Why can't this team score in the playoffs?

[Barney Gumble]

The only real problem I see is the player utilization right now. The coaching staff have made some questionable choices in terms of ice time, which is disappointing when the team had home ice to drive match-ups.

Not surprising though is it? I hate repeating it yet again, but you think you would make it a priority to have your best defensive forward (and his line) as well as your best blueline pairing in the last minute of a game - *on home ice* when you have a better control over line juggling.

 

[Proto]

My PP units:

Kassian - H. Sedin - D. Sedin
Kesler - Garrison

Higgins - Roy - Burrows
Edler - Bieksa

This is another feature, of course. The Canucks for two seasons have absolutely cratered in one of the three facets of the game -- on the power play. This season, the power play is so abysmal that it doesn't allow the team to struggle at even strength at all, because the power play never bails the team out.

 

[David71]

needs moar scorers! preferbly young guys..

 

[vanuck]

No, it wouldn't. It's not a large enough sample and it makes no intuitive sense. There's a pretty standard shooting percentage you expect to see at even strength. Not all teams revert to a 1.000 PDO team, as obviously an elite team can have better goaltending and perhaps slightly better shooters than league average. Still, you wouldn't expect the Canucks to be an 8-9% ES team in the regular season and become a 5-6% team in the post-season. It just doesn't make sense.

So unless the Canucks better shooters aren't shooting, the shooting % shouldn't change appreciably. Really, unless the Canucks are putting materially less pucks on net, I don't see a reason for the offense to just dry up. Unless someone can show me something that suggests shot quality can be demonstrated...

Perhaps "expect" is not the right word, but would this drop in SH% be considered 'normal' if you compare it to the league average drop? I mean, even if we just looked at the first 3/4 and the last 1/4 of each season for each team (excluding playoffs as sample would be pretty small), would there be a trend similar to that of the Canucks, like what opendoor said?

 

[Proto]

Perhaps "expect" is not the right word, but would this drop in SH% be considered 'normal' if you compare it to the league average drop? I mean, even if we just looked at the first 3/4 and the last 1/4 of each season for each team (excluding playoffs as sample would be pretty small), would there be a trend similar to that of the Canucks, like what opendoor said?

There is no trend. The sample size is too small to draw any conclusions from that. It's likely bad luck -- unless, as I said, someone can show me something to suggest that the team's highest percentage shooters are for some reason taking materially less shots. Sometimes it just happens that a team has bad luck.

As I said, there are some things the team could and should be doing better, but I don't think their shooting percentage is more than statistical variance/crummy luck.

 

[vanuck]

There is no trend. The sample size is too small to draw any conclusions from that. It's likely bad luck -- unless, as I said, someone can show me something to suggest that the team's highest percentage shooters are for some reason taking materially less shots. Sometimes it just happens that a team has bad luck.

As I said, there are some things the team could and should be doing better, but I don't think their shooting percentage is more than statistical variance/crummy luck.

Even over the past 3 seasons? That's a combined ~180 games for the first 3 quarters and ~60 for the last quarter, per team.

You said yourself that not all teams revert to a PDO of 1. If it's likely just bad luck, how do we know that the Canucks' shooting luck will revert back to normal levels for sure? Wouldn't that imply that our goaltending would have to worsen?

 

[Proto]

Not surprising though is it? I hate repeating it yet again, but you think you would make it a priority to have your best defensive forward (and his line) as well as your best blueline pairing in the last minute of a game - *on home ice* when you have a better control over line juggling.

Yeah, that surprised me, as did Edler playing significantly more ES minutes than Hamhuis. Really curious about that.

 

[Proto]

Even over the past 3 seasons? That's a combined ~180 games for the first 3 quarters and ~60 for the last quarter, per team.

You said yourself that not all teams revert to a PDO of 1. If it's likely just bad luck, how do we know that the Canucks' shooting luck will revert back to normal levels for sure? Wouldn't that imply that our goaltending would have to worsen?

I'm saying the Canucks seeing a drop in shooting percentage over a small sample size is irrelevant, yes. The last "quarter" of the season this year was like 10 games, too.

