Does anyone miss hockey analysis before analytics?

[LemonSauceD]

 

[Bear of Bad News]

You're welcome, I work with a couple of PhD math pros, they laugh at these kind of discussions.

You’re going to feel pretty silly when you research my background.

 

[DuklaNation]

You’re going to feel pretty silly when you research my background.

That's great, then you'll know what happens when your data modelling isn't uniform.

All of this is available online (basics at least), maybe brush up on it.

 

[Billy Kvcmu]

The main problem is that many analysis these days are done solely on stats without the contexts because many analysts don’t bother to watch games that don’t involve their favourite teams anymore

 

[Bear of Bad News]

That's great, then you'll know what happens when your data modelling isn't uniform.

All of this is available online (basics at least), maybe brush up on it.

You seem to be misinterpreting how actual professionals use and caveat this stuff.

 

[Rebels57]

Even though the numbers are interesting and useful, I feel like it's made watching sports less fun. At least for me anyway.

 

[PainForShane]

I would argue that metric is entirely consistent with the conclusion that anyone watching Oilers games would come to, their goalies suck.

Meh, not really. I've probably seen the better part of maybe a total of 6 Oilers 3rd periods this year, and also that entire outdoor game against CGY, so maybe a grand total of 2.5-3 games or so but most of it toward the ends of games. Not much so maybe I'm wrong here, but a decent enough sample size that I feel like i can still have a valid opinion.

Anyway from what I've seen they're really bad in their own zone (in terms of coverage / allowing high quality shots) and their goaltending isn't good enough to bail them out. I wouldn't say their goaltenders completely suck -- probably below league average but not 100% terrible. I would say their D-zone play is easily bottom 25%, especially against teams / lines that can actually create offense and score goals. Analytics, at least the surface level ones, say the OIlers are basically dead middle of the pack in terms of team defense, and that the goalies are arguably league worst.

Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, if you're saying that their poor results are 100% or at least mostly due to poor goaltending (which is what I think you are implying), I don't agree, even though the surface level analytics would agree with you. EIther way the Oilers are clearly in trouble despite their dominant xGF%

 

[FDBluth]

Analytics are fine...but the constant barrage of betting lines is gross.

 

[tucker3434]

Even though the numbers are interesting and useful, I feel like it's made watching sports less fun. At least for me anyway.

It's definitely taken some mystery out of the game, which is probably better for management than it is for fans.

 

[GeeoffBrown]

One positive thing about analytics is they give us something to look at when comparing players that don't show up on the scoresheet all the time

It's easy to tell when Connor McDavid is having a good season, because he'll be at the top of the list when you sort by points. It's more difficult to see if your bottom pairing defenseman is having a good year

 

[X66]

Analytics are fantastic, and they add to my enjoyment because it allows me to understand things at a deeper level. It's not for everyone, but it's the type of person that I am.

NOW

Hockey analysis before GAMBLING, oh my god, take me back...

 

[Korpse]

Analytics can be good with proper analysis. I find a lot of people try to turn team stats into individual stats when trying to evaluate players.

 

[ToDavid]

Anyway, if you're saying that their poor results are 100% or at least mostly due to poor goaltending (which is what I think you are implying), I don't agree, even though the surface level analytics would agree with you. EIther way the Oilers are clearly in trouble despite their dominant xGF%

I was, but admittedly I was only being semi-serious. I agree that goaltending isn't their entire issue. But I think some of the stats highlight the issue with how a lot of people use the eye test to evaluate goalies. You can look at any individual goal and say that's not the goalie's fault. What's harder is evaluating a trend of a goalie being routinely unable to bail their team out even when it's not their fault. At the end of the day a goalie that simply avoids letting in bad goals isn't a good goalie if they can't stop a thing in tight. That's part of their job.

Now I do think part of the issue is that some of their defensive breakdowns are worse than is being captured by something like xG or "high danger chance". That is simply something public analytics is going to struggle with, especially with a small early season sample. But the other part of the issue is that Edmonton's goalies have been among the worst in the league at bailing out their team when a breakdown happens.

 

[lomiller1]

3 main examples dealing with the Habs

Way back when the Habs signed Tom Gilbert(yup that long ago) there was praise this his analytical numbers were really good. That's fantastic. He wasn't.

Ben Chiarot sucks and he was proped up by Byfuglien. He played well with Weber. OK, Weber is a pretty solid dman on his own. He played well with Petry, too, a lesser dman than Weber, but really came into his own in Montreal. Chiarot never seemed to be an anchor for them.

Edmundson I believe was the worst analytical player in the league. He was pretty good for the Habs when he was healthy. Got into injure troubles and always started behind the league. While a solid defender, he wasn't good enough to start behind the rest of the league and catch up. He's currently in Washington and hurt.

The analytics community around the Jets always hated Chiarot, especially when he was blocking the Morrissey from NHL min and development time. It was the "eye-test" guys who would defend him and the teams decision to play him ahead of Morrissey. They claimed he was a big physical D-man with a big shot and good mobility for his size and therefor deserved to be ahead of a smallish 2-way D-man like Morrissey.

