Advanced Stats: Corsi, QoC, etc

[SirClintonPortis]

The problems with using advanced stats is that people do not understand that there are possibly, and probably, confounding variables that can affect the final value and that the numbers are assumed to be "absolute" .

It's like picking up an average joe to talk about GDP vs. an economist. The average joe would assume GDP captures every transaction under the sun while the knowledgeable economist knows that GDP understates the true amount of consumption in a given year because unrecorded transactions are not counted in GDP.

 

[Vomiting Kermit*]

Shawn Horcoff is a first ballot HOFer going by these, or at least he was a few years ago.

Trading him was another idiot move by the morons in charge in Edmonton.

No it wasn't. Petry made Gilbert expendable and Schultz was someone the Oilers desperately needed. He's been very good thus far.

 

[jfb392]

Eh, don't really think Brian Burke has bought in:

http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2012...and-mike-milbury-on-advanced-stats-in-the-nhl

That's exactly what he's saying.

The good teams have bought in, while the mediocre/downright crappy teams haven't.

 

[Vomiting Kermit*]

That was almost exactly two years ago. Now? Ryan Johnson is out of the league, released from training camp after dressing for just 34 games in Chicago the year before.

That doesn't say anything. Are you trying to attribute his being out of the league to GMs looking at advanced statistics and deciding he wasn't good enough to be in the NHL all these years?

This isn't a case of a young player having a short career before falling out of the league. Johnson turns 36 years old in a few months and has played 730 NHL games in a career that started in 1997-98 and might still be going. He also suffered a bunch of injuries during it, some of which were pretty bad.

The reason Johnson only played in 34 games with Chicago last season is because he didn't sign until December. By the time he got there, the Hawks only had 49 games left. He also missed six games because of injury, so really he dressed in 34 of 43 possible games. In the playoffs he played in 6 of the 7 games, including game seven, against the Canucks. Last summer he had interest from multiple teams but chose to accept an invite to the Red Wings training camp. He was one of the final cuts.

Him being out of the league right now has more to do with his age and the years of wear and tear on his body than what some advanced statistics show.

 

[billybudd]

Corsi is useless. Corsi combined with zone starts, quality of competition etc is somewhat usefull but if you combine good old +\- with all of that you get a more accurate reflection of an individual's performance. It fails to take into account the scoring chance which is an absolutely massive omission. How was Sidney Crosby the 87th most effective player in the league last year and 8th most effective on his team. It's a usefull TEAM puck possession stat but when it comes to evaluating individual players it completely falls apart.

This is closer than the absolutism that is being preached in this thread. Possession statistics, in particular, are only equivalent between teams if every team you look at has the #1 goal of possessing the puck. While every team would rather have the puck than not have it, believe it or not, every system does NOT seek to have the puck above everything else. Some practice containment and counterattacking. And yes, many many champions and even several dynasties have rested on an approach that would produce bad or average possession statistics had they been kept at the time.

Nor does a high or low PDO cause anything. That is an utterly preposterous way of looking at that stat. It's just a number that correlates highly with better or worse outcomes.

 

[BillDineen]

I have an hour to kill, what the hell...


Corsi and Fenwick are roughly 90% accurate to possession of the puck. Possession of the puck is what wins games. Babcock himself said "possession is everything". If you have possession of the puck for 60 minutes of a hockey game, it's almost impossible to lose - if you have the puck, the other team doesn't, and if the other team doesn't have the puck, the other team doesn't shoot it.

If a player has a Corsi ratio of 45%, that means, about 45% of the time, the opposing team has the puck in your defensive zone. How is that NOT measuring a player's effectiveness?

Obviously sample sizes play into it; there will be shifts occasionally where a player has very little impact on what happens on the ice, and there will be bad games here and there, but over a large enough sample size, Corsi is an incredible tool for measuring a player's effectiveness.


I think you have the right concept, but you're applying it the wrong way. It's not that added minutes decreases a players' effectiveness; it's that a #3 dman typically doesn't face the top opposition. When a top defenseman goes down, SOMEBODY has to take over the role of shutting down the opposing top line, and there are very, very few teams in the league who have a 2nd line that is equally talented offensively.

