These models demonstrate a significant lack of understanding of what goes on on the ice.
If you don't know how to read them sure. Advanced analytics paint a picture, just like box score stats.
They go deeper in terms of the smaller, harder to track stuff and help provide more insight into what is going on.
Now of course, a truly unbiased tracking of a player through every shift would be better (similar to what PFF does for football), but since the only people watching that much are biased fans of the teams, who are heavily influenced by larger results rather than the underlying stuff behind it (for example if a team is shooting 20% with a guy on the ice and his goaltender has a 0.950 save% with him on the ice, a fan will forget most of that players defensive lapses, since the goaltender made the save, and they didn't show a replay, and will remember much more of his good offensive plays, since he got lucky enough to have them result in goals they replay 6 times, rather than a missed net that is forgotten within 10 seconds).
And so generally I would trust the in depth stats to paint the picture rather than a biased fanbase. I do tend to somewhat trust what fanbases say when comparing players to other players also on their team, although a check to see if the on ice shooting/save%s may be skewing perception somewhat.
