My point is that our bottom 6 (probably more accurate to say middle 6), need to start to produce. As in goals and points to help the team win games. Inherent in that, I am inferring that I want them to produce more than they cost, as in they score more than get scored on.
What I am saying though, is that at the end of the day, at some point positive possession numbers don't mean a thing if those lines aren't also putting pucks in the net. Positive possession does not necessarily equal outscoring your opposition. It's a nice indicator that a line is doing good things, but at the end of the day it means nothing if our third line out "possessed" the other teams third line in a game, but the other teams third line ended up getting 2 goals and ours 0.
right, it may mean "nothing" if we outposessed but lost. What id does indicate is that in that game the other team got lucky. Meaning if we were to play the game again, we'd probably win.
the point about using posession versus goals is that if your left to make one of two decisions (goal scoring with bad posession, low goal scoring with good posession) over an appropriate sample size, the players that you've selected who have good posession but have been unable to score, are more likely to score longterm.
if player abc and have **** posession numbers but ahve put up a bunch of goals in the last season, and players XYZ were the opposite- it is much much more likely that players XYZ will score more next year and players ABC's production was entirely based off luck.
EDIT: he way shot percentage appears to work when looking at players across the league, is that in very macro terms, everyone shoots the same (there's a few that perform signifantly outside the "normal" range).
so goal scoring is no longer really about taking good shots or being a sniper (since nearly everyone reverts to the same shot %) but its just about a) putting shots on net (which is reflected in good possession numbers) and B) getting lucky and having the 10%(or whatever the mean is) dice roll come out in your favor.
yes goals are what win you games, but goals over a long term are indicative of the amount of shots the player's taking (besides the few). Weighting goals above the possession numbers is weighting your 10% die roll (something the player isn't in control of) over the shot on net (something the player does control).
