do you have any graphs showing how many less points scheifele and little would get because lowry plays against top centres of other teams. for example everytime I watch the jets play la lowry plays against carter or kopitar or against Anaheim he plays against Kessler or getzlaf. would he not have better numbers if he played 82 games against only 3rd lines. and playing 82 games is a whole other thing.
Unfortunately I do not have access to Ryan+Corey's entire passing data, but
here's a write-up which I believe uses 2015-16 data that explains what goes into this.
I think this quote from the article applies well to your belief:
I devised seven offensive metrics that explain how often and the many ways in which players contribute to offense. In order to not unfairly punish or reward players on teams that play slower or faster, indexes were created that accounted for how often a player contributed to offense. For example, if two players both set up shots at similar rates, but one is more integral to their team’s shot production, that influence will show up in the index. See below.
10 shot assists/60 minutes * 25% of team’s on-ice shots the player sets up = Index of 2.5
12 shot assists/60 minutes * 15% of team’s on-ice shots the player sets up = Index of 1.8
So, while the rate at which a player creates offense matters, it is important to account for how much influence they have on the team’s production.
Intuitively, you're probably somewhat correct in assuming that depending on who you play against will affect your numbers. Lowry and his linemates could be somewhat affected because Maurice wants him to "shut down" the opponent. But, a good defence doesn't/shouldn't take away from offence - once Lowry+ retrieves the puck, what are they most likely to do? Go to the other side of the rink and shoot the puck. Then the other team gets the puck and goes to the other side of the rink. This happens for 60 minutes, of which a player can be on for ~15 minutes of it. It's a lot of back-and-forths, with a lot of different things happening on the ice (is Lowry facing Getzlaf when he takes the puck into the ozone or did Getzlaf get off on a line change this time? etc.). Very basically and without looking too much into it and assuming the nature of the game and other research with Corsi (in things like
Quality of Competition and Quality of Teammates) it
should somewhat even out anyway across all players and events. (IMO there's a bit more research that needs to be done here that can only be done with IR/Chip player tracking.)
Should. Somewhat. I'm using this very weakly here. At the same time, because this is more offensively based (shots and shot assists (and entries)), it should also somewhat be more tied towards the players' individual talents, and not who are opposite of them on the ice. Is Lowry involved in a lot of passing? A lot of dangerous shot contributions? Total passing? If not, that's on him for not getting into open spaces to receive passes, or making passes/plays that are high danger chances, etc.
TL;DR: These graphs detail a player's individual talents and how they perform with the puck, not what they do with the puck against specific/different players. And then going into more what Ryan is using this data/charts for is matching certain teammates with playing styles, to find whom might complement one another.
Here's Scheifele and Little btw, and
the link to the Tableau itself so you can play around with it.
In general, Armia is still quite undervalued.
