Player Discussion: Laine Discussion (Mod Warning OP)

[Ippenator]

Please don’t take those giveaway/takeaway stats serious. They’re a joke and there is no set standard.

Then why take any advanced stats seriously? Or do we get to choose which stats are reliable and suite our agenda the best? Honestly you either take all the official stats that NHL.com publishes or then you shouldn’t take really any other stats than the game defining stats for the real end results like goals and assists and 5 on 5 goal difference. Then forget about Corsi, expected goals and all of those advanced stats.

I choose to look at them with some small interest, but the real important stats for me are only the game deciding end results. All the other stats are just some nice bonus info that means nothing after all, if the player doesn’t have also great end result stats.

 

[Duke749]

Then why take any advanced stats seriously? Or do we get to choose which stats are reliable and suite our agenda the best? Honestly you either take all the official stats that NHL.com publishes or then you shouldn’t take really any other stats than the game defining stats for the real end results like goals and assists and 5 on 5 goal difference. Then forget about Corsi, expected goals and all of those advanced stats.

I choose to look at them with some small interest, but the real important stats for me are only the game deciding end results. All the other stats are just some nice bonus info that means nothing after all, if the player doesn’t have also great end result stats.

Seriously?

 

[Ippenator]

Seriously?

Seriously that’s your reply to my post?

 

[Duke749]

Seriously that’s your reply to my post?

Giveaways/takeaways, like hits, are not tracked by a specific official standard or anything. There’re all very subjective and even tracked differently depending on the arena.

That doesn’t mean everything else isn’t legit. That’s terrible logic.

Honestly, why are you trying to relate what is a widely known poorly kept stat to any other stat at all?

 

[backwards motion]

Since it’s only been 3 games and he already looks much better, it’s pretty safe to say he will continue to improve more over the season and more each year.

His trainers seem to think he’s built enough functional strength to support quicker movements on those long lever-like limbs. Like Schiefele, he will continue to get stronger each year.

Glad we are at this point in his development, and actually it’s still very early as he’s 21. How many players are fully developed and dominant at 21? Maybe a couple in the history of the game but I can’t think of any (many).

Mcdavid, Crosby, Gretzky? Anyway it’s very very few

I’m pretty happy that we have him and get to watch him grow.

While I'm going for the fourth straight match, watching it live. Even though as a team, it's a quite a thing to see last season D-corps to this ones, at this point.

I do agree with this. Still always a bit careful since I don't want take anyones sides. But at this time I might be able, since I've seen many positive things from the fans saying.

It's early to see how it all unfolds, with Laine and the team in this season. I'd be stupid to say that taken all top6+ D away from us, it's the same. But we still have weapons at hand and even the youngsters may step up to a decent level. I'm not going in to that much. But seriously, all we now need is a goalie to go hot and our forward group is at least great. And, if we find the compination of top 6 that is able to do so much damage. Maybe we can at least try to be more hit n' run guys of a sorts (or never let it out of the opposition side). Enough goals, to protect leads while our D-core is learning it's ways.

I'm hopeful, to a point. It's too early to say I'm at the breaking point.

 

[Ippenator]

Giveaways/takeaways, like hits, are not tracked by a specific official standard or anything. There’re all very subjective and even tracked differently depending on the arena.

That doesn’t mean everything else isn’t legit. That’s terrible logic.

Shots are tracked in pretty much the same unreliable way. Differs on the basis of who is tracking them and which arena is in question. I don’t see the difference really.

 

[Duke749]

Shots are tracked in pretty much the same unreliable way. Differs on the basis of who is tracking them and which arena is in question. I don’t see the difference really.

No they’re not.

 

[Ippenator]

No they’re not.

So are you claiming that the same person goes through every single game and counts shots on exactly the same basis for every single game? Or what are you exactly trying to say?

 

[Duke749]

So are you claiming that the same person goes through every single game and counts shots on exactly the same basis for every single game? Or what are you exactly trying to say?

I’m saying that shots are tracked in a way that isn’t completely subjective because there’s actually a standard definition for them. Those other three are extremely subjective because they mean something different to everyone.

 

[ffh]

No they’re not.[/QUO

No they’re not.

Yes they are. Several GM's on xm have said they use their own staff for that very reason. They dont trust the accuracy of nhl.com for example over their own people

 

[Ippenator]

I’m saying that shots are tracked in a way that isn’t completely subjective because there’s actually a standard definition for them. Those other three are extremely subjective because they mean something different to everyone.

