GDT: Carolina @ Sabres, 7:00 pm EDT The Process Of Elimination Continues...

Evolving hockey has this as 1.5% expected goal
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on one hand, the gaping net isn't there if the goalie plays it better, so its not like buffalo created an incredibly high scoring chance, but it shows the vulnerability of the stat.
i never understood why this became an in-game stat that people follow. it starts to pass other stats in predictive power after around 41 games of data accumulation. It should be used to evaluate seasons, not periods.
 
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Evolving hockey has this as 1.5% expected goal
View attachment 1009644

on one hand, the gaping net isn't there if the goalie plays it better, so its not like buffalo created an incredibly high scoring chance, but it shows the vulnerability of the stat.

that is why I don't take many of the advanced stats seriously. The advanced stats exist in a vacuum, not reflecting the reality of the situation
 
Just got home and watched the highlights.

-Tage is a stud. You can not waste anymore years of his prime. Same goes for Tuch and Dahlin.

- Reimer has been UNREAL and IDK if that's a good or bad thing going into the off-season.

-Seeing Quinn and JJ regain there chemistry is nice to see.
 
I wonder if we can find these guys a decent summer league to play in...keep this train on the tracks all the way to October. I hate how they always find a way to make me feel hopeful in April only to take that feeling and shred it down to its very core every November, December and January. Shred it to bits and set the remains on fire, for a decade plus now.
 
Couple questions for those who watched

1) how was ostlund

2) watching the highlights it looks like sabres got way more chances 5v5, but stats showed xgf heavily in favor of canes. Which is closer to reality?

As for 2, the Canes dominate the fancy stats every season but they usually aren’t at the top of the league. It’s an artifact of how they play. They get pucks and traffic to the net, they usually play a good possession game, and they do a good job limiting the other teams rushes and playing in their own zone. It’s a reflection of their coach.

I would say through the first 2 periods the Canes got a lot more attempts on net, but most of them weren’t in serious danger of going in. Sabres had almost all of the most dangerous chances.
 
it is when you are getting mostly garbage play from the depth you worked so hard to get a 2nd from a team that can't make it are actually considerably more value than the guys you could can get for free in FA to play horribly. 2nds are are actually relatively valuable when your team isn't even a playoff team.....
I’m not going to try to sell you on his depth moves. But we’ve sucked/regressed/missed the playoffs because our top 6 forwards+top 4 dmen haven’t been close to good enough. Thats two seasons in a row now.

Keeping those 2nds wouldn’t have changed that.

We’ve also come into both of the last two seasons with good 3rd lines (depth) that had to be broken up to help a floundering top 6.
 
that is why I don't take many of the advanced stats seriously. The advanced stats exist in a vacuum, not reflecting the reality of the situation
It's not possible for a stat to account for shooting talent, goalie talent, the volatility of either and the pure luck involved in both on any given shot. xGF% is essentially the stat that measures what is left over once you remove all of those factors. It's a stat to measure how well a team is playing if you ignore the actual scoreboard.

It's shots for + a model that assigns a value to each shot based on the distance and angle to the net. It's a lot less complicated and lot less predictive than most people think it is.

xGF% does a great job at measuring how well a team is coached, how successful they are at running their system, and how hard they work.

Carolina dominates xGF% every season. They are well coached, they execute their system well, they don't tolerate lazy players. They aren't the most talented team, but they come to grind at 100% effort every game, all season long and that's why they've been in the playoffs for 7 straight years. Which is every year that Rod has been their coach. They consistently score well below their xGF because they don't have the talent. It's more indicative of their system and coaching, than the talent, but it also wins them a lot of games. Every second they spend grinding in the offensive zone is a second they aren't playing defense.

And then you have the Sabres. One of the most talented teams in the league when you look at each individual players raw ability. But we've consistently been bottom 8 or worse in xGF% over the course of the drought. Bad coaching, poor execution of the system, and lots of lazy disinterested play. We have the ability to outscore our xGF by wide margin as we have a ton of shooting talent. But it's nearly impossible to sustain success when playing as poorly as we do.

And when our key players are out injured or playing through injury, it evens out our shooting talent closer to an average team, and we have nothing to fall back on aside from our piss poor system and execution. It's not a surprise we have such large losing stretches every season.
 
Ostlund could be a great 3C for us. We need more defensively responsible playmakers. We don't need more goal scoring centers...Norris Tage Kulich.
 
Evolving hockey has this as 1.5% expected goal


on one hand, the gaping net isn't there if the goalie plays it better, so its not like buffalo created an incredibly high scoring chance, but it shows the vulnerability of the stat.
I've said it before, and I remain steadfast on this idea:

Expected goals are mostly a garbage stat for one individual game. HOWEVER, when taken over the course of a season......there is some limited usefulness to the stat.
 
Ostlund could be a great 3C for us. We need more defensively responsible playmakers. We don't need more goal scoring centers...Norris Tage Kulich.
I think you're selling Ostlund short. IMO, he certainly has 2C upside.....and maybe possibly low-end 1C if everything goes right. Even while playing with Beck and Lafferty, he just looks like he thinks the game correctly and knows where to go with the puck.....and where to go with himself.
 
