News Article: An analytical look at the upcoming season

[PeterSidorkiewicz]

From my analytical eye test I’ll use a quote from my favorite sports movie of all time -Major League.

 

[Canadian Time]

Analytics are used for predictions in every facet of the industrialized world. Your claim isn't based in reality.

Your understanding of modeling/analytics is what is detached from reality. Seriously, you don't change 15 variables and expect the data to tell you anything about the future. Industry tries to remove all variables to maintain quality, hockey has too many for any kind of reliable predictions. Their use in hockey is to analyze the past.

 

[Engineer]

ok

 

[swiftwin]

The highest scoring teams in the league attack the blueline with speed and generate chances in transition. 75% of goals scored off zone entries in the last two years have come within ten seconds of gaining the attacking blueline. A couple of ways to create offense quickly in the attacking end:

1. Gain the blueline with possession – like the Lightning and Penguins, who led the league in controlled zone entry success rate and also ranked 1st and 3rd in goals. Ottawa ranked 20th in entry success rate, 25th in goals.
2. Get the puck behind the goal-line, win a battle and create a quick scoring chance. As mentioned, the Senators ranked bottom-3 winning puck battles in the attacking end last season.

This is nothing new, and Boucher has been preaching this from day 1. We've been slowly transforming the lineup to be able to do those things. Turris and Hoffman were awful at winning puck battles behind the goal line. Brass was average. We added guys like Duchene and Tkachuk who are fantastic down low. We're putting alot of focus on that pace and tenacity with guys like Formenton. I'm not too familiar with Bodker and Tierney, but I know they're both pretty solid both ways, and Bodker definitely has wheels.

 

[DrEasy]

Your understanding of modeling/analytics is what is detached from reality. Seriously, you don't change 15 variables and expect the data to tell you anything about the future. Industry tries to remove all variables to maintain quality, hockey has too many for any kind of reliable predictions. Their use in hockey is to analyze the past.

But it's not like we're trying to predict the score of a single Buffalo - Ottawa game in December. At the macro level there are general trends that are easy to spot and that you can use to predict the future, especially when it's for aggregate events such as the final ranking of the team after 82 games. Hard to know if it will snow in Ottawa on January 8th, but I bet you it will be pretty cold.

No need for Bayesian statistics though to come up with this equation:

Bad team in 2017 - Karlsson - Hoffman + scrubs + n00bs - $$$ = Bad team in 2018

 

[swiftwin]

No need for Bayesian statistics though to come up with this equation:

Bad team in 2017 - Karlsson - Hoffman + scrubs + n00bs - $$$ = Bad team in 2018

Which equation gets used to explain the difference between the previous team and last year's team? Or do you just get to pick and choose when to use it in order to validate your mopeyness.