Ah glad we finally got the baseball argument out there. In baseball, every single pitch is an independent event. The closest comparable in hockey is a shot attempt...but there are significantly more variables behind how a shot attemp was created in hockey vs baseball.
Additionally, since shot attempts are not from an identical place on the ice (vs baseball) there is a significant quality difference between attempted shots, which has no comparison in baseball. Give me a player who gets one quality look from the slot per game over a guy who generates 5 from a poor angle. Obviously that is an exaggeration, but quality differential is something that is rarely (if ever) discussed.
Those reasons among others are why I believe Corsi can be misused as a metric.
Shot quality is frequently discussed. Most discussions conclude that its impact is overstated and shot quantity trumps it in every case.
Individual players obviously shoot at different percentages. Variances in their shooting percentages usually revert to the norm. Defensive players have been shown to have negligible effect on their goalie's save percentage, however.
I disagree that there's no parallel to shot quality in baseball. No every pitch is the same. They brought in PitchFX. No every ball hit to the center fielder is equal, that's why defensive metrics track trajectory and velocity of batted balls.
I am not so sure how possession can be totally individualized as there are usually a number of skaters driving the possession numbers to begin with. I'd think at that point one would have to use the touch and feel method to differentiate between who was really managing the puck with good choices versus those others who may just be benefiting from the player(s) who were making the good choices.
That obviously has to be considered, but there's ways to get a clearer picture. You can look at how that player performs with and without certain players. There's some gray areas, but there's players like Benoit Pouliot who have excelled in that area with five different teams and players like Tanner Glass who has been in the bottom-five with three different teams in four seasons.
There's also lots of work being done on zone entries and zone exits to pinpoint who's really driving possession.
Certainly more of a team sport than baseball, but 1 or 2 players can dramatically change the landscape of a team and the league. The Cavs were something like 40/1 to win the championship before LeBron signed. Now they are 4/1.
Even Basketball is easier to track though. Most players defend a certain player. No goalie. No changes on the fly.
ESPN had them as 3/1 on Friday (which I think emphasizes your point even more). The heat are now 100/1 to win the championship.
I can't see the Panthers (who like Cleveland, has a good young core), having that drastic of an odds increase if they were to get Crosby.
I think a lot of you guys are mistaking the individual impact a player can make on the game with the ability to measure that impact. Lebron has a bigger impact on the game than any other athlete, IMO. Certainly more than any baseball player, which you all seem to concede is the easiest to evaluate individuals.
There is more individual matchups in basketball, sure, but not by a lot.
You can track what the Heat do with Lebron on and off the court, but how much of Wade's performance can you attribute to Lebron's presence?
The game moves slower, which is another part of why it's easier to track. Basketball requires a more considered approach to offense. Plus, ice creates a huge level of randomness to hockey that exists in no other sport at all.
Not sure why speed of the game would make it harder to track.
You still need to trust your eyes and experience at the end of the day.
A point to which no one has ever refuted.
I think there is a bit of hubris on the part of people who have never laced on a pair of skates (and I don't know if you have or not) who think they know all there is to know by eyeballing and memorizing a bunch of charts and graphs. Hockey is still a physical game and some teams have a physical advantage over other teams and know how to use it--the Bruins and Kings would be two examples. Championship teams come in many different packages--even the Red Wings pulled themselves out of the grave in the 80's much with the help of Probert and Kocur. They may have morphed into something different over the years but they were never exactly pushovers.
Most Rangers fans I suspect have embraced AV's coaching style--which is more about puck possession and movement than Tortorella's. But it's obvious anyway from the Glass signing for one thing that AV is still not the dogmatic flow chart technocrat that some would want him to be or why would he want Glass in the first place?--because it's just as obvious that the coaching staff and particularly AV himself have input into player selection. Sather is not just going to sign people without discussion amongst his scouting and coaching staffs. What do you make of all that then? I think the Corsi or other numbers are just tools for them and another tool is observation--knowing a player from having coached him--watching the player even if he plays in another city. Considering what he might add or how he might fit into what you're trying to build. The Rangers have made some decisions. Some of these decisions may or may not be popular with some segments of the fan base but there is a train of thought. There are monetary concerns. Some of these decisions might not work out quite as hoped. Some may work out better.
It may be that some don't like being called dogmatic technocrats but if you think it's demeaning those carefully argued positions that's just too bad. It's less demeaning IMO than the constant barrage of 'toffness' remarks made by the flow chart and graphs advocates.
I hope you'll understand that there's a finite number of hours in the day so I'm limiting the amount of time I'm going to spend responding to people spewing the same mindless points over and over, while making no attempt to evaluate any opposing views.