Adding minutes to a player isn't really a problem (unless their conditioning is an issue); it's what kind of minutes they get. Most players in the league will perform better if they're given more even strength minutes on an offensive zone faceoff, or against 3rd/4th lines and 3rd defense pairings, or more powerplay minutes... The same way most players in the league will perform worse if they face tougher competition, start in the defensive zone more, or get more PK time.

A lot of teams have their scoring chances tracked by a 3rd party; for more information check here but the results really aren't terribly surprising. Good teams have a high Corsi and get more scoring chances, bad teams have a poor Corsi and give up more scoring chances than they create.


The system a team plays certainly impacts their Corsi/Fenwick numbers... but at the same time, the more the Rangers allow the puck in their zone to float around, the less time they have to put the puck in the net at the other end.

In a game where a lot of goals happen because of lucky bounces, the more time the puck spends in the offensive zone, the more likely it's YOUR team that benefits from the bounce.


Nashville is in the same boat as what I said above; they are riding an extremely good goaltender and good defensive system, along with an extremely high shooting percentage.

It's not possible to consistently create better scoring chances on your own without giving them up, which makes sense if you apply it to the game. How often will you see a risky pinch from a Nashville defender? It doesn't happen; that's why they don't give up many odd-man rushes and that's why Rinne is a fantasy goldmine as long as Trotz is around. Compare that to a team like Vancouver, who sends a defenseman as a 4th forward frequently, and instead rely on above average goaltending to bail them out from odd-man rushes.

New York and Nashville are high in the standings, yes, but they're also 4rd and 3rd (respectively) in 5v5 shooting percentage. If (and when) that shooting percentage drops out from under them, their record is going to crater. If you don't think shooting percentages can crater, look at Toronto and Boston's seasons...

They have a strategy, and so far, it's working. It's not a coincidence that both are getting unbelievable performances from workhorse goaltenders too... I'm just saying that their strategy is working, but probably not as reliable. Could it get them a cup? Certainly; stranger things have happened... but as Holland said, the best you can do is a build a team that will compete for the cup, and hope you win it every 5 years or so. You need a lot of things to go right in the playoffs to win a cup - you need your stars to perform, your role players to exceed expectations, solid to great goaltending, and good special teams. In any given playoffs, at least one of the top-8 teams will have all those things going for them and they'll be very, VERY tough to beat.

Relying on something uncontrollable like bounces (a.k.a. shooting percentage) is just one more thing that can go wrong, and it's why I'll bet against Nashville and the Rangers (despite the fact I like both teams. Nashville moreso.)


Whomever posted that stuff about Gomez has the right idea, but like I said previously, probably did more damage to his idea because he fumbled it from the start.

Cam Charron explains it better than I could:

The rest of the article is worth a read. Gomez is, in a lot of ways, like Mason Raymond - a guy taking a ****-kicking from fans, but in reality, contributes a lot more than people notice.

Another great read regarding Gomez can be found at Habs Eyes On The Prize.


This needs more attention. Great post.

No matter how much hockey you've watched, you haven't watched as much as Don Cherry. He said advanced stats were freaking useless too, and was pissed off when people used them to declare Ryan Johnson a terrible player..

That was almost exactly two years ago. Now? Ryan Johnson is out of the league, released from training camp after dressing for just 34 games in Chicago the year before.

People don't always know what to look for in a hockey player... For example, someone might see a player with excellent hustle to negate a scoring chance and think "hey, that was a great play" but they don't realize that the scoring chance wouldn't have happened if the player hadn't been out of position in the first place.

If you think you've got that mastered, then that's fine, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the GMs who have been more or less confirmed as using advanced statistical analysis are:

Chiarelli (Boston, recent cup winner)
Shero (Pittsburgh, recent cup winner)
Gillis (Vancouver, recent cup finalist / presidents trophy)
Holland (Detroit, perennial contender)
Wilson (San Jose, back to back WCFs)
Maloney (Phoenix, consistently outperforms his teams' perceived talent level)
...versus guys who are more or less confirmed to think they're baloney...
Burke (Toronto)
Howson (Columbus)
Tambellini/Lowe (Edmonton)

I don't think advanced stats are everything - certainly you also need a coach who can properly evaluate how to deploy players:


...you also need to look at chemistry (getting more from the sum than the individual parts), systems, etc. You can't just grab the best Relative Corsi players in free agency and start winning.