Look at it this way, for simplicity's sake. There are 30 teams in the league. Let's say you broke the season down into quarters, and say that each team performed above average shooting for two quarters and below average for two quarters. That's a gross simplification, but it should serve to illustrate my point.

Now, that would mean on average, 7-8 teams would shoot below average for the quarter of the season that fell last in the calendar. The next season, each of these 7-8 teams would have a 25% chance (by random distribution) of being one of the 7-8 clubs that had a bad shooting percentage in the last quarter again, so you'd expect probably two of the same teams to appear to "fall off the map" shooting for the second consecutive season.

In the third season, there would still be about a 50% chance that once of those two teams would replicate their poor shooting over the final quarter of the season again.

As I said, that's a really simplified way of looking at percentages, but it should highlight how a pretty random distribution can create a "pattern" that people will force narratives on to, even if it's pretty basic math. This sort of thing is bound to happen to some team. Even over 82 games, some teams will shoot at an unsustainable percentage, but are exceptionally unlikely to repeat it again. I'd say once you get to two seasons worth of hockey, most of those bumps in the statistical road will even out -- but that would be the last quarter of like 8 seasons of hockey.

Keep in mind I'm not saying there isn't some way to quantify shot quality, only that nobody has shown a way to do so that's convincing statistically. The Pens employ a firm that tracks shot location and they use that to make personnel decisions, but none of that data is public, so who knows how good it is. But using the shot metrics people have made public, we can say with relative certainty that on a large scale, shot attempts (your corsis and fenwicks) have a good correlative relationship with goal scoring/winning hockey games.

That's why I'd only find any of this interesting if for some reason there was some dramatic shift in who was taking shots for the Canucks. If we saw like a 30% uptick in shots from defensemen and a 30% downtick in shots from the Canucks 5 best shooting forwards, then maybe you could parse the data and see some kind of tactical shift that had occurred.

Edit: posted late. I meant to say that each team in the league shoots significantly below average for one quarter of the season. If it was two above and two below, even more teams would fall into this category. I don't know which would be more accurate, but for the sake of showing how narratives get forced onto stats, we'll go with my original intent.

 

[Proto]

You said yourself that not all teams revert to a PDO of 1. If it's likely just bad luck, how do we know that the Canucks' shooting luck will revert back to normal levels for sure? Wouldn't that imply that our goaltending would have to worsen?

Teams won't revert to 1.000, true, but it's not a massive difference. Mostly it's because some teams have significantly better even strength goaltending than your average NHL squad.

I still think in an uncapped era it would be possible to build a squad that shot significantly above average season to season, but it seems close to impossible in a capped era. There just isn't enough money to ice a 3rd and 4th line with elite shooters on it.

 

[vancityluongo]

There just isn't enough money to ice a 3rd and 4th line with elite shooters on it.

Not established ones, but is it possible if you have players on ELC's?

 

[opendoor]

Keep in mind I'm not saying there isn't some way to quantify shot quality, only that nobody has shown a way to do so that's convincing statistically. The Pens employ a firm that tracks shot location and they use that to make personnel decisions, but none of that data is public, so who knows how good it is. But using the shot metrics people have made public, we can say with relative certainty that on a large scale, shot attempts (your corsis and fenwicks) have a good correlative relationship with goal scoring/winning hockey games.

That's why I'd only find any of this interesting if for some reason there was some dramatic shift in who was taking shots for the Canucks. If we saw like a 30% uptick in shots from defensemen and a 30% downtick in shots from the Canucks 5 best shooting forwards, then maybe you could parse the data and see some kind of tactical shift that had occurred.

But shot quality obviously exists. There are certainly problems with quantifying it (arena bias or deciding which and how the recorded parameters should define the quality of the shot), but clearly some shots are more likely to result in goals than others. The shooting percentage for rebounds and breakaways is something around 30% whereas unscreened shots from the point are in the low single digits. Saying that poorer shot quality can't account for a lower shooting percentage, especially over a small sample, is silly IMO. Why wouldn't a team that fires shots from the perimeter have a lower shooting percentage compared to one that can get to the net more easily?

Over a large sample against 29 other opponents I can certainly see how this would even out over time, but in a few playoff series where you play the same team 5-7 times? Some of their struggles are definitely bad luck, but IMO a good portion of it is also a struggle to produce excellent scoring chances and an unfortunate habit of flubbing some of the chances they do produce.

