On the theories about the Leafs' possession

[diceman934]

OP if you were expecting posters to actually read the article and engage in a meaningful debate you will probably be let down.

People will just claim stats are wrong and meaningless and the Leafs are amazing and will be a playoff team and the numbers don't matter.

I too hope for Leafs' success, but come on people have a shred of objectivity and just consider that maybe the Leafs exceeded expectations due to great goaltending and a high shooting % that may or may not be sustainable. If we are a great team again then WOOHOO!! go Leafs! but if regression happens maybe there is merit in examining articles like the OPs and not getting too worked up and excited over this team.

It's much easier to have modest expectations and be pleasantly surprised by success than to put the team on a pedestal believing they can do no wrong and all the objective stats that suggest the Leafs played over their heads are garbage and have no basis in reality. You can disagree with the article or the value of advanced stats, but if you don't put in the time to read and understand things I don't believe you have the right to dismiss it as incorrect.

Be open minded and cheer for the team you love! Completely ignoring presented facts just makes posters come across as stubborn, ignorant, close minded and incapable of critical thinking.

A while ago, shots on goal were the measure of what team out played the other team in a game....very flawed.

Score of the game dictates a lot of stats.....so excuse me if I continue to ignore the stats that has no meaningful way of measuring true items that control who is most likely to win.....effort/skill and execution of systems.

 

[diceman934]

So... the majority of you didn't read the article.

Corsi, Fenwick, fancy stats are pretty good measures of and proxy stats for actual time spent with the puck in the opposition's zone.

I understand the stats and read the article and still think that hockey is the most difficult sport to apply these types of stats to determine what a team or player is likely to do.

Some systems of D zone coverage will allow more possession time within a zone but are geared to limit quality scoring chances, other systems are designed to immediately pressure the puck with may limit possession but create more quality scoring changes against.

Guess what kind of system we play in our zone.

In the offensive zone Carlyle wants to be more of a possession team. We however have a lot of players that can score off the rush and we were not a dump and chase type team at all last year, and we tried to create quality scoring chances with speed off the rush.....successfully I may add.

 

[bruyns]

A while ago, shots on goal were the measure of what team out played the other team in a game....very flawed.

Score of the game dictates a lot of stats.....so excuse me if I continue to ignore the stats that has no meaningful way of measuring true items that control who is most likely to win.....effort/skill and execution of systems.

You have every right to ignore them. All I ask is you actually ignore them then rather than continually try and drag them through the mud and discredit them. I get it you don't believe they have value in examining a teams performance so why not just ignore threads like this instead of trying to tell everyone how wrong they are without any actual evidence.

 

[Derrty]

I prefer looking at the standings when determining how well my team is doing

 

[diceman934]

You have every right to ignore them. All I ask is you actually ignore them then rather than continually try and drag them through the mud and discredit them. I get it you don't believe they have value in examining a teams performance so why not just ignore threads like this instead of trying to tell everyone how wrong they are without any actual evidence.

Sorry that you do not like my opinion. I have not dragged the stats through the mud.....they are simply very flawed like all stats that proceed them and all that will follow. Far to many variables that can not be measured to make these stats meaningful.

Why should I ignore these threads.....this is a hockey forum were people share opinions.....not a forum were only people who agree with the OP premise should post.....now that would be boring!

 

[Da Murf]

I think a lot more people read the statistical information out there than you would think. However, there is interesting work being done in teams that consistently finish in the top of shoot% as well as many other fields of Hockey Analysis.

The bigger issue ( and why they get dragged through the mud). Is often times the metrics as designed are flawed. This could be seen through the correlation of winning 'stats' and winning games, or lack thereof. The think about Stats guys in baseball is that they a) Generally agree on the true stat (WaR) that measure player performance and b) about 30 years, give it time.

 

[Bedards Dad]

OP if you were expecting posters to actually read the article and engage in a meaningful debate you will probably be let down.

People will just claim stats are wrong and meaningless and the Leafs are amazing and will be a playoff team and the numbers don't matter.

I too hope for Leafs' success, but come on people have a shred of objectivity and just consider that maybe the Leafs exceeded expectations due to great goaltending and a high shooting % that may or may not be sustainable. If we are a great team again then WOOHOO!! go Leafs! but if regression happens maybe there is merit in examining articles like the OPs and not getting too worked up and excited over this team.

It's much easier to have modest expectations and be pleasantly surprised by success than to put the team on a pedestal believing they can do no wrong and all the objective stats that suggest the Leafs played over their heads are garbage and have no basis in reality. You can disagree with the article or the value of advanced stats, but if you don't put in the time to read and understand things I don't believe you have the right to dismiss it as incorrect.

Be open minded and cheer for the team you love! Completely ignoring presented facts just makes posters come across as stubborn, ignorant, close minded and incapable of critical thinking.

