Asiaoil
Vperod Bizona!
I addressed this before but you did not respond.
I looked at the link you posted to Woodguy's comments and if it is the one I checked out I did not see much of a detailed analysis to be honest. It was more of a summary of the content of PuckIq's data. On the surface it looks compelling as you stated but a more detailed look at these numbers was done by the guy who runs PuckIq here: (Thanks to tempesti2i for pointing this out).
https://oilersnerdalert.wordpress.com/2017/08/19/comparing-nuges-oranges-and-draisaitls-oranges/
He points out a significant quirk in these numbers which I had also noted before and that is the impact of the combination of Nuge and Russell on the numbers that Woodguy quotes. It's actually somewhat freaky and quite remarkable how much the pair seemed to be oil and water. I have pointed out that with Larsson statistically Nuge looks like a completely different player. In fact with anyone other than Russell and things do look very different.
Beyond that Nuge's numbers vs the elite in the west are also very different. I know you like the using GF/60 and GA/60 which I have issues with when comparing players in different roles. But what is striking is that vs the West Nuge's GF/60 is 2.2 and his GA/60 is an extremely low 1.3. Yet vs the east they are respectively an anemic 0.70 and 2.70. The respective TOI are West 269 minutes and East 175 minutes so there is no doubt some small sample size issues here. But on the surface this suggests that the overall the numbers are skewed by some truly bad games vs a few eastern teams. And if I recall Nuge played some of the worst hockey of his career during an Eastern swing early in the year. The team was also terrible during that stretch, really the only extended period of poor defensive play the whole year.
You have also recently acknowledged that the stats that are often used don't isolate the player in suggesting that Nuge's successful results in the playoffs had him "helping" his unit. So is this terrible stretch indicative of the player or is it a statistical quirk due to a match-up that was for a brief time a disaster. Is there a case to be made that his much better performance over a larger sample size against the type of teams he is suppose to struggle against more representative of the player that his coach seems to speak of frequently. Hopefully this year makes this more clear.
http://puckiq.com/players/8476454
Hi Fourier – thanks for taking the time to respond. Always a pleasure to debate with you as you’re so detailed. A lot of what you point out is perfectly correct, but as woodguy admits in the article, you can’t really ex-post take out a small portion of the results that show RNH in a negative light, accept the rest, and call it good. The results are obviously interesting, could be real, could be simple luck, might be completely opposite this year. GF% of a full season is, as you know, not a sample. It’s the population. It is what it is. Carving out pieces of that small population and trying to say anything statistically meaningful is almost impossible unless your sample is almost the same size as the population (kind of pointless). The analytics community hates the stat for this reason, but that doesn’t reduce its importance since out-scoring is the entire point of the game. Of course you can look at trends in GF% during the season, ponder possible causes etc etc etc. But these musings are always highly speculative given our crude tools and very limited data.
A lot of what the so-called analytics community focuses on is secondary data (like corsi) that does not have a demonstrable, direct correlation with results (GF%) at the individual level. That is why the analytics community hates Russell so much. He’s a guy who creates positive outcomes in spite of what their simple models suggest should happen. It drives them crazy, but instead of pondering why their models are not working, they attack the player and anyone who suggests that their simple little models have issues. They simply ignore results they don’t like and keep doing the same old thing. Pouliot is is a bargain - maybe not. Fayne is a stud - whoops. Russell is awful - hmmmmm. They have also created an area of inquiry that not only ignores the measurability logical fallacy (i.e., suggesting that anything that cannot be measured or quantified is anecdotal or unworthy of serious consideration) but has enshrined the fallacy as a core operating assumption. The entire enterprise would be laughed out of any social science department. Well maybe not economics but that’s another issue
But back to RNH – here is my take on the player:
Pros: skating, passing, intelligence, power play, defensive work ethic, coachability
Cons: lack of strength, lack of aggressiveness, follower not leader, inflexibility, out-scoring
Deployment: low-end 1st line center / high end 2nd line center / elite 3rd line center
Salary Range: $4.0 million (low end) to 6.0 million (high end)
RNH has a lot of solid skills but some pretty serious flaws as well which tend to be in the “intangible” category but also in the demonstrable result (GF%) as well. As discussed above, intangible does not mean unimportant or even unmeasurable, quite the opposite as many of the best NHL coaching and management professionals state openly. RNH’s intangibles aside from coachability and defensive work ethic are not really an asset. He’s pretty timid and not at all physical, very much a follower and not a leader. By inflexibility I refer to his very poor results when paired with many players who he simply does not gel with. He seems like a hard guy to play with to me, maybe even stubborn in his approach. That said he’s a very good 2nd line center and PP guy and I would consider him an elite 3C if you have the luxury of playing him there (which we do this season). But he’s not value as a 2C or 3C in my books and that will mean he’s traded next year when cap space becomes very scarce. We may not replace his points on the 3rd line but we certainly might be able to upgrade intangibles and GF% results. A goal prevented is just a valuable (but less demonstrable) that a goal for, and if the change in the team over the past 2 years tells us anything, it should be very clear that shots and offensive boxcars do not in and of themselves determine success.
Sorry for the essay but felt like your reply deserved some thought.
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