That's not to say that their low shooting percentage has any predictive power or that it's even sustainable, but I'm hesitant to chalk up all of their struggles up simply to luck just because they're generating a decent number of shots.

 

[vanuck]

Not established ones, but is it possible if you have players on ELC's?

It's possible, but at best you'd be getting them at a cheap cost for a few years before they cash in.

 

[vanuck]

As I said, that's a really simplified way of looking at percentages, but it should highlight how a pretty random distribution can create a "pattern" that people will force narratives on to, even if it's pretty basic math. This sort of thing is bound to happen to some team. Even over 82 games, some teams will shoot at an unsustainable percentage, but are exceptionally unlikely to repeat it again. I'd say once you get to two seasons worth of hockey, most of those bumps in the statistical road will even out -- but that would be the last quarter of like 8 seasons of hockey.

Fair enough, good points. Although I do wonder how many times it has to happen before we can safely conclude that it's not just random luck anymore. Hopefully we don't have to find out...

And to use your example - which I recognize is greatly simplified - I'd imagine that there's room to account for certain factors like coaching and shooting talent that might affect a team's P(below average shooting) i.e factors that might introduce biases for and against certain teams.

Keep in mind I'm not saying there isn't some way to quantify shot quality, only that nobody has shown a way to do so that's convincing statistically. The Pens employ a firm that tracks shot location and they use that to make personnel decisions, but none of that data is public, so who knows how good it is. But using the shot metrics people have made public, we can say with relative certainty that on a large scale, shot attempts (your corsis and fenwicks) have a good correlative relationship with goal scoring/winning hockey games.

That's why I'd only find any of this interesting if for some reason there was some dramatic shift in who was taking shots for the Canucks. If we saw like a 30% uptick in shots from defensemen and a 30% downtick in shots from the Canucks 5 best shooting forwards, then maybe you could parse the data and see some kind of tactical shift that had occurred.

If I'm reading this correctly, you're not convinced that the Canucks' struggles are related to shot quality? I would hypothesize that the Canucks' shooting % drops because the forwards are taking shots from farther out because they're unable to get to the net as often as they could/should be, resulting in lower quality chances. We've all heard how teams tighten up down the stretch. It could indicate a consistent inability to adapt on the part of the coaching staff. If the decrease in SH% is due to poorer shot quality/location, you have to think poor offensive coaching is a factor.

Edit: Assuming that the D-men aren't suddenly taking a ridiculously greater proportion of the shots, of course. And even if they did, would it be significant enough to cause a 3-4% drop in the team's SH%?

 

[mossey3535]

Fair enough, good points. Although I do wonder how many times it has to happen before we can safely conclude that it's not just random luck anymore. Hopefully we don't have to find out...

And to use your example - which I recognize is greatly simplified - I'd imagine that there's room to account for certain factors like coaching and shooting talent that might affect a team's P(below average shooting) i.e factors that might introduce biases for and against certain teams.



If I'm reading this correctly, you're not convinced that the Canucks' struggles are related to shot quality? I would hypothesize that the Canucks' shooting % drops because the forwards are taking shots from farther out because they're unable to get to the net as often as they could/should be, resulting in lower quality chances. We've all heard how teams tighten up down the stretch. It could indicate a consistent inability to adapt on the part of the coaching staff. If the decrease in SH% is due to poorer shot quality/location, you have to think poor offensive coaching is a factor.

Edit: Assuming that the D-men aren't suddenly taking a ridiculously greater proportion of the shots, of course. And even if they did, would it be significant enough to cause a 3-4% drop in the team's SH%?

No, what he's saying is that every time shot quality has been run by the current advanced statistics community it hasn't shown to be statistically superior to shot volume (Fenwick/Corsi).

Or, shot quality (measured by scoring chances) tends to be so highly correlated with shot volume that you might as well continue to use shot volume because shot volume is a widely available stat and scoring chance data has been collected manually.

I don't have the same qualms as Proto about shooting % and supposedly small sample sizes because hockey isn't blessed with large sample sizes to begin with since the end result (goals) is a relatively rare event even though an 80 game season.