That said, they're a powerful tool, and ignoring them when their results are becoming more and more proven is a bit silly in my opinion.

What makes them useless?

Corsi has been proven to correlate highly with possession of the puck - if a team takes 60% of the shots when <player> is on the ice, then it's reasonable to assert that the team has possession of the puck about 60% of the time.

If you look at what kind of competition he faces (the average Rel Corsi of the opposing players while he's on the ice), where he starts his shifts (does his coach put him in defensive or offensive situations), how lucky/unlucky he's been (his teams shooting percentage and save percentage with him on the ice)... How does that not paint a picture of what kind of results he produces?


These aren't just bloggers creating fancy concepts out of a basement. These are concepts created by people who actually do contract work for NHL teams. Corsi is named after someone who worked with the Buffalo Sabres organization. Successful teams track Nielson numbers (basically scoring chance +/-), which is named after a successful NHL coach.

You used the word Corsi a lot, but if advanced statistics are a painting, Corsi is the type of paint used. It's important, but absolutely USELESS on it's own. If you don't understand how successful players contribute to their high Corsi, or why poor players contribute to a bad Corsi... If you don't understand (again) how a coach is deploying a player - there's a HUGE difference between facing the 3rd/4th lines and getting offensive zone starts, and facing top competition starting in your own end... If you don't look at underrated factors such as faceoff %, penalty-drawing (which is a proven talent)... Looking at Corsi alone easily is more harmful than advantageous.




The thing is... the top-5 NHL scorers aren't the best offensive players in the game. They're probably top-15, and CERTAINLY top-50, but there's so much "noise" in point totals, because points happen so rarely.

Here's what I mean: When Ryan Getzlaf has been on the ice this year (and I mean at 5v5 only), the Ducks have shot 7.12%. That's below league average, and 8th of 10 Ducks forwards with 40+ games played. Not coincidentally, he's having a very "poor" year with 48 points in 71 games (55 point pace).

Last year, with Getzlaf on the ice, the Ducks shot 11.97%. That's significantly higher than league average - and the abnormally high shooting percentage is what the Ducks rode to a 4th seed (despite a mediocre-at-best goal differential). Also not coincidentally, Getzlaf had a "great" year with 76 points in 67 games (93 point pace).

Looking at his other 'metrics' comparing the two years:

Year|5v5 TOI (rank)|Quality of Competition (rank)|Offensive zone starts|Relative Corsi|Team shooting percentage with Getzlaf on the ice
10-11|17.06 (1st)|0.709 (4th)|46.6%|+12.5|11.97%
11-12|16.43 (1st)|0.812 (3rd)|47.8%|+13.0|7.12%

Comparing the last two seasons for Getzlaf... He's gotten slightly less ice time, though both years he led the team. He's facing slightly tougher competition, ranking him roughly the same on the team though. He's starting in the offensive zone just a little bit more often. He's pushing play forward extremely well despite all that, both years, with a very good Corsi - considering he's facing the toughest opposition, starting in the defensive zone more often than not, and getting a lot of ice time, he's actually a fantastic two-way player. Does a great job of getting the puck from the D to the O zone.

Pretty much the only significant difference? Last year he was incredibly, incredibly lucky (as was Perry, who rode the same luck train to a Richard and Hart trophy) and this year, despite facing similar competition, despite starting his shifts in the same ratio of d-zone to o-zone, despite getting a similar amount of ice time, his offensive production has dropped off a cliff.

So.. you can see how much the percentages play into points... and how the percentages are unsustainable and mostly 'luck'.

That's why the Art Ross has become so difficult to win and we've seen so many new winners.. There are so many great offensive players that you need to be great offensively AND get some lucky bounces to win.


That was the stupidest post ever I'm pretty sure.

Another beauty. GKJ is nailing it.

Cheerio, as you were...