Evolving hockey has this as 1.5% expected goal
View attachment 1009644

on one hand, the gaping net isn't there if the goalie plays it better, so its not like buffalo created an incredibly high scoring chance, but it shows the vulnerability of the stat.
"expected stats" can't take goalie position into account as it's not a tracked stat by the NHL like shot location is.

And you left out where the shot was actually taken from in your screen grab. It's worth a lot less in xGF to shoot from almost the goal line than from almost the face off dot for good reason. The angle sucks, which gives you a lot less net to shoot at.

If the goalie was in his net it's probably pretty close to 1.5% chance of going in from that angle and distance.

IMG_8834.jpeg
 
Shot location tells so little of the story of any given shot that I have a hard time giving any credence to expected goals - certainly over a short time span, but there's also reason to believe that the way a team plays can affect the quality of shots in a way just charting location can't measure.
 
Shot location tells so little of the story of any given shot that I have a hard time giving any credence to expected goals - certainly over a short time span, but there's also reason to believe that the way a team plays can affect the quality of shots in a way just charting location can't measure.
Sure. The stat has flaws.

I think it would go a long way to simply rename the stat to "Shot share and Shot quality of unblocked shot attempts". Because that's really what it's measuring.

I think naming it "expected goals" sets expectations far too high and leads to lots of people rejecting it as outright useless.

I think shot share+quality is a valuable stat. But I'm also aware of what it's measuring and how it's measuring and just as importantly what it's not measuring. And I'm aware that the in game context can skew results too.
 
Sure. The stat has flaws.

I think it would go a long way to simply rename the stat to "Shot share and Shot quality of unblocked shot attempts". Because that's really what it's measuring.

I think naming it "expected goals" sets expectations far too high and leads to lots of people rejecting it as outright useless.

I think shot share+quality is a valuable stat. But I'm also aware of what it's measuring and how it's measuring and just as importantly what it's not measuring. And I'm aware that the in game context can skew results too.
But it's not necessarily measuring shot quality. That's my whole point. There can be, again, huge differences between shots taken from the same location.

There's a huge difference between a pressured off-balance shot you're taking with a defender on your back and a shot where you're wide open and can really walk into, even if it's taken from the same location.

I don't know if they take into account "type of shot" (one-timer, backhand, wrist shot, slap shot), but even if they do a crisp one-timer cross ice can be taken at a "bad" angle but have the whole net to shoot at while a one-timer taken from a pass that didn't cross the ice has to get through a squared goalie. It's a whole different scenario. (I do know that the stat listed in College Hockey News's boxscores does NOT take type of shots into account and that makes the whole stat almost completely worthless)

The example posted above is a great example. If it's a shot on goal, it's 100% a goal, because the player already beat the goalie. For it to go down as a 1.5% chance at a goal is completely absurd. I'm assuming missed shots are also recorded as some chance to score, so realistically that chance should go down as a 65-70% chance to score.

There's so many scenarios where scoring chances change drastically with context. The rebound that goes to the opposite side of the crease vs the rebound that stays directly in front of the goalie. Shots from the point with absolutely no traffic vs. a couple drive-bys vs a determined set screen. Etc. Etc.
 
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Ostlund could be a great 3C for us. We need more defensively responsible playmakers. We don't need more goal scoring centers...Norris Tage Kulich.
We lack a topend playmaker or centers that make others better around them in the top6.
Like Dahlin can elevate all his partners or Crosby as a center example.
Basically the best we have is an average 2C in Norris but we lack any competent 1C even of the average kind.
 
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We lack a topend playmaker or centers that make others better around them in the top6.
Like Dahlin can elevate all his partners or Crosby as a center example.
Basically the best we have is an average 2C in Norris but we lack any competent 1C even of the average kind.

100%. We have 2 players on this team that make players around them better.. Dahlin and to a lesser degree Benson.
 
I think you're selling Ostlund short. IMO, he certainly has 2C upside.....and maybe possibly low-end 1C if everything goes right. Even while playing with Beck and Lafferty, he just looks like he thinks the game correctly and knows where to go with the puck.....and where to go with himself.
I am not selling him short. I think if Tage is not 1C, we need a huge upgrade down the middle for next year.

Norris
Kulich
Mcleod
Kozak/Ostlund

I am open to Kulich moving to wing if Ostlund shows better. Either way, I don't want Kulich or McLeod as my 2C next year to open the season. Of course, if Tage is back to C that changes things.
 
I am not selling him short. I think if Tage is not 1C, we need a huge upgrade down the middle for next year.

Norris
Kulich
Mcleod
Kozak/Ostlund

I am open to Kulich moving to wing if Ostlund shows better. Either way, I don't want Kulich or McLeod as my 2C next year to open the season. Of course, if Tage is back to C that changes things.
I think people need to come to reality that Tage is no longer a full time center here. Ruff will continue to use him on the wing, and it's one move Ruff gets overlooked for as Tage may finish 2nd in the league in goals this season.

Norris is a 2C for me (if he plays).

The problem is your rolling the dice on a Kulich Center sophomore slump and continued growth there (or Ostlund breakout). And the one thing the Sabres cannot do is roll the dice.

So if there is a "chance" you can revisit Petersson this summer you do it. Or look at someone or similiar to Rossi.
 

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