Hello,
Yesterday I started to wonder whether some teams in the NHL might get their shots blocked more often than others due to their style of play. Do any teams teams come to mind?
Hypothesis A: An intuitive perspective could be to look at it this way: The teams that shoot the most get more shots blocked when considered in absolute terms.
Hypothesis B: Another idea could be that there is a causality between shots on goal and shots that got blocked: The teams that have the lowest shots on goal average, might have it because many of their shots got blocked.
I went to Evolving-Hockey and I visualized the "Shots for" and "Shots that got blocked" (Corsi For - Fenwick For) data for the NHL season 2019-2020:
It can be seen that there is a positive relationship between the amount of Shots on goal and the amount of shots that got blocked, so Hypothesis B can now be dismissed.
Some interesting cases arise: could it be that Sharks, Stars and Blackhawks shoot relatively more often at the opposing D-man than others for an underlying reason or is it just noise in the sample? On the other hand, do the Blue Jackets build up their plays in such manner that there aren't dmen between the shooter and the opposing goalie as often as in the case of some other teams? Any opinions from those who watch a lot of games would be appreciated.
Another graph shows the Fenwick shots for vs shots that got blocked:
This graph, as well, shows that the more shots you have in general, the more shots will get blocked.
What would be your main findings from graphs like these and most importantly; do you believe that there are underlying reasons for the differences between the relative frequencies of shots getting blocked or are they just due to randomness?
Yesterday I started to wonder whether some teams in the NHL might get their shots blocked more often than others due to their style of play. Do any teams teams come to mind?
Hypothesis A: An intuitive perspective could be to look at it this way: The teams that shoot the most get more shots blocked when considered in absolute terms.
Hypothesis B: Another idea could be that there is a causality between shots on goal and shots that got blocked: The teams that have the lowest shots on goal average, might have it because many of their shots got blocked.
I went to Evolving-Hockey and I visualized the "Shots for" and "Shots that got blocked" (Corsi For - Fenwick For) data for the NHL season 2019-2020:
It can be seen that there is a positive relationship between the amount of Shots on goal and the amount of shots that got blocked, so Hypothesis B can now be dismissed.
Some interesting cases arise: could it be that Sharks, Stars and Blackhawks shoot relatively more often at the opposing D-man than others for an underlying reason or is it just noise in the sample? On the other hand, do the Blue Jackets build up their plays in such manner that there aren't dmen between the shooter and the opposing goalie as often as in the case of some other teams? Any opinions from those who watch a lot of games would be appreciated.
Another graph shows the Fenwick shots for vs shots that got blocked:
This graph, as well, shows that the more shots you have in general, the more shots will get blocked.
What would be your main findings from graphs like these and most importantly; do you believe that there are underlying reasons for the differences between the relative frequencies of shots getting blocked or are they just due to randomness?