Shots are unfortunately quite subjective too. Some official will not even give a shot easily when some other official would do it. It happens all the time. They get also sometimes registered to wrong players even. And then even more subjective is all kinds of high danger shots etc., although they would be in fact much more useful info than shots in general. Unfortunately they are especially quite vulnerable to being too subjective.

 

[Psych0dad]

Giveaways/takeaways, like hits, are not tracked by a specific official standard or anything. There’re all very subjective and even tracked differently depending on the arena.

That doesn’t mean everything else isn’t legit. That’s terrible logic.

Honestly, why are you trying to relate what is a widely known poorly kept stat to any other stat at all?

I think those stats have often be used against Laine to show how he is awful defensively, so it does sound fair to debunk it with the same stats too.

I agree with you on the stat itself, but it only makes sense to use it in this case since it's been used in the same case when it's been opposite.

 

[Duke749]

Shots are unfortunately quite subjective too. Some official will not even give a shot easily when some other official would do it. It happens all the time. They get also sometimes registered to wrong players even. And then even more subjective is all kinds of high danger shots etc., although they would be in fact much more useful info than shots in general. Unfortunately they are especially quite vulnerable to being too subjective.

A shot isn’t subjective at all. It is clearly defined as a player shooting the puck or deflecting the puck and it either goes in or the goalie saves it. There is no other way to interpret that.

Let me put it this way. If you were to clearly define what you consider a giveaway or takeaway and then tracked it in a game for a specific player or players, that I could get behind because we would have a clear non-subjective way to track it(other then your definition being subjective but we would be going off that anyways).

For the record, I’m not trying to use that stat for or against Laine. It’s just not one we can have any faith in.

 

[Ippenator]

A shot isn’t subjective at all. It is clearly defined as a player shooting the puck or deflecting the puck and it either goes in or the goalie saves it. There is no other way to interpret that.

Let me put it this way. If you were to clearly define what you consider a giveaway or takeaway and then tracked it in a game for a specific player or players, that I could get behind because we would have a clear non-subjective way to track it(other then your definition being subjective but we would be going off that anyways).

For the record, I’m not trying to use that stat for or against Laine. It’s just not one we can have any faith in.

Takeaway and giveaway are both defined already in their wording by itself. Sure there might occur some interpretation in some cases, but in the long run the accuracy of them evens up, like all other stats than the end result after all do. And no, shots can’t escape being a pretty subjective stat too, as the incident itself is usually so fast for the eye, and there can come all kinds of deflections in the ways that it can often be after all about the interpretation of the shot counting official. Is it a pass? Is it a shot? Who really shot it and was it after all deflected or not? Was the shot blocked and would it have gone towards the goal or not? These are the issues at least that can affect the reliability of the shots stat in many cases. It’s not even close to as reliable of a stat as you seem to think.

 

[Calendal]

For the record, I’m not trying to use that stat for or against Laine. It’s just not one we can have any faith in.

I wouldn't go quite as far to say as "any faith". We know there's definite bias in the statistic, way more than shots on goal, which still have some subjective elements to them and it would appear SOG are frequently awarded on shots that would have missed the net but were instead caught by the goalie.

 

[Duke749]

I wouldn't go quite as far to say as "any faith". We know there's definite bias in the statistic, way more than shots on goal, which still have some subjective elements to them and it would appear SOG are frequently awarded on shots that would have missed the net but were instead caught by the goalie.

Because that’s technically a shot since the goalie “saved” it.

 

[Calendal]

Because that’s technically a shot since the goalie “saved” it.

No it's not. It may typically get counted as one due to difficulty in making the determination, but by definition it's not a shot on goal and it's not a save.

 

[Duke749]

No it's not. It may typically get counted as one due to difficulty in making the determination, but by definition it's not a shot on goal and it's not a save.

Where is that stated?

 

[Calendal]

Where is that stated?

Well, I didn't find official definition but got these hits on first page of google (and this matches my previous recollection on the matter):

Shot on goal (ice hockey) - Wikipedia
Shots that sail wide or high of the net, and shots that hit the goalpost or crossbar, are not counted as shots on goal; they are counted as 'missed shots'. Additionally, if a goaltender stops a puck that is going wide or high anyway, it is recorded as a 'missed shot'. Since it is not counted as a shot on goal, the goaltender does not get credit for a save.

Shot on goal
Shots that sail wide or high of the net and shots that hit the goal post or crossbar are not considered shots on goal, but are scored as shots. If a goaltender blocks a shot that would have missed the net or hit the post, it is not considered a shot on goal. It is the judgment of the official which shots are counted as shots on goal. Additionally, attempted shots that go wide are not recorded as an official statistic in the NHL, so shots on goal are often referred to simply as shots in that league

etc.