When did that ever become a good thing? Being a sports fan is not easy, and taking the easy way out is never a god thing. I will get much more satisfaction knowing I was there thick and thin supporting. I will get much more joy out of the championship than someone who was flip floppy and negative all the time.

 

[bruyns]

Far to many variables that can not be measured to make these stats meaningful.

No advanced stat ignores all other variables and claims to be meaningful as a predictor of success. It has been used to show a strong correlation between playoff teams and certain stats and the facts are overwhelming that outside of a few outliers playoff teams have all put up similar stats in comparison to the nonplayoff teams when examining specific stats.

I think I'm done arguing about advanced stats in this thread as I don't want to get frustrated communicating with people who are incapable of putting in the time to understand advanced stats. (I'm sure you and others are experts though and still choose to believe they are so flawed that they are a waste of time)

I don't think they are be all end all stat that is the only thing people shoud look at and is the only determining factor of a teams success. They are a stat used to help evaluate a team or player just like all the other traditional stats at are disposal and they should be taken with a grain of salt.

I'm sure you are a smart hockey mind and I respect that you are entitled to your opinions, but I just can't take someone serious who can't be open minded and dismisses a large number of different statistics all because they perceive them to be flawed based on a subjective view about quality of chances and systems. There are many many very bright people putting in hours of work on hockey analytics and your stance of dismissing everything you don't believe in or understand even though there is math and supporting evidence to me is an arrogant stance to take.

Continue to believe what you choose though I won't argue with you anymore as it is obvious we share very different opinions on hockey analysis and finding a middle ground seems impossible to me.

 

[bruyns]

When did that ever become a good thing? Being a sports fan is not easy, and taking the easy way out is never a god thing. I will get much more satisfaction knowing I was there thick and thin supporting. I will get much more joy out of the championship than someone who was flip floppy and negative all the time.

This was taken completely out of context. When did I ever say I was flip floppy and negative? I think the Leafs can make the playoffs and I will be cheering along for all 82 games like I do each year. I am a die hard fan that bleeds blue. This is not to be confused with a fan who each year thinks the Leafs will get 120pts finish 1st in the league and every player will have career years offensively.

Do I think the Leafs will win the Cup this season? No I don't, but that doesn't mean I won't be cheering like crazy if they actually got close. This was the point I was making, fan is short for fanatic, but having reasonable expectations allows for higher highs when the team does well instead of expecting greatness and potentially being let down. It is dependent on team too and as Leafs fans we might be able to expect greatness soon and as a fan of a team like the Pens they should be expecting to win the Cup, but I feel the Leafs aren't quite on the level of other Stanley Cup contenders and I REALLY hope I'm proven wrong.

I don't see the negativity or flip flopping in this, do you mean every fan who doesn't think the Leafs will win the Cup this season is negative?

 

[CellarDweller0]

Can't people just watch the ****ing game anymore?

Drop the damn notepads jotting down numbers during breaks in play and start screaming at your TV and banging your knees with your fists like a normal person

It's not like the people here are capturing these stats in real time...if there are then that is reaching ultra-nerd status. I think most people pour over these stats after the fact.

 

[Espher]

I'm a big stats guy, and I'm happy to see that steps are being made to provide baseball-style advanced stats that can be used to gauge a team's performance, but nothing infuriates me more than watching people lean on the current metrics -- which are still in their infancy -- as gospel valuations of which teams are "good" and which teams are "terrible".

They're fantastic for doing correlative analysis between certain facets of the game, and they will no doubt be one piece of the eventual advanced stats pie that we can use to accurately model and simulate game outcomes, but the people who are chestbeating about how they are absolutes and should be taken as "true measures of the game" or the like are just as bad as the scrubs who dismiss them offhand and tell people to "just watch the game". It shows you a tendency or trend, not a certainty.

The Leafs were an anomaly last year when it came to performance vs. advanced stats, but the haven't been the only one -- this doesn't tell us that the advanced stats are wrong, just that they're not absolutely right, and that there is still time for the science of hockey statistics to mature and refine itself.

 

[bruyns]

I'm a big stats guy, and I'm happy to see that steps are being made to provide baseball-style advanced stats that can be used to gauge a team's performance, but nothing infuriates me more than watching people lean on the current metrics -- which are still in their infancy -- as gospel valuations of which teams are "good" and which teams are "terrible".

They're fantastic for doing correlative analysis between certain facets of the game, and they will no doubt be one piece of the eventual advanced stats pie that we can use to accurately model and simulate game outcomes, but the people who are chestbeating about how they are absolutes and should be taken as "true measures of the game" or the like are just as bad as the scrubs who dismiss them offhand and tell people to "just watch the game". It shows you a tendency or trend, not a certainty.

The Leafs were an anomaly last year when it came to performance vs. advanced stats, but the haven't been the only one -- this doesn't tell us that the advanced stats are wrong, just that they're not absolutely right, and that there is still time for the science of hockey statistics to mature and refine itself.