There is basically NO true modelling being done by anyone anywhere for hockey, it's all just people applying disparate single measurement metrics (Corsi, Fenwick, PDO, Shooting %) whose correlation to goals, let alone wins, is pretty unconvincing to begin with.

So if you were to compare the overall % drop for playoff teams in SH% from individual regular seasons to playoffs and then compare the Canucks drop relative to that I would say go ahead, since invoking 'low sample size' in a statistical realm where your existing metrics have massive, inherent problems to begin with (including sample size) seems a little silly when the 'reliable' statistics are all just 40-60% speculation anyways. So you might as well amuse yourself with more speculation.

 

[mossey3535]

Also, the transfer of shot volume from one segment of the team to another might not even mean anything if shot quality has an effect (which it does, we just can't quantify it) because taking 'safe' shots would reduce shooting % but your best players are going to have all the shot volume anyways because they get the most ice time.

So your best players could keep merrily shooting their normal Fenwick/Corsi % but with poor shot quality. BUt you'd look at the shot volume stats and not see a difference. What Proto is suggesting is merely the most BLATANT change that could be observed using current metrics.

 

[slappipappi]

It's possible, but at best you'd be getting them at a cheap cost for a few years before they cash in.

The model for a successful team in a cap era is to have 3-4th line players who are young and cheaper.

Those players may have to be moved every once in a while to be replaced by younger, cheaper players.

Signing guys like Higgins (who is a decent 3rd liner) to long term money is the opposite of what the successful long term contenders can do.

The Canucks have squandered draft picks and have to sign the Higgins of the world because they don't have the cheap younger players coming up to fill those roles.

Vancouver has followed the Calgary Flames mode of signing everyone it can and trade draft picks to fill holes.

For a team that prides itself of having everyone sign at a discount, it sure finds itself in cap trouble.

A few players who are young and being paid $600,000 would certainly help that problem.

 

[Tiranis]

Signing guys like Higgins (who is a decent 3rd liner) to long term money is the opposite of what the successful long term contenders can do.

The Canucks have squandered draft picks and have to sign the Higgins of the world because they don't have the cheap younger players coming up to fill those roles.

I'm sorry, is this a serious post? The Detroit Red Wings have Justin Abdelkader (!) signed to a 4 year deal worth 1.8m per. This is a guy that managed to put up 13 points from the Wings 1st line playing the whole year with Datsyuk.

They also signed Jordin Tootoo to a 3 year, 1.9m deal. Bruins have Chris Kelly signed for 3m for 4 years — a player very similar to Higgins, other than being a center.

 

[Fat Tony]

The Wings and Bruins aren't press up against the cap like the Canucks.

 

[slappipappi]

I'm sorry, is this a serious post? The Detroit Red Wings have Justin Abdelkader (!) signed to a 4 year deal worth 1.8m per. This is a guy that managed to put up 13 points from the Wings 1st line playing the whole year with Datsyuk.

They also signed Jordin Tootoo to a 3 year, 1.9m deal. Bruins have Chris Kelly signed for 3m for 4 years — a player very similar to Higgins, other than being a center.

And Detroit is in the same boat as the Canucks.

They aren't going to be an elite contender anytime soon.

As I said, it's not that Higgins wouldn't have gotten as much or more on the UFA market. But when you signing older players $2.5M to play 3-4th line minutes (when they were getting less than that), and those players are going to regress over the life of the contract), you team is not getting better. If the Canucks had had a younger player making $600,000 to take over, they could saved money and played someone who may actually have gotten better over the next years.

Chicago's third line of Shaw/Stalberg/Bickell makes less than $3M combined.

 

[Fat Tony]

And Detroit is in the same boat as the Canucks.

They aren't going to be an elite contender anytime soon.

I didn't want to mention that. It's still a bit of a controversial viewpoint with some.

 

[King of the ES*]

I'm sorry, is this a serious post? The Detroit Red Wings have Justin Abdelkader (!) signed to a 4 year deal worth 1.8m per. This is a guy that managed to put up 13 points from the Wings 1st line playing the whole year with Datsyuk.

10 of Abdelkader's 13 points were goals, which ties Higgins' number for the year. He's also 4 years younger, and plays a completely different style (much more physical, gritty, hard to play against). Detroit's making a bet on him kinda like Vancouver made on Burrows in '08. $1.8M is a very good cap number for a guy that could significantly breakout.