I did not read past this (yet) in posting this:

"Corsi and Fenwick are roughly 90% accurate to possession of the puck. Possession of the puck is what wins games. Babcock himself said "possession is everything". If you have possession of the puck for 60 minutes of a hockey game, it's almost impossible to lose - if you have the puck, the other team doesn't, and if the other team doesn't have the puck, the other team doesn't shoot it."

Holland has said that there is no stat that captures puck possession. The NHL has tracked possession by zone in the past and if a team wanted to track possession they could individually. I have seen 0 evidence that teams that use advanced stats use either corsi or fenwick in this regard. (Please watch the hour long video).

Outside of bloggers, I have not been able to find where this claim comes from.

My main point on Corsi and Fenwick is the underlying. Team's can hire an desk hand or two to track actual possession by zone or even shots+missed shots+blocked shots(+missed passes that would have led to shots) in between the goalline and top of the circle for instance and do all of the statistical analysis done with Corsi/Fenwick to get their own results with a better underlying statistic.

The problem is a lack of quality data IMO.

My other problem with bloggers is selecting what they want to "prove" their opinion. You can data mine an come up with the conclusion that 96% of the time the past ten years being long Google stock the last Fridays of each month between 12:01 and 12:15 work, but are you really going to bet your life savings it happens again once let alone continuously placing that same bet? I doubt it (although Paul Holmgren might!)

 

[Fallenity]

My awesome contribution to this thread:

"There are lies, white lies and statistics"

Politicians both love and hate statistics because while statistics usually state a fact, which politicians hate because it can prove them wrong, singular stats can be used to say whatever you want. Especially if you compare them to a sample that has no actual value.

It also matters how you say it.

For example, I can say

"CBJ has a p% of 0.364, which is the worst in the league", which is completely factual. I can also say "CBJ has a p% of 0.364, which is 30th in the league", which in turn is also factual, but sounds already better. It can be even further sweetened, but you get the point.

Also, while I won't actually search for this, the sheer amount of different stats that can be compiled on a team / individual player means you can say "CBJ didn't have a bad season, because in regard to stat X, in the last 13 years, they are second best." While this statement would be factually correct, anybody who has followed CBJ this season knows they've had a horrible season. But with stats, anything can be spinned. This "stat X" could be anything, like Corsi% relative to contract length/size or shoe size.

I guess that's my only beef with advanced stats, that they sometimes seem to measure things that in my opinion don't immediately seem to have an effect. This applies outside hockey stats, naturally.

Also, they don't really take into account development or getting worse. Because stats by nature need a high sample size to be considered reliable, a permanent change starts to change the stat it measures after a long time. Meaning a player can start playing better because of having developed, but everybody will say that he will regress because he seems to be overachieving relative to his previous stats.

A good example of this is save percentage.

Say player X has played 200 games with a s% of 0.905. He goes through intensive training in the off-season and starts the season with a s% 0.92 after 20 games. They say he is overachieving and will regress, ideally playing the next 20 games with a s% of 0.890. But he continues playing to the 0.92 average for the rest of the season, playing 60 games. People will compare his season s% of 0.92 to the previous seasons and say he over-achieved. His new career s% is 0.909. He continues next season at 0.92% and people will again compare 0.92% to 0.909% and say he's overachieving.

Of course this example is highly simple and for example s% should never be considered alone. But the point is that stats compared to large sample sizes don't tell anything of recent sustained development. Of course you can limit the sample size to last 20 games, but then you have people coming and saying Player Y is better then Hasek / Crosby / Lidström. There are tools that take into account recent change, but then you have people arguing against the stat because they don't understand it, due to these tools being inherently rather complex. I know I don't understand all of them.

All in all, it comes down to a balance between choosing the right stat and choosing the right sample size in terms of accuracy and reliability. These are things stats don't tell you.

This post became a lot longer then I planned, I initially meant to just leave the quote at top :sigh:

 

[Les Wynan*]

Shawn Horcoff is a first ballot HOFer going by these, or at least he was a few years ago.

