I think there's a big difference between advanced stats in baseball and in hockey. The ones in baseball are easily understandable. I mean honestly i did engineering math in university. Probability and stats for engineer. Engineering math 1 and 2. Etc ...Some advanced stats in hockey leave me baffled. Like WHAT? WTF is that. WTF is "chances de marquer de haut niveau de l'enclave suite à une relance de l'attaque d'un défenseur" or things like that? How do you define "haut niveau"? How do you define "chances de marquer"? How do you define "une relance de l'attaque"? Is dumping the puck considered one? There's so many gray areas it's puzzling anyone would consider that worthwhile. I mean i almost do not exaggerate here. Some of them really are esoteric. There's way too many subjectivity in some of those.
Things like WHIP or runner left in scoring position with 2 outs or on base % or slugging % are not subjective at all. They are understandable and you can quantify them without any subjectivity.
I used to love baseball and ate those stats as snack-food. You're right -- even with all its rules, baseball's an easier sport to quantify, mostly because the majority of actions are showdowns between two people. Pitcher v. hitter; hitter v. fielder; fielder & another fielder. In most cases one player is reacting to another player, with nobody else in the way. Hockey's the opposite -- there are multiple players in the way of every pass and shot.
For that reason I think the best way to approach hockey analytics is in aggregates, rather than individual samples. Advanced stats gives a fair illustration of how a team is coached and how it's trending. You want to see high possession stats for a team, even if you can't always tell how effective the individual shots are. You want a lower PDO, even if it means you lack actual shooting talent and your goaltending might suck. Those numbers won't tell you how any single player is doing, but as team stats they'll offer a rough outline of what system is being used. Our numbers were bad through most of Therrien's reign, starting to improve near his end and continuing under Julien, even through part of this awful season. Skaters were doing the right things; they just weren't good enough to execute properly. You saw the shift towards better coordination and less dump & chase; the problem remains a lack of talent.
I don't think we learn as much about any one player. Yeah, lots of Pacioretty's assists came from Markov and Subban, but labeling him a 'product' of those specific defensemen is very misleading. Couldn't we also say their assist-totals are a 'product' of Pacioretty's sharpshooting? If Max never scores 30 again, okay, but I don't think that's the case.
