New way of acquiring stats in Liiga, Finland

[gritdash60]

These days all stats in Finland are provided by Wisehockey, that uses the new tracking technology. Chip in the puck etc.

I was wondering how this will affect the NHL Draft numbers of Finnish players and/or other leagues interest in the long run, if it even will.

A copypaste of a post i just posted in the Finnish Liiga thread:

"Wonder if the changes to stats will affect the NHL drafting numbers and/or interest on players and goalies from other countries. As people probably know, wisehockey provides the stats these days. So for example goalies will get less saves on their stats, since if a puck is going 2cm wide off the net it doesn't count as a save. I assume same goes for shots. So for example when player shoots the puck 2cm wide, and the goalie saves it, it doesn't count as a shot nor a save.

I think this has biggest effect on goalies SV%.

Example from todays games, after 35minutes of play Kalpa's goalie has 4 saves and Tappara's goalie has 8 saves."
Updated: after 40minutes of play saves are; Kalpa: 6, Tappara 10.


Then some numbers i gathered from various news articles:

Average amount of shots by year in Liiga:
2018-2019: 52,9 shots per game
2019-2020: 51,3 shots per game
2020-2021: 50,5 shots per game
2021-2022: 50,7 shots per game
2022-2023: 45,7 shots per game (after 84 games)

Average shots on net, with distance from the net in meters:

	0-5m	5-10m	10-15m	15-20m	20-25m	Over 25m
2019–20	16,0​	20,3​	24,0​	23,9​	3,6​	1,4​
2020–21	15,3​	20,9​	24,2​	23,1​	3,6​	1,4​
2021–22	15,6​	20,2​	23,2​	23,7​	3,7​	1,7​
2022–23	5,7​	13,1​	25,7​	27,6​	10,4​	4,3​

Average distance of shots by year:
2019-2020: 11,7meters
2020-2021: 11,7meters
2021-2022: 11,8meters
2022-2023: 14,9meters (after 84 games)

Average blocked shots per game by year:

2019-2020: 8,0
2020-2021: 8,7
2021-2022: 8,0
2022-2023: 19,2 (after 84 games)

Coaches have not liked this new way of gathering stats, Wisehockey commented that "It's way more reliable in the long run than the human eye"

What do you guys think, is this better or worse than counting the stats by human eye? Also ofcourse are stats we get these days that humans couldn't track, like for example the amount of distance skated by a player, or speed.

What if there is for example a point shot that is going to miss just by a hair, but the goalie grabs it in his glove anyway. Should that count as a save? IMO it should.


Edit: this technology was used by some teams last season as well, but i believe this is the first season every team/arena uses Wisehockey.

Click to read more...

 

[gritdash60]

Copypaste from another thread that probably summaries my take on this:

Heheh, i live 2kilometers (why are you talking about miles, cmon my man) from the office. And i have not applied for a job and never will. I don't think they are interested on the actual stats part, they just provide the tracking technology and raw stats. It's on Liiga and/or teams to do the deeper dive on the data they get, And, the way i see it is you can't get reliable stats from them, unless you have a human confirming it.

Getting rid of all the people counting stats by hand is a major mistake, because their model has so many flaws. A defender trying to ice the puck from behind the net, who happens to get it towards the opponents net gets a shot on his stats, and the goalie gets a save. Meanwhile a onetimer from the slot which is going a hair wide that the goalie grabs, won't net a shot nor a save for them. The things i like to see from wisehockey are the things that cannot be measured by human eye, like for example total distance covered by skaters, or the fastest skater.

To me its completely nuts to only rely on this new technology, and get rid of human eye. I 100% think every goalie in Liiga will have worse stats because of this, i just hope it doesn't affect their careers.

 

[gritdash60]

Would you like all tracking style stats in the NHL?

 

[Mickey Marner]

I’m not sure how this micro-analysis of shots improves anything. A goalie can’t tell in real-time if a 90 km/h shot is going 2cm wide, so he’s going to try to save it. We’re certainly not going to suggest that he doesn’t try to save it next time, so the fact that it would have missed is useless information.

Reminds me of offside reviews. The fact that we need slow-motion instant-replay to review offsides means the rule is working exactly as intended.

If something can’t be observed in real time then it’s of no use to anyone because the game is played in real time.