What? Says who? Horcoff has been a plus player in raw Corsi exactly once in the past five seasons. His value, as the advanced stats illustrate, is that he plays very tough minutes and doesn't get completely annihilated. He's the sole reason RNH and Eberle are having the seasons they are right now - Horcoff and Smyth take on the other teams' best players, frequently starting in their own zone, so RNH and Eberle can score in butter-soft minutes. If you can't draw that conclusion from just watching the games, then you're not doing a very good job of watching the games. The stats don't say he's a great scorer or even worth his contract - however, Horcoff is a solid defensive player who can soak up tough minutes and although he gives up more than he creates, it's not to such an extent that he's a liability. Again, if you watch him play objectively, I don't see how you can disagree with that assessment.

No it wasn't. Petry made Gilbert expendable and Schultz was someone the Oilers desperately needed. He's been very good thus far.

So trading a complete #1 two-way defenseman for a one-dimensional defensive d-man (dime a dozen on the free agent market) was justifiable because...there's a rookie who might be able to take his place? I love Petry but there was absolutely zero reason for the Oilers to trade Gilbert for a severely limited defenseman just to give Petry more minutes. When you already have horrible, atrocious players like Whitney and Barker on your blueline, it's pretty obvious you need all the help back there you can get.

 

[Vomiting Kermit*]

What? Says who? Horcoff has been a plus player in raw Corsi exactly once in the past five seasons. His value, as the advanced stats illustrate, is that he plays very tough minutes and doesn't get completely annihilated. He's the sole reason RNH and Eberle are having the seasons they are right now - Horcoff and Smyth take on the other teams' best players, frequently starting in their own zone, so RNH and Eberle can score in butter-soft minutes. If you can't draw that conclusion from just watching the games, then you're not doing a very good job of watching the games. The stats don't say he's a great scorer or even worth his contract - however, Horcoff is a solid defensive player who can soak up tough minutes and although he gives up more than he creates, it's not to such an extent that he's a liability. Again, if you watch him play objectively, I don't see how you can disagree with that assessment.

Well first off, the post was tongue-in-cheek. But if you've been following Oiler blogs for the past four years, you'd see that the Horcoff supporters point to his advanced statistics to justify his contract. Back in 2006 they used the stats to show Horcoff was better than Marleau. How did that turn out?

Horcoff the sole reason Eberle and RNH are playing so well? I mean, really?

I'd actually rather watch the games than read what some advanced statistic apparently tells me. I'm sure these stats can be useful but I have a hard time believing them over what you can actually see by watching. Fallenity made a good post above.

Do these stats record how many times Horcoff has whiffed on a one-timer and taken away a sure goal for the Oilers? Or how many times he's failed to clear the puck and led directly to a scoring chance or even goal for the other team?

So trading a complete #1 two-way defenseman for a one-dimensional defensive d-man (dime a dozen on the free agent market) was justifiable because...there's a rookie who might be able to take his place? I love Petry but there was absolutely zero reason for the Oilers to trade Gilbert for a severely limited defenseman just to give Petry more minutes. When you already have horrible, atrocious players like Whitney and Barker on your blueline, it's pretty obvious you need all the help back there you can get.

You might be the first person to ever call Tom Gilbert a complete #1 two-way defenseman.

Despite these advanced statistics, Gilbert was constantly ripped by rival fans around the league for his play. The moment he got traded, he's a star. I see what's going on here.

Gilbert wasn't nearly as good when he wasn't paired with Smid. That's a fact. I don't know what the advanced statistics show, and frankly I don't care because if you actually watched the games it was quite evident.

He was not traded to give Petry more minutes; Petry was already playing more than him. Take a look at Gilbert's final nine games with the Oilers and compare his TOI with Petry.

 

[eklunds source]

Those teams are using Corsi and Fenwick? Link please. The closest I've ever heard of these stats being used in the NHL is from Brian Burke, who called them bull****, and Ron Mclean, who called them garbage. Brian Burke is a bit of an idiot and McLean is just a reporter so I'd be very interested in seeing if these statistics are being used by teams in the same manner as on the internet. On a similar note, I'd also like to see academic studies that support these statistics. Not blogs, y'know? Peer-reviewed university publications.

Call it a philosophical difference. This sport doesn't lend itself to this kind of analysis. I can't value an Alex Ovechkin rocket the same as a Ladislav Smid muffin. I appreciate that supporters of statistics put such effort into finding new ways to understand hockey. But everything I've seen so far doesn't come close to what you can learn by "watching the gamez!!!"

