- Feb 1, 2009
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Stats aren't facts in the hockey world, they don't tell the whole story.far be it from me to defend musto, but this is shifting the burden of proof. the facts at hand are that allan's possession numbers are bad (even relative to a very bad possession team), and that his deployment has been more sheltered than either of his most common partners, brodie and murphy. each of these players also have better possession numbers without allan than with him, despite starting in the defensive zone more often. the reverse is true for allan himself.
now, in the face of these objective statistical facts, the burden is on the eyetesters to demonstrate why the statistics are misleading. rather than doing this, it is almost always asserted that they are misleading with no video evidence, certainly no countervailing statistical evidence, not even anecdotal accounts of moments that would suggest a confounding variable. it's simply taken as gospel that if the numbers disagree with what the majority report that they "saw", then the numbers must be wrong.
The eye test is what I, many here, and all NHL GM's rely most on to tell them the whole story about a player. It's why all teams have scouts out there to tell them what they most need to know about a potential trade, signing or draft pick.