I never read or heard once that Pj was better COMPARED to others on his right wing. It was “PJ makes 97 better” - over and over and over again.
We hear many a tall tale about how great certain analytic darlings are who never amount to a hill of beans. Often backed up with WAR charts and Player Cards.
I don’t think advanced stats are all useless. But I often find the conclusions as absolutes many bring to the table are near laughable.
Expected Goals and Saves seem to have become more important than real goals and saves - which NHL players and coaches laugh over - twitterlytics I believe one them called them. That’s where I first heard the name.
Anyway we probably agree more than disagree on analytics. I can get pretty abrasive in my disdain for how the game itself is often misunderstood in the quest for sanitized baseball like stats as absolutes on every given thing.
Cheers.
Fair enough, I agree with the general notion that analytics have their place in the game but need proper utilization and are not the end all be all. There's a reason why so many well run franchises like Tampa, Colorado, Vegas, Carolina, and Toronto (yes Toronto, specifically in regular season
) heavily use analytics, but they also make sure to back it up with in person scouting/film review to obtain the context behind the numbers. The only question is whether you believe analytics should be used to paint 10%, 30%, 50%, 70% etc of the picture and I suspect I have a higher number than you, but I think it's fair to say it's not 0% and certainly not 100%.
Also I still think you're diving into the hallowed depths of Twitter that you're better off avoiding. The Evolving-Wild crowd in particular I personally find insufferable even as a "stats nerd" myself. There are plenty of completely reasonable analysts/communities out there that don't spew bullshit like Nichushkin>Draisaitl.
On a somewhat related note, even something as well refined as baseball sabremetrics is constantly evolving. One big new things in their industry is swing path tracking which studies collision/launch angles, swing speed, "shape" of swing etc relative to pitch velocity/spin/movement/location etc which only started the past 2 or 3 years. Information is power in the current world regardless of industry and being the first to figure out something gives you a significant advantage over your competitors. Who knows when the next new hockey stat makes xGF% and HDCF% irrelevant just like how xGF% and HDCF% have made Corsi largely obsolete within the past half decade. I'd just rather the Oilers be the team to figure it out first and not someone like the Avs.