seventieslord
Student Of The Game
There's just so much to consider when it comes to a forward's defensive ability, but nowadays there are tons of statistics that can help with that. But hockey is so fluid that one stat can affect another so easily - has there ever been an attempt at an omnibus defensive stat that really passes the smell test (as in, a lot of the names you expect to see on the top based on eye test and reputation show up near the top)?
I think that there are a lot of factors that can go into it; for starters, we have our now-archaic RTSS stats like giveaways and takeaways. Do they even matter, or does the end result matter - in other words, if you're taking and giving up the puck at a certain frequency, and it's having a real impact on the play, then it will translate into shots for and against.
Other things to consider:
- corsi against rates, high danger chances against, goals against (not just raw, but also relative to team! not just relative to team, but also considering quality of linemates and quality of competition! not just that, but zone starts impact those numbers too! and so on...)
- the zone starts, TOI and QoC themselves aren't a "result" per se, but they do say a lot about what a coaching staff thinks about a player's ability - should these factor in as a main component or should it be all results-driven and just adjusted for these kinds of factors?
- penalty kill performance, based on shots against and goals against, but also relative to team (QoC not as important here as it's near constant)
- other micro-stats that I've seen tossed around seem to be important and seem to show the best reputational players doing well - "successful defensive touches causing a change in possession" and "puck battles won", etc. they seem like meaningful stats because the results match the eye test. Similar to giveaways and takeaways, do these matter on a micro level or are they just a means to an end?
- corsi against and goals against rates are only half of the corsi and goal conversation, too. When you look at the leaders in ES GAA you usually see a bunch of low-event 4th line players who play against other offensively inept 4th liners so are they really the guys you want to recognize? I've always said that we shouldn't just call the players with the most points (or the best scoring rates) "the best offensively" because hockey is fluid and their level of defensive attention affects their ability to score (i.e. I would say a player with 70 points and solid defensively is way better offensively than a guy who cheats his way yo 85 points, I don't think it's hard to make the case that if the former cheated he could also score 85 points himself) . In the same way, I would hesitate to call the guys with the lowest corsi against and goals against the "best defensively" simply because they're basically the opposite case - all defense, very little effort/ability offensively. There is merit to including some sort of offensive component to a defensive forward calculation that respects the ability to drive play forward and accepts that their greater focus on offense limits their ability to post stellar defensive stats.
There's so much more that could be included, and it's completely subjective how to roll it all together into one stat. But if it ended up that we saw Bergeron, Kopitar, Barkov, Danault and other guys like them near the top, I'd personally be pretty satisfied that someone had managed to capture defensive ability in a stat reasonably well. Does anything like this exist? Who has tried and come close?
I think that there are a lot of factors that can go into it; for starters, we have our now-archaic RTSS stats like giveaways and takeaways. Do they even matter, or does the end result matter - in other words, if you're taking and giving up the puck at a certain frequency, and it's having a real impact on the play, then it will translate into shots for and against.
Other things to consider:
- corsi against rates, high danger chances against, goals against (not just raw, but also relative to team! not just relative to team, but also considering quality of linemates and quality of competition! not just that, but zone starts impact those numbers too! and so on...)
- the zone starts, TOI and QoC themselves aren't a "result" per se, but they do say a lot about what a coaching staff thinks about a player's ability - should these factor in as a main component or should it be all results-driven and just adjusted for these kinds of factors?
- penalty kill performance, based on shots against and goals against, but also relative to team (QoC not as important here as it's near constant)
- other micro-stats that I've seen tossed around seem to be important and seem to show the best reputational players doing well - "successful defensive touches causing a change in possession" and "puck battles won", etc. they seem like meaningful stats because the results match the eye test. Similar to giveaways and takeaways, do these matter on a micro level or are they just a means to an end?
- corsi against and goals against rates are only half of the corsi and goal conversation, too. When you look at the leaders in ES GAA you usually see a bunch of low-event 4th line players who play against other offensively inept 4th liners so are they really the guys you want to recognize? I've always said that we shouldn't just call the players with the most points (or the best scoring rates) "the best offensively" because hockey is fluid and their level of defensive attention affects their ability to score (i.e. I would say a player with 70 points and solid defensively is way better offensively than a guy who cheats his way yo 85 points, I don't think it's hard to make the case that if the former cheated he could also score 85 points himself) . In the same way, I would hesitate to call the guys with the lowest corsi against and goals against the "best defensively" simply because they're basically the opposite case - all defense, very little effort/ability offensively. There is merit to including some sort of offensive component to a defensive forward calculation that respects the ability to drive play forward and accepts that their greater focus on offense limits their ability to post stellar defensive stats.
There's so much more that could be included, and it's completely subjective how to roll it all together into one stat. But if it ended up that we saw Bergeron, Kopitar, Barkov, Danault and other guys like them near the top, I'd personally be pretty satisfied that someone had managed to capture defensive ability in a stat reasonably well. Does anything like this exist? Who has tried and come close?