GKJ
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- Feb 27, 2002
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http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-people-pushing-the-nhl-into-the-advanced-stats-era/
Eric Tulsky's first piece for 538 focuses on zone entry data and features Flyers defensemen pairing of Kimmo Timonen and Braydon Coburn.
Eric Tulsky's first piece for 538 focuses on zone entry data and features Flyers defensemen pairing of Kimmo Timonen and Braydon Coburn.
Opposing teams seem to be attacking Timonen’s side of the ice somewhat more often than Coburn’s. Through 70 games, it was 25 percent more common for Timonen’s man to attempt a zone entry when both Timonen and Coburn were on the ice together. There’s good reason for teams to stay away from Coburn: Opponents are 16 percent less likely to successfully carry the puck into the offensive zone when attacking his side of the ice — and more than twice as likely to see the play broken up altogether.
...
Coburn has clearly been the player helping the Flyers obtain possession at the defensive end. Without Schmidt, we wouldn’t know that with any accuracy because Coburn’s results have come from a collection of small plays, unrecorded in the box score and overlooked by most observers.
The magic of analytics is in recording all of the small things lost to memory that add up to something significant. As this sort of micro-tracking spreads and eventually becomes automated, we’ll get better and better at capturing and valuing the cumulative impact of these small plays. Once teams can easily access a season’s worth of data – along with zone exits, passing maps, shooting tendencies, defensive positioning and the rest of it — there will inevitably be significant changes in both evaluation and strategy.
