Stupid Small Sample: Coyotes Early Stats Are...Odd

[rt]

It’s October. That means it’s time to hyper analyze ridiculously small sample sizes and draw incredibly premature conclusions. It’s an annual tradition.

So let’s look at Arizona.

Coyotes have such intriguing stats:

Shot Attempt Differential (Corsi): 4th in NHL (+78)

Unblocked Shot Attempt Differential (Fenwick): 4th in NHL (+45)

Shots Against per game: 2nd in NHL (23.3)

Shots For per game: 5th in NHL (36.5)

Faceoff Percentage: 5th in NHL (53.3)

Goals Against per game: 4th in NHL (2.25)

Looks good, right? No...

Goals For per game: 31st in NHL (0.50)

What in the actual ****?

The performance indicators are there. The performance is not. Are they going to explode offensively soon or are we looking at a new kind of outlier?

We’ve all seen terrible players with great fancy stats. Are we about to see a whole team that fits that bill?

Click to read more...

 

[pabst blue ribbon]

I wouldn't brag about my shot differential if I played half of my games vs the Ducks

 

[SotasicA]

Instead of winning hockey games, they are going for the Corsi Championship Cup.

 

[nobody]

It’s October. That means it’s time to hyper analyze ridiculously small sample sizes and draw incredibly premature conclusions. It’s an annual tradition.

So let’s look at Arizona.

Coyotes have such intriguing stats:

Shot Attempt Differential (Corsi): 4th in NHL (+78)

Unblocked Shot Attempt Differential (Fenwick): 4th in NHL (+45)

Shots Against per game: 2nd in NHL (23.3)

Shots For per game: 5th in NHL (36.5)

Faceoff Percentage: 5th in NHL (53.3)

Goals Against per game: 4th in NHL (2.25)

Looks good, right? No...

Goals For per game: 31st in NHL (0.50)

What in the actual ****?

The performance indicators are there. The performance is not. Are they going to explode offensively soon or are we looking at a new kind of outlier?

We’ve all seen terrible players with great fancy stats. Are we about to see a whole team that fits that bill?

Chalk it up to bad luck. I for one anticipated two teams to make a huge push this year. The Carolina Hurricanes and the Arizona Coyotes. Canes have delivered as expected, I think Coyotes will deliver soon enough. Their team has too much talent to be doing this bad, specially with a fantastic goalie like Rantaa in net.

 

[rt]

I wouldn't brag about my shot differential if I played half games vs the Ducks

Who’s bragging? The Coyotes are awful. They outshot both the Stars and Sabres nearly 2:1, IIRC. They have no goals to show for either game. We’ve all seen games like this. But it’s been every game this season like this for Arizona. It’s strange.

 

[rt]

Instead of winning hockey games, they are going for the Corsi Championship Cup.

Right. It’s a KPI. But so far it’s been indicative of nothing.

 

[Brobust]

Score effects + bad forward depth.

 

[Kamiccolo]

Two Arizona threads in one day? Is it time to get a mega thread going?

 

[rt]

Score effects + bad forward depth.

Score effects is partially true. The Dallas and Buffalo offense really all game toward the middle of the game. Shot differential widened after that of course, but was well in AZ favor prior to that. The discrepancy has been amplified by the score for sure but it was already a trend, I think.

Bad depth is definitely true.

It’s obviously a small enough sample to get something like this. But I thought it notable nonetheless given the emphasis generally placed on these kinds of counting stats.

 

[GellMann]

They had like twelve open nets/glorious chances last night and missed them all

 

[rt]

They had like twelve open nets/glorious chances last night and missed them all

It’s not just last night. It’s been each game.

 

[TOGuy14]

Chayka must be very pleased. He is winning the spreadsheet hockey league this year.

 

[DaGap]

Dallas Eakins Coaching again?

 

[rt]

Dallas Eakins Coaching again?

I knew the Oilers were bad under Eakins but were they bad in this way?

 

[Emerz]

Just looking at the forwards on the team, the only guy who strikes me as an actual goal scorer / 60+ point player is Keller, maybe a sophomore slump?

Grabner is kind of random, he either scores 20+ or scores under 10 goals.

Stepan I guess is the other scorer but again he's kind of just a secondary guy good for a consistent 55ish points.

I would suspect there won't be much scoring done this season from the Coyotes but that's just strictly based off a quick look at the roster.

 

[Morlu]

Honestly there was a Leafs team post Sundin that was like that. No talent played hard but couldn’t score. Every goalie looked like a Vezina candidate. I don’t know much about Arizona but odds are the shots are low scoring % shots and they don’t really have any snipers. When Strome and Galchenyuk (Injured). Are your best players you’re going to need to win a lot of 3-2 and 2-1 games.

 

[vippe]

Honestly, what I've seen from Arizona this year has been pretty good.

They just cant put the frikkin puck in to the net so far...

 

[Scrantonicity 2]

I've been told that Chayka is one of the best GM's in the league so I'm sure everything will be golden.

 

[tony d]

The Coyotes do have some good talent there (Keller's going to be great player IMO), be interesting to see if they can get it all together and score some goals this season and flirt with a playoff spot.

 

[Filthy Dangles]

I knew the Oilers were bad under Eakins but were they bad in this way?

Yes he gamed Corsi. Wouldn't surprise me if Spreadsheet Chayka is doing the same.

 

[rt]

Well, in their next game the Coyotes are playing the #1 team in shots given up. Maybe they’ll outshoot Minnesota 48-12 and lose 0-1.

 

[Anglesmith]

As someone who has always been critical of the way Corsi has been taken as a predictive tool in hockey, I think the case study of the Coyotes could be a good thing for the league in the long run.

 

[Cellee]

Two Arizona threads in one day? Is it time to get a mega thread going?

I found it interesting. Particularly due analytics being a major reason Chayka was hired.

 

[GlitchMarner]

Auston Matthews has more than three times as many goals as the Arizona Coyotes.

 

[BM14]

Right. It’s a KPI. But so far it’s been indicative of nothing.

So, it's actually not a KPI.