Fergie, thumbs up for finding this. I love seeing published stuff on statistical analysis in hockey.
However, as a statistician, I was hoping to find something a little more detailed and rigourous. The authors\' sample sizes were limited (2005-06 players only), and multivariate analyses could have been more revealing. Not enough info is provided to critically assess the strength of their findings (e.g. no R-squares provided for regressions).
For those of you too busy to download and read the authors\' 4 brief pdf\'s on this topic, let me summarize their findings for you here:
Generally, forwards and goalies need about 4 years of NHL experience to reach their prime. Defencemen need 6 years. Goalies (in their limited sample anyway) experienced surprising dips in their save% (the only stat they studied) in their 8th and 13th years. The study season\'s 34 top enforcers\' PIMs/game were shown to be slightly negatively correlated with years of experience.
These guys are physicists first and hockey fans second. Their other stuff on physics in hockey is better.
This takes the cake though:
http://www.thephysicsofhockey.com/video/chelios.wmv
Check out Samuel L. Jackson as Chelios\'s coach.