I guess the two typical ~clear cut scenarios where the save is not awarded would be if the shot is made from below the red line or from beyond the goal line (zero angle).

 

[Duke749]

Well I’ve never heard of shots that may go wide but are still caught by the goalie not being counted but I’ll concede unless there’s more info.

 

[tbcwpg]

Takeaway and giveaway are both defined already in their wording by itself. Sure there might occur some interpretation in some cases, but in the long run the accuracy of them evens up, like all other stats than the end result after all do. And no, shots can’t escape being a pretty subjective stat too, as the incident itself is usually so fast for the eye, and there can come all kinds of deflections in the ways that it can often be after all about the interpretation of the shot counting official. Is it a pass? Is it a shot? Who really shot it and was it after all deflected or not? Was the shot blocked and would it have gone towards the goal or not? These are the issues at least that can affect the reliability of the shots stat in many cases. It’s not even close to as reliable of a stat as you seem to think.

The reason I don't trust giveaways and takeaways as much as some other stats, is due to the range of subjectivity. Like you say, there are many instances where it makes sense. What about when a pass goes astray because the receiving player is out of position? What about when a player picks up a loose puck and is the first to touch it on his team, is that a takeaway?

I think it's a better stat than +/- but it's not a very reliable one.

 

[Halberdier]

Well I’ve never heard of shots that may go wide but are still caught by the goalie not being counted but I’ll concede unless there’s more info.

Those are pretty hard to catch for a stats guys, but they probably should be.

But all in all, giveaways, takeaways, hits, shot blocks etc. are obviously harder to be recorded than shots, but still unless there is a secret grand conspiracy going on, those errors and inaccuracies will be ironed out in large enough sample sizes at least within single teams (as teams play different amount of games on different arenas).

Therefore if someone has 100 recorded takeaways and 50 recorded giveaways in a season, you can be pretty confident that the guy is taking the puck more than losing it.

In short: they might be pretty useful in large enough quantities. And 3 games, 4 takeaways, 1 giveaways tells absolutely nothing as a stat. I guess you need to have at least dozens of games to say anything based on those stats alone.

 

[LowLefty]

Takeaways is a very interesting stat and I can see why it would be very hard to record accurately or consistently.

My understanding (based on my reading) is a takeaway is a play that causes a turn over - you don't necessarily need to take the puck from a player but you do need to execute a play that will cause the puck to turnover.

A couple of examples:

If you deflect a pass and other team mate picks it up, that's a takeaway for the player that deflected the puck (more often referred to as a turn over)
If you hit a guy causing him to turn over the puck to a player on your team, it's a takeaway (again, a turnover)
And then there is the obvious one where you strip a puck from an O player- but this one probably happens less often than the other two noted above.

It's a good defensive stat is you have enough recorded data and you're willing to consider the stat is not just stripping pucks

 

[Tommigun]

Please don’t take those giveaway/takeaway stats serious. They’re a joke and there is no set standard.

What? I literally said a couple of posts back how silly the takeaway/giveaway stat itself is (even though it’s great to see him doing well in it). I was referring to pretty much all the advanced stats people were blasting him for last year, including your beloved Corsi (and plus minus which suddenly became very relevant last year). If you look for any small mistakes you will find them, but the stats don’t agree with you. Why are explicitly looking for those instead of enjoying him play well after a hard year?

 

[Ippenator]

The reason I don't trust giveaways and takeaways as much as some other stats, is due to the range of subjectivity. Like you say, there are many instances where it makes sense. What about when a pass goes astray because the receiving player is out of position? What about when a player picks up a loose puck and is the first to touch it on his team, is that a takeaway?

I think it's a better stat than +/- but it's not a very reliable one.

I didn’t really claim that takeaways and giveaways are perfectly reliable statistics. My main point was that most of the stats except for the end result stats are relatively subjective. Shots and shot related stats are for example much more that than some people here are willing to admit. So my point was still that if you are willing to give value to shot related stats, you shouldn’t then completely dismiss a stat like takeaways or giveaways are. The subjectiveness anyway gets evened up the bigger the sample size is. It’s intellectual dishonesty to accept a stat that has subjectiveness and then dismiss some other stats that also have some subjctiveness.

Oh, and 5 on 5 +/- isn’t really a bad stat at all. The bigger the sample size, the more it tells about the quality of a player. But I do agree that the regular +/- is pretty darn terrible to be used in most situations.