I completely agree with whoever said that the Higgins signing is not the way to build a team. 30 years old, questionable motivation levels. Totally invisible in these playoffs thus far, much like he was last year. I hated the acquisition when it happened as I had seen the total no-show that he pulled in Calgary in 2010. He's performed a lot better than expected for this team, but, again, Mike Gillis feels that he needs to be "rewarded" with a 4-year contract, whereas the smart move might be to try trading him somewhere else while he still has some value. Wally Buono style. Not a contract that's going to work out well for the Canucks, IMO.

 

[Fat Tony]

I completely agree with whoever said that the Higgins signing is not the way to build a team.

His re-signing (as well as Burrow's) just signals to me that the team is going to stagnate. And I like both these players.

 

[Proto]

10 of Abdelkader's 13 points were goals, which ties Higgins' number for the year. He's also 4 years younger, and plays a completely different style (much more physical, gritty, hard to play against). Detroit's making a bet on him kinda like Vancouver made on Burrows in '08. $1.8M is a very good cap number for a guy that could significantly breakout.

I completely agree with whoever said that the Higgins signing is not the way to build a team. 30 years old, questionable motivation levels. Totally invisible in these playoffs thus far, much like he was last year. I hated the acquisition when it happened as I had seen the total no-show that he pulled in Calgary in 2010. He's performed a lot better than expected for this team, but, again, Mike Gillis feels that he needs to be "rewarded" with a 4-year contract, whereas the smart move might be to try trading him somewhere else while he still has some value. Wally Buono style. Not a contract that's going to work out well for the Canucks, IMO.

Honestly, all your psychoanalytical posts questioning work ethic, heart, and all these other unmeasureable intangibles add zero value to the discussion. You spend all your time railing against guys that aren't hard to play against and then you lump Chris Higgins into the bunch? Seems like your opinion of what's "hard to play against" varies every thread to suit your needs.

 

[Proto]

Not established ones, but is it possible if you have players on ELC's?

Possibly, but most players won't develop into that player for more than a year on an ELC. And even if they do, are teams likely to keep an elite third line scorer on an ELC, or move that player to the 1st or 2nd line and bump an inferior (older, more expensive player of similar talent, etc.) off the roster? I think most teams would simply move a more established player, accrue some cap savings at that position, and "spend" the original asset's (the older player) value somewhere else on the club, likely through trade.

I'm sure it's possible, but it doesn't seem like something a team is likely to sustain for more than a season.

Part of the reason is that even truly elite defensemen do most of their damage offensively on the power play, so you're already limited to how many players on your roster are really going to drive up the ON-ICE SH%. If you look at the 30 highest volume ES shooters on defense the past three seasons, there's only about 4-6 guys each year that shoot higher than 4% at even strength, and it's usually different guys each year.

Which might tempt people to think that shooting with defense is a problem, but how many shots from D end up in continued puck possession, offensive zone faceoffs, or rebound chances that high-value shooters are left with?

There are just an incredible amount of variables, which is why there is value in the relatively safe bet that most teams will hover around that 8-ish percent market at even strength year to year. It's probably not perfect, but there is inherently more certainty there than in other measures.

 

[King of the ES*]

Honestly, all your psychoanalytical posts questioning work ethic, heart, and all these other unmeasureable intangibles add zero value to the discussion. You spend all your time railing against guys that aren't hard to play against and then you lump Chris Higgins into the bunch? Seems like your opinion of what's "hard to play against" varies every thread to suit your needs.

Remember how you said that the Islanders and the Leafs are horrible? Leafs earn the split in Boston - fared a little better than the Canucks did there in the SCF - and the Islanders have literally just seconds ago lost G3 against the Pens in OT and on the PK, making it 2 - 1 now for Pittsburgh. How are those results explained? If the Islanders are "just terrible", as you said a couple of days ago, shouldn't Pittsburgh be handling them with ease? Is it "luck"?

For you to simply brush off the intangibles like heart is quite funny. I guess Higgins not scoring in 17 consecutive playoff games, and Raymond not scoring in 16, is just a bout of bad luck, eh?