There's no actual 100% confirmation, certainly not on exact methods, but over the years, those various GMs have hinted at their use of such things. Of course, they're very protective of their methods - they are what they believe give them a competitive edge, and in a professional sport, well, we've seen what a 2% difference can make. If advanced stats can give a team even a 0.5% benefit, they'll guard the crap out of that secret. What I have seen...

source (Wilson)

QUESTION: In terms of advanced metrics, there is information out there indicating the organization is very involved with certain Bay Area firms..

DOUG WILSON: We explore and will research any type of analytical approach, and then add some things to it. Tim Burke, who runs our scouting, has done a truly amazing job when you go back and look at the number of players we’ve drafted that have either been used in deals or who have been mid to late round picks who have become very good hockey players. The drafting and developing is the foundation of what we do.

Now I’m not about to go into all the details on what we do [laughs], and I’m not saying we’re smarter than anybody because other teams are pursuing similar things. But we work hard, and I’m proud of our group to always look at ways to get better and gather more information. When you’re drafting later than many teams, you max out what you’re doing. I’m very proud of our scouting staff, and when you rank them on what they’re doing, they rank very highly.

source (Gillis)

We have known for some time that the Canucks management and coaching staff pay attention to advanced statistics, though it’s generally thought that they have their own internal analysis rather than simply using what is publicly available through Vic Ferrari’s timeonice.com and Gabriel Desjardins’ behindthenet.ca.

While Mike Gillis and the rest of his team tend to keep mum on specifics, Gillis talked about the analytical revolution in baseball when he was first hired by the Canucks and about being an unconventional manager, and there have been numerous other hints that indicate that the management team uses some form of advanced statistics. Of course, Gillis has also said that applying sabermetrics to hockey just doesn’t work. How much of that is bluster and how much is true remains to be seen.

source - Chiarelli

Other stats they look at with pro level? “We look at plus/minuses, time on ice.â€

The Bruins try to create events internally to characterize situations. “You have to be careful how you use it, but it’s another piece of information.â€

The Bruins characterize quality of chances for and chances against and come up with different kinds of plus/minus numbers, Chiarelli said.

Eh, don't really think Brian Burke has bought in:

http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2012...and-mike-milbury-on-advanced-stats-in-the-nhl

Sorry, I should have bolded the part, or seperated it more clearly... I was pointing out the GMs who clearly haven't bought into it, and I'll leave it up to the readers to decide where Toronto/Edmonton/Columbus have ranked in the standings the last few years.

I mentioned this to Les Wynan but you might have the information handy: how do you know that they're using these statistics? More importantly, using the statistics you'd find on behindthenet and PDO etc. And using them in the manner that's being discussed here?

Like I said above, there's no confirmation - they would be DUMB to reveal their methods. That said, information trickles out over time and those GMs listed are almost certainly using some form of statistics tracking similar to this.

I did not read past this (yet) in posting this:

"Corsi and Fenwick are roughly 90% accurate to possession of the puck. Possession of the puck is what wins games. Babcock himself said "possession is everything". If you have possession of the puck for 60 minutes of a hockey game, it's almost impossible to lose - if you have the puck, the other team doesn't, and if the other team doesn't have the puck, the other team doesn't shoot it."

Holland has said that there is no stat that captures puck possession. The NHL has tracked possession by zone in the past and if a team wanted to track possession they could individually. I have seen 0 evidence that teams that use advanced stats use either corsi or fenwick in this regard. (Please watch the hour long video).

Outside of bloggers, I have not been able to find where this claim comes from.

My main point on Corsi and Fenwick is the underlying. Team's can hire an desk hand or two to track actual possession by zone or even shots+missed shots+blocked shots(+missed passes that would have led to shots) in between the goalline and top of the circle for instance and do all of the statistical analysis done with Corsi/Fenwick to get their own results with a better underlying statistic.

The problem is a lack of quality data IMO.

