Maybe she’s only used to being complimented for her looks? I mean, she’s gorgeous, too. But she’s way more than that.

“So the next step is to look at what you can do to improve those scores.” She’s ignoring my creepiness.

“Right.”

She reaches across the desk and picks up some papers stapled together. “I printed out some of the specifics. I thought you might want to read it over on your own and give it all some thought.”

“Sure.” I take the papers without looking at them. I’d rather look at her. “I’ll do that. Thank you.” I lean in closer and brush my mouth over hers. “You put a lot of work into this. I really do appreciate it.”

“Do you?” Her eyelids are heavy.

I sigh. “Yeah. It’s never fun having all your weaknesses pointed out. But it’s not like I didn’t know them.”

“I think with a few specific things to work on, you’ll have a practical, focused plan.”