Why doesn't the league track errors?

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

Just seems weird to me. They track contributions to goals for down to the second assist, so why can't that be balanced out for goals against with an error statistic? Should be simple - if you give the puck away or lose your man in front of the net and the play results in a goal against, you get an error or an "earned minus" in the same way a scoring point is essentially an "earned plus".

Maybe allow between 0-3 errors per scoring play with primary, secondary, and tertiary errors. Obviously not every goal has to have a skater error - but a lot of zero- error goals against over a season could imply the goaltender was playing subpar.

I feel like this would be interesting not only from an individual defensive perspective, but from a goaltending perspective and team defense perspective. How many goals does a team allow that are without error? How many errors are forced with the lead? How many errors per minute does a certain defensmen take? I feel that would be a great complement to the traditional advanced stats.

Does anyone know why this isn't a tracked stat (or is it tracked somewhere that I'm unaware of)? The only issue I could see would be the subjectiveness associated with the process, but it's no more subjective than penalties, giveaways, hits etc. I know baseball does the same sort of thing and it seems to work out alright. And the league already reviews scoring plays to get the point allocation correct, surely they could add in errors?

Thoughts?

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[ottawa]

They do track errors, look to see if there was a give away during a shift where there was a goal against. Maybe that's your idea if an "earned minus" if I'm understanding right

 

[WhiskeyYerTheDevils]

They do track errors, look to see if there was a give away during a shift where there was a goal against.

But giveaways aren't the only form of an error. Missed coverage in front of the net etc.

 

[skillhockey]

But giveaways aren't the only form of an error. Missed coverage in front of the net etc.

This is true. Been bothering me too as they(commentators) always just blame the guy turning the puck over even there might be couple other guys failing their assigments that actually leads to that goal.

 

[djdub]

They do track errors, look to see if there was a give away during a shift where there was a goal against. Maybe that's your idea if an "earned minus" if I'm understanding right

A giveaway is not necessarily the direct cause of a goal.

As the OP stated, have up to 2 or 3 earned errors. Usually a giveaway will be one of those errors, but many times it is the defenseman in front of the net failing to tie the attackers stick up.

It would be a very cool stat to see tracked.

 

[AINEC*]

Probably in a high-speed game like this it's honestly just not worth tracking. Errors like those happen 50 times a game.

It makes sense in a sport like baseball where the pace is much, much slower, and errors don't occur as frequently.

 

[Senor Catface]

Like moving the Flames to Calgary?

Biggest error possible.

Atlanta Flames were a legend.

 

[djdub]

Like moving the Flames to Calgary?

Biggest error possible.

Atlanta Flames were a legend.

You win

 

[djdub]

Probably in a high-speed game like this it's honestly just not worth tracking. Errors like those happen 50 times a game.

It makes sense in a sport like baseball where the pace is much, much slower, and errors don't occur as frequently.

Then would you also argue what is the point of tracking assists? There must be over 100 passes in a single game.

 

[MuckOG]

But giveaways aren't the only form of an error. Missed coverage in front of the net etc.

Probably because things like a missed coverage are subjective. What we, as the viewers, may see as an obvious missed coverage may in fact not be the case when you factor in thing such as what system the team is playing at the time.

 

[AINEC*]

Then would you also argue what is the point of tracking assists? There must be over 100 passes in a single game.

Yes I would. Stop tracking goals too. Stop sports.

 

[Hobble]

Because isn't deciding who erred somewhat subjective to a point?

 

[DonskoiDonscored]

Because the word error is completely subjective and there are 100s of errors per game (unless you're saying to only track an error if a goal is scored, at which point the error has no use) that amount to nothing at all (its all zone dependent really).

 

[DonskoiDonscored]

Then would you also argue what is the point of tracking assists? There must be over 100 passes in a single game.

Passes are tracked. They're done privately by a private company but they are tracked.

 

[Finnish your Czech]

An error is extremely subjective. More subjective than any other stat that exists.

 

[Spazkat]

Because isn't deciding who erred somewhat subjective to a point?

Bingo. If a player's pass fails to connect is it his fault automatically or is it because the intended recipient messed up in some way (wasn't paying attention, wasn't where he was supposed to be, just plain flubbed it, etc). If you don't have the specifics on how something was supposed to work, it's hard to assign blame when things go wrong.

 

[Hobble]

Error to Mr. and Mrs. Stuart for conceiving Mark Stuart?

 

[Spazkat]

Passes are tracked. They're done privately by a private company but they are tracked.

Some of the best stuff I've seen is from Ryan Stimson's <@RK_Stimp> passing project data. A lot of is is posted at hickey-graphs as well

https://hockey-graphs.com/2016/03/18/a-new-passing-project-data-visualization/

 

[DaveG]

But giveaways aren't the only form of an error. Missed coverage in front of the net etc.

Yeah, the qualitative +/- threads on the Canes board are a perfect example of what you're talking about if anyone wants to dive in and check them out:

11-12: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1013809
12-13: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1328837
13-14: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1511657
14-15: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1749771
15-16: http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1965253



That said, I do think the NHL flat out needs to track "own goals" like soccer does.

 

[bobholly39]

Probably in a high-speed game like this it's honestly just not worth tracking. Errors like those happen 50 times a game.

It makes sense in a sport like baseball where the pace is much, much slower, and errors don't occur as frequently.

Pretty much what i was going to say.

 

[Pandaman11]

Because isn't deciding who erred somewhat subjective to a point?

Because the word error is completely subjective and there are 100s of errors per game (unless you're saying to only track an error if a goal is scored, at which point the error has no use) that amount to nothing at all (its all zone dependent really).

An error is extremely subjective. More subjective than any other stat that exists.

Exactly. Case closed.

 

[Frank Drebin]

As difficult as it is for the statisticians who crave tangible evidence to determine that player A is better than player B, nothing can replace the eye test and on ice results.

This is not meant as a shot at op, I think it's a good idea but probably not feasible.

 

[Roboturner913]

It's too subjective. Plus, the third-party viewer has no idea as to the team's gameplan. How are you supposed to know what a player's "assignment" is at any given time? I suppose the teams could provide this info after reviewing coach's tape, etc, but by the time you got the data it would be days if not a week old.

 

[NyQuil]

It would have huge ramifications on arbitration.

I can't see the union going for it.

 

[PensBandwagonerNo272*]

Too subjective to be an objective statistic.

It's too subjective. Plus, the third-party viewer has no idea as to the team's gameplan. How are you supposed to know what a player's "assignment" is at any given time? I suppose the teams could provide this info after reviewing coach's tape, etc, but by the time you got the data it would be days if not a week old.

Beat me to it.