My other problem with bloggers is selecting what they want to "prove" their opinion. You can data mine an come up with the conclusion that 96% of the time the past ten years being long Google stock the last Fridays of each month between 12:01 and 12:15 work, but are you really going to bet your life savings it happens again once let alone continuously placing that same bet? I doubt it (although Paul Holmgren might!)

Quality of data is for sure a problem. Shot locations and hit numbers from MSG, for example, are WIDELY known to be absolutely awful - there are numerous records of 200ft wrap around attempts, 10 foot slapshots being recorded as 25ft backhands, whatever.

That said, you can only play poker with the hand you're dealt, and so far, people are seeing results from this kind of data - both on a team level and personal level.

There is no stat that 100% captures puck possession, no... But if you use a stop watch and time how long a team has control of a puck for a dozen games versus how much the other team has it... And then compare it to the Corsi for/against... It's about 90% accurate. There's always going to be a tolerance there, but people have done these studies on large samples of data.



The absolute best read, for anyone who doesn't buy into these concepts, was just posted today by Ellen Etchingham.

Messier's skates, regression, luck, and transience

 

[The Bored Man]

There's no actual 100% confirmation, certainly not on exact methods, but over the years, those various GMs have hinted at their use of such things. Of course, they're very protective of their methods - they are what they believe give them a competitive edge, and in a professional sport, well, we've seen what a 2% difference can make. If advanced stats can give a team even a 0.5% benefit, they'll guard the crap out of that secret. What I have seen...

source (Wilson)

source (Gillis)


source - Chiarelli

If that's supposed to show me that NHL teams buy into these statistics as outlined here....

I mentioned this to Les Wynan but you might have the information handy: how do you know that they're using these statistics? More importantly, using the statistics you'd find on behindthenet and PDO etc. And using them in the manner that's being discussed here?

....then I'm really not seeing it. I understand that teams are secretive about how they analyze players, but hell, Gillis is saying that they don't work in hockey.

What is Jokinen ranked #2 in? I assume you're referring to Corsi Rel QoC - that's a stat that shows how Jokinen has been used this season by Sutter and the Flames coaching staff. The fact that he ranks so high in the metric league-wide and first among Calgary forwards indicates he's being deployed against the other teams' best players every night more frequently than any of his teammates. Assuming you've seen a lot of Calgary does this jive with what you've seen (legitimate question, not snark)? If it doesn't, you can take a look at head-to-head ice time charts to check who Sutter is using Jokinen against when he has last change and for how many minutes relative to his teammates.

By Corsi, though, Jokinen has been killed. Which is more or less what we'd expect since he's playing a role he has no real history of success in. His Corsi Rel of -7.0/60 tells us the puck is in the Flames' end of the rink far more frequently when Jokinen is on the ice compared to when he's on the bench. More important context to consider is that he's only starting 47% of his even strength shifts in the offensive zone, making it even more difficult for him to post good possession numbers and rendering his shifts even more of an uphill battle. So while Jokinen isn't terrible by any means just because he ranks among the bottom of the barrel on Calgary in possession (he's playing against excellent opposition and starting in his own zone more often than not - unless he's truly elite, which he obviously isn't, we would expect him to be struggling) he's not great either.

Meanwhile, Stamkos, from your example, plays against much lesser competition and starts about 55% of his shifts in the offensive zone - again, this makes sense as Boucher is trying to put his offensive star in a position to succeed - and has a high Corsi Rel of 6.9/60 as a result. So just looking at raw Corsi or Corsi Rel alone, you could draw the conclusion that Stamkos is much better at driving the play at Jokinen. Considering the role that they're used in closes the gap in their value a bit but Stamkos is pretty clearly ahead of Jokinen - I don't know why you thought the stats said otherwise.

Gilbert is first in Minnesota in Corsi Rel QoC because he was Edmonton's #1 shutdown defenseman. Again, Corsi Rel QoC speaks to the quality of the opposing players a skater faced over the course of the season. Renney always trusted Gilbert to take on the Sedins or Iginla or Duchene or whoever and he performed very, very well in that role. Trading him was another idiot move by the morons in charge in Edmonton.





I don't have a link - these aren't things organizations publicize. I've had several conversations with people who've either consulted or been contracted by NHL teams to utilize this data and more advanced forms of it. I understand if you don't want to believe me, that's fine.