Great post, this echos my sentiments on advanced stats. I haven't come across many people who chestbeat and claim they are absolutes, but maybe I haven't been perusing the same sites as you. To me it seems advanced stats crowd recognizes they have flaws and need to be taken with a grain of salt and that is met by the "watch the games crowd" who generally doesn't understand them and choose to ignore all advanced stats and think they have 0 value.

 

[mr grieves]

It's not like the people here are capturing these stats in real time...if there are then that is reaching ultra-nerd status. I think most people pour over these stats after the fact.

Except the article posted seemed to have come about this way: watch the games, pour over the stats after the fact, rewatch the games (at least once) to see what the stats mean, how they match what happens on the ice.

So, if anything, the guy's watching the games more than any of us.

 

[mr grieves]

I understand the stats and read the article and still think that hockey is the most difficult sport to apply these types of stats to determine what a team or player is likely to do.

Some systems of D zone coverage will allow more possession time within a zone but are geared to limit quality scoring chances, other systems are designed to immediately pressure the puck with may limit possession but create more quality scoring changes against.

Guess what kind of system we play in our zone.

In the offensive zone Carlyle wants to be more of a possession team. We however have a lot of players that can score off the rush and we were not a dump and chase type team at all last year, and we tried to create quality scoring chances with speed off the rush.....successfully I may add.

So, you don't disagree with what the stats show -- that the Leafs weren't controlling the pace of the game for much of last season, letting other teams dictate play (albeit while trying to limit where and how they can play), and then reacting by jumping on their mistakes when possible and scoring. That's what the stats and the guy rewatching the games found, and you're not saying that that isn't what happened last year.

You're just disagreeing with the author's belief that this isn't a way to succeed consistently.

 

[indigobuffalo]

The clincher for me is when you look at the reality of the Leafs roster from last year to this year.

Komarov/Grabovski becomes Bolland
Frattin/MacArthur becomes Clarkson
Scrivens becomes Bernier
Gardiner for the full season
Kostka becomes Rielly/Liles
Liles becomes Ranger
Gunnarsson is healthy (no hip issues)

When you look at it, we've become a much, much better team this off-season. So much so that I think it's laughable that people think the Leafs are still a playoff-bubble team.

The biggest prize is the large number of ELC and super-friendly hometown discount contracts.

Kadri, Ranger, Rielly, Franson, Reimer, Bernier, Gardiner and Kessel are all on contracts that massively under-pay each of them.

This is a season in which we have a very legit shot at the Cup.

 

[MastuhNinks]

It's funny because the most reliable advanced stats projection system (GVT/VUKOTA) has the Leafs finishing 10th in the league this season, but apparently only the stats that mean the Leafs are bad count.

 

[Future]

I always lol when people bring up advanced stats in a game like hockey.

Basketball and Baseball I can understand, but hockey? Lmfao

 

[Bedards Dad]

This was taken completely out of context. When did I ever say I was flip floppy and negative? I think the Leafs can make the playoffs and I will be cheering along for all 82 games like I do each year. I am a die hard fan that bleeds blue. This is not to be confused with a fan who each year thinks the Leafs will get 120pts finish 1st in the league and every player will have career years offensively.

Do I think the Leafs will win the Cup this season? No I don't, but that doesn't mean I won't be cheering like crazy if they actually got close. This was the point I was making, fan is short for fanatic, but having reasonable expectations allows for higher highs when the team does well instead of expecting greatness and potentially being let down. It is dependent on team too and as Leafs fans we might be able to expect greatness soon and as a fan of a team like the Pens they should be expecting to win the Cup, but I feel the Leafs aren't quite on the level of other Stanley Cup contenders and I REALLY hope I'm proven wrong.

I don't see the negativity or flip flopping in this, do you mean every fan who doesn't think the Leafs will win the Cup this season is negative?

No I didn't say that, but I see enough BS from the regular folk here who ***** and complain about everything Leafs, then when they finally win they will act like they were there all along. When I see someone say "It is easier to..." it tends to hit me the wrong way.

 

[bruyns]

No I didn't say that, but I see enough BS from the regular folk here who ***** and complain about everything Leafs, then when they finally win they will act like they were there all along. When I see someone say "It is easier to..." it tends to hit me the wrong way.

Fair enough, thanks for the clarification. I also get annoyed with the overly negative people like disgruntled observer etc.

 

[Damisoph]

I rue the day I ever heard of ****ing Corsi.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

I always lol when people bring up advanced stats in a game like hockey.

Basketball and Baseball I can understand, but hockey? Lmfao

Why can advanced stats be relevant to those sports but not to hockey?

If you're going to say Hockey has too many more factors, can you explain how Basketball *doesn't* have just as many factors?