A question about shot/possession stats

[El_Loco_Avs]

Hey guys,

With last night's game as a prime example, people are pointing at the number of shots against being high as evidence of a terrible game.

The better team will usually have a high amount of shots/possession against a worse team. The strange thing we've learned in soccer is that, if the better team isn't doing very well (ie, they're trailing) ... that difference often gets BIGGER.
Example: Ajax last year often gets 60+% possession. They win most of their games.
The games with the highest possession however? They often lost or had to scramble to tie/win for most of the game. They press hard, but the defending team parks the bus, leading to lots of low quality chances.

Now for last night's game, the Avs couldn't have gone up 2-0 quicker than they did. It's just logical to me that the stat line is a result of a possession based team being behind all game. They'll start shooting it a lot, resulting in low quality chances mostly, if you're defending well enough. It's one of the things that made our stats 'look bad' last year too imo.

I'm not sure this translates to hockey 1 to 1 though. Anyone have insight?

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[tigervixxxen]

Yeah it's both. Avs aren't a good possession team on a good day but you are right that the Hawks couldn't have been thrown into desperation mode any faster. The shots were fairly even through the first and then after that they made a conscious effort to create as many shots as humanly possible. The Hawks are a good team and I'd expect them to outshoot us but we did hold them fairly low the last two times we played them. It's also like playing the Sharks where they have the philosophy to shoot as much as possible. The Avs don't do that, their method is quality over quantity even if they are a lower possession team, which just makes things look worse. Throw in a lead they are holding and against a team exact opposite of them and it always looks ugly.

I understand possession is important and how that correlates to winning hockey games but way too much emphasis is put on shots and shot attempts or at least how such things are upheld as gospel. It's too bad that people can't feel good about shutting out a good team on the road for 5 seconds. Who cares about why or how it happened? Sports is weird and crazy crap happens all the time. Shots are not the only stat in the universe. Varly's career numbers against Chicago are incredible, the Avs usually play Chicago tight and then my little pet stat about teams that play each other again within short time frame tend to split results. Those things are factors too.

 

[El_Loco_Avs]

The Avs don't do that, their method is quality over quantity even if they are a lower possession team, which just makes things look worse. Throw in a lead they are holding and against a team exact opposite of them and it always looks ugly.

I understand possession is important and how that correlates to winning hockey games but way too much emphasis is put on shots and shot attempts or at least how such things are upheld as gospel. It's too bad that people can't feel good about shutting out a good team on the road for 5 seconds. Who cares about why or how it happened?

Especially with a possession team in desperation mode you should want to get breakaways and 2on1s against them. Like the chance Iginla got (great save by Crawford on that one).
It looks bad in terms of numbers, but usually the team soaking up the pressure is the one to get quality chances.
To extend my example, Ajax played PSV (another veeery strong team) and went down. And while putting on the pressure they just got torn to bits with counters and lost heavily.

 

[Pokecheque]

Hey guys,

With last night's game as a prime example, people are pointing at the number of shots against being high as evidence of a terrible game.

The better team will usually have a high amount of shots/possession against a worse team. The strange thing we've learned in soccer is that, if the better team isn't doing very well (ie, they're trailing) ... that difference often gets BIGGER.
Example: Ajax last year often gets 60+% possession. They win most of their games.
The games with the highest possession however? They often lost or had to scramble to tie/win for most of the game. They press hard, but the defending team parks the bus, leading to lots of low quality chances.

Now for last night's game, the Avs couldn't have gone up 2-0 quicker than they did. It's just logical to me that the stat line is a result of a possession based team being behind all game. They'll start shooting it a lot, resulting in low quality chances mostly, if you're defending well enough. It's one of the things that made our stats 'look bad' last year too imo.

I'm not sure this translates to hockey 1 to 1 though. Anyone have insight?

They call that "score effects," i.e., the team that's ahead lays back a little and the team that's down gets a little desperate and presses harder. That's why you'll see stuff like "score adjusted Corsi/Fenwick" bandied about.

That said, you can't honestly look at last night's game and say the Avs played well. For the most part, they were horrible. If not for the fact that Crawford was worse than usual (seriously, he looked like he was on a slip-and-slide all night, pulled himself out of position on nearly every Avs scoring chance, of which there weren't many) and Varly was playing out of his mind, the outcome would've been vastly different. The numbers merely reflect reality--the Avs played a horrid game and were lucky to come away with a win.

A win is a win, and I can't really spit in the face of a win in regulation against the best team in hockey. But as others have said, you can't sugarcoat the fact that the effort from most of the players last night was terrible. I thought Varly was stellar, Stuart and Talbot were solid, Rendulic and Tanguay were adequate, and Duchene was abysmal. O'Reilly and Iginla were okay offensively but inexplicably irresponsible with the puck in the defensive zone.