No one is saying individual players don't differ in shooting talent - with years of shooting percentage data, we can make educated guesses about a shooter's talent level and predict future performance by gauging how far away from their established clip they're currently finishing their chances. The main takeaway from all of this is that teams don't vary significantly in their overall shooting talent.

Oi, small sample size and all, but from the condemnation of the Schultz-Gilbert trade I don't think this is going to get us anywhere. Again, I appreciate the dedication it takes to analyze hockey like this, such as your post, but I don't buy it. Agree to disagree.

 

[barneyg]

The absolute best read, for anyone who doesn't buy into these concepts, was just posted today by Ellen Etchingham.

Messier's skates, regression, luck, and transience

I agree. Very very good read. It reminded me of one of Vic Ferrari's posts from over 2 years ago: Likelihood and the way humans think.

 

[Ogopogo*]

Any team stat that is attached to an individual player is complete garbage.

 

[LeafOfBread]

Comes into thread expecting Les Wynan, leaves thread satisfied.

 

[Banana Sandwiches]

People who go into such depth with these "advanced stats" are idiots who want to defend a mediocre player on their team if they have a good Corsi stat or whatever else.

I'm willing to bet most GMs in the league don't like at these "advanced stats." Most of them don't mean a thing.

 

[barneyg]

Any team stat that is attached to an individual player is complete garbage.

People who go into such depth with these "advanced stats" are idiots who want to defend a mediocre player on their team if they have a good Corsi stat or whatever else.

I'm willing to bet most GMs in the league don't like at these "advanced stats." Most of them don't mean a thing.

Comes back into thread expecting those kinds of answers, leaves thread satisfied.

 

[Roo Mad Bro]

Somebody tell me how Giroux ranks with other "elite" players in terms of his advanced stats.

Thanks.

Huge fan of baseball sabermetrics, but I haven't gotten into hockey ones.

 

[Hardyvan123]

The point of advanced stats is to suggest that there are a lot of different ways to judge a player's effect on a game rather than just point total. Like any other statistical measure, they have to be taken in context to be effective.

If you view this as a "crutch" or something that's your decision I guess.

I agree advanced stats are a tool and have their limitations, just like all metrics as there are inherent biases or differences in every players situation and one should keep that in mind when making any evaluation between any two players IMO.

Brian Burke's comments on it in a recent article clearly indicate that he doesn't understand them and he is more oldschool, if he thinks something then it has to be true.

 

[Hardyvan123]

The absolute best read, for anyone who doesn't buy into these concepts, was just posted today by Ellen Etchingham.

Messier's skates, regression, luck, and transience

One hell of a good read, it should be on any hockey fans required reading list IMO.

 

[Les Wynan*]

Somebody tell me how Giroux ranks with other "elite" players in terms of his advanced stats.

Thanks.

Huge fan of baseball Sabremetrics, but I haven't gotten into hockey ones.

Giroux is an advanced stat darling. This year, at even strength, he's faced the toughest competition among Flyers forwards and has started more shifts in the defensive zone than any other Philadelphia forward (Talbot and Couturier have started a greater percentage of their shifts there but obviously they've taken fewer shifts than Giroux). Despite these handicaps, he ranks third on the team among forwards in raw Corsi (behind Jagr and Hartnell, his usual linemates) meaning the Flyers have more offensive-zone possession than their opponents when he's on the ice. Significantly more in fact.

He's an elite two-way forward. I thought he'd struggle without Carter but nope.

 

[middletoe]

I was just watching a leaf game and Grabovsky made me think of a stat that I'd really like to see - but wouldn't expect it to ever be taken. And that's a players average speed.

He just covers so much ice it seems. I don't think he was payed too much in his new contract. He's a good role model for other players in the organization I think. Effort is an intangible that should maybe make you worth more money. And it's good for Burke to send that message to the other guys as well I think. "Exceptional effort gets rewarded.”

This just made me think of Ryan Callahan and how he might have a high average speed as well. That's a stat you could be really proud of if it's high. Of course your roll on a team would have to be taken in to account when evaluating a players number.