GlitchMarner
Typical malevolent, devious & vile Maple Leafs fan
These are fairly widely used on this site and are often derided.
I try to be open-minded when it comes to different forms of analysis. If my understanding is correct (and I'm not pretending to be an expert on this analysis method), these charts are supposed to isolate individual player impact (both defensively and offensively) by comparing how a given player's team performs on offense and defense when he is on the ice to how his team performs on offense and defense when he is on the bench in five on five situations (I know PP and EN situations are excluded; I assume four on four and three on three situations are as well).
Assuming I am correct, this concept is actually very simple to grasp and it makes sense that people analyzing a sport would want to try to account for an individual player's overall impact.
For whatever reason, it seems a lot of people on this board have decided that these charts are completely meaningless. People make claims along the lines of, "I trust my eyes more than pretty little charts made by some geek who's never played hockey!"
I don't hold the opinion that RAPM is completely meaningless, but I do have a hard time accepting that certain outputs are entirely accurate representations of what they are supposed to measure.
Essentially, in certain cases, that the difference in defensive impact between two players at five on five is as large as it appears to be according to RAPM and there is no way to explain that difference other than, "Player A simply makes a much more beneficial or detrimental impact defensively" makes no intuitive sense to me.
I know these charts are supposed to account for teammate strength, quality of opposition and other context.
If we are talking about a player like, say, Patrice Bergeron, someone who is a well-schooled defensive centreman and is tasked with shutting down the opposition's best lines, I can definitely buy that he makes a much larger impact defensively than a scoring centre who isn't very good or committed defensively (Kuznetsov for example).
However, in certain instances - such as when two scoring line wingers are being compared and one has an RAMP chart that suggests he makes a far more team-friendly impact on defense than another scoring line winger - I am unable to grasp exactly how one player can that skates up down the wing and is primarily responsible for generating offense is supposed to affect his team's defense in a much different way than another winger who skates up and down the wing and has the same basic role.
What exactly are the things that Winger A is doing individually that cause him to have such a superior defensive impact to Winger B's? Is he finishing his checks more often, is he getting caught cheating up the ice less often, is he routinely backchecking harder? Keep in mind that I'm talking about offensive wingers here, not guys like Mark Stone.
Is the average scoring line winger really important enough defensively that he impacts his team's overall defensive game when he is on the ice in a far different manner than another scoring line winger impacts his team's overall defense when he's playing?
Another thing that I am curious about is how a seemingly random bottom six player (in this case, I am thinking specifically of Aston-Reese) made as much of an impact defensively as some claimed he did this past season (I assume his RAMP chart was really good for defense in 2020, but maybe there were different things that made some claim he should be in Selke consideration). For those who watched him play and/or those who believe he should have placed high in Selke voting: What were the particular things he was doing on the ice defensively that you believe he deserves credit for?
I hope my questions can be answered in a non-patronizing manner because these are genuine issues that keep me from embracing things like RAPM fully. If models such as RAMP are legitimate, then maybe we need to re-think the way we evaluate the game and put far more emphasis on details and smaller, more subtle things in hockey.
I try to be open-minded when it comes to different forms of analysis. If my understanding is correct (and I'm not pretending to be an expert on this analysis method), these charts are supposed to isolate individual player impact (both defensively and offensively) by comparing how a given player's team performs on offense and defense when he is on the ice to how his team performs on offense and defense when he is on the bench in five on five situations (I know PP and EN situations are excluded; I assume four on four and three on three situations are as well).
Assuming I am correct, this concept is actually very simple to grasp and it makes sense that people analyzing a sport would want to try to account for an individual player's overall impact.
For whatever reason, it seems a lot of people on this board have decided that these charts are completely meaningless. People make claims along the lines of, "I trust my eyes more than pretty little charts made by some geek who's never played hockey!"
I don't hold the opinion that RAPM is completely meaningless, but I do have a hard time accepting that certain outputs are entirely accurate representations of what they are supposed to measure.
Essentially, in certain cases, that the difference in defensive impact between two players at five on five is as large as it appears to be according to RAPM and there is no way to explain that difference other than, "Player A simply makes a much more beneficial or detrimental impact defensively" makes no intuitive sense to me.
I know these charts are supposed to account for teammate strength, quality of opposition and other context.
If we are talking about a player like, say, Patrice Bergeron, someone who is a well-schooled defensive centreman and is tasked with shutting down the opposition's best lines, I can definitely buy that he makes a much larger impact defensively than a scoring centre who isn't very good or committed defensively (Kuznetsov for example).
However, in certain instances - such as when two scoring line wingers are being compared and one has an RAMP chart that suggests he makes a far more team-friendly impact on defense than another scoring line winger - I am unable to grasp exactly how one player can that skates up down the wing and is primarily responsible for generating offense is supposed to affect his team's defense in a much different way than another winger who skates up and down the wing and has the same basic role.
What exactly are the things that Winger A is doing individually that cause him to have such a superior defensive impact to Winger B's? Is he finishing his checks more often, is he getting caught cheating up the ice less often, is he routinely backchecking harder? Keep in mind that I'm talking about offensive wingers here, not guys like Mark Stone.
Is the average scoring line winger really important enough defensively that he impacts his team's overall defensive game when he is on the ice in a far different manner than another scoring line winger impacts his team's overall defense when he's playing?
Another thing that I am curious about is how a seemingly random bottom six player (in this case, I am thinking specifically of Aston-Reese) made as much of an impact defensively as some claimed he did this past season (I assume his RAMP chart was really good for defense in 2020, but maybe there were different things that made some claim he should be in Selke consideration). For those who watched him play and/or those who believe he should have placed high in Selke voting: What were the particular things he was doing on the ice defensively that you believe he deserves credit for?
I hope my questions can be answered in a non-patronizing manner because these are genuine issues that keep me from embracing things like RAPM fully. If models such as RAMP are legitimate, then maybe we need to re-think the way we evaluate the game and put far more emphasis on details and smaller, more subtle things in hockey.