2 Chiarots credit he played well enough at the end of his time in Winnipeg to be called a good bottom pair D, but he had no business EVER blocking the development of someone like Morrissey the way the eye test people wanted.

 

[NJ DevLolz]

Yep. All this XY%FU garbage means nothing to me. l watch hockey with my eyes, not a stat sheet.

You’re brave

 

[AmabileCassarole]

I personally miss hockey analysis before most of it devolved into "Bettman hates Canada" garbage.

 

[lomiller1]

Anyway from what I've seen they're really bad in their own zone (in terms of coverage / allowing high quality shots) and their goaltending isn't good enough to bail them out. I wouldn't say their goaltenders completely suck -- probably below league average but not 100% terrible. I would say their D-zone play is easily bottom 25%, especially against teams / lines that can actually create offense and score goals. Analytics, at least the surface level ones, say the OIlers are basically dead middle of the pack in terms of team defense, and that the goalies are arguably league worst.

Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Anyway, if you're saying that their poor results are 100% or at least mostly due to poor goaltending (which is what I think you are implying), I don't agree, even though the surface level analytics would agree with you. EIther way the Oilers are clearly in trouble despite their dominant xGF%

What I see in the Oilers numbers is:

- A team that is middling on the PP, mostly because they are not drawing as many penalties as you'd like
- A team that is bad on the PK due to a combination of factors, including taking to many penalties, bad goal tending and doing a poor job at preventing quality shots.
- A team that is middling in preventing good quality shots against (IOW your assessment of middling defensibly seems correct) AND is getting the worst goal-tending in the NHL
-A team that is dominant in producing high quality shots but also one of the leagues lowest sh%. My expectation is that this sh% will improve somewhat. IOW their 2.26 G/60 should get a lot closer to their 3.32 xG/60 (the equivalent of 10 more goals on their current total)


Overall their high xGF% is about right as far as it goes, but the special teams and not at that level, their goaltending is way below that level and they have had some poor puck luck. The last should regress on it's own, I actually think Skinner is better that what's he shown thus far and can play better than he has. Special teams is one of the most coach-able parts of the game, it's anyone's guess as to whether these coaches can fix it.

Overall this looks like a team that can crawl back into the playoff picture it their puck luck regresses to the norm, AND they fix either special teams or goal-tending. If they can fix both they become a real threat.

 

[JFedol]

I wish some people would realize how "Ignorance is bliss" is a very true statement that greatly applies to sports. It's kind of what made sports pre-internet much more magical, pairing that with zero oversaturation as well was just the cherry on top.

The Eye test with very large sample sizes (full seasons and possibly a decade's worth of viewing) combined with the understanding of all basic stats and how there achieved, importance of context within each position, plays, basic forward/D/Goalie roles and general cap 101 teachings will always trump over analytics IMO. He's recently got into analytics IIRC, but the way The Hockey Guy (THG) does his content was always the quintessential way imo.

I can vividly remember recording every game for almost every team consistently going back to 2014/15 and off that alone, it was very easy and natural to determine which team was a contender, middle of the pack team and a rebuilder lol. Analytics at least to me, wasn't really needed in that scenario. But all I needed was patience and my eye balls.

Now all in all, I don't hate analytics, I think it's needed especially in today's era. But some mfers need to just sit the f*** down and just watch the damn game lol

 

[Gregor Samsa]

It seems like a lot of times stats can be twisted to fit certain biases. Someone like a certain player or team they can dig up underlying stats why they are good, someone dislikes a player or team they can dig up underlying stats why they are bad

 

[tarheelhockey]

I wish some people would realize how "Ignorance is bliss" is a very true statement that greatly applies to sports. It's kind of what made sports pre-internet much more magical, pairing that with zero oversaturation as well was just the cherry on top.

Very true.

Analytics has almost overtaken sport itself at this point. I’m reminded of this when I watch amateur sports. The only context for the game is the drama that plays out in front of you. It’s a completely different experience than being in this constant state of micro-analysis.

 

[NYRfan85]

I 100% miss the days before analytics, all of these extra numbers and stats I don't understand are ultimately meaningless and clogging sports coverage. Baseball is the worst offender, because now starting pitchers barely play half the game anymore. Hockey is getting up there now too for analytics, and I hate it.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Seems like whenever a team wins a lot of games by large margins now instead of people being impressed they start yelling PDO!!!

I remember during the 11-12 season the Rangers and Bruins were neck and neck but the Bruins most of the season but at one point in the season Boston ended up destroying teams. I had an argument with someone on HF and he said that Boston winning games by larger margins meant they're less fluky than the Rangers because each close game is closer to a loss than a blowout. So the Rangers were more likely to benefit from a bounce here and there than the Bruins who would have to have a lot more go against them to lose a game they won 6-0. As much as I argued with him I still think that's a sound argument. Now the Rangers ended up with more points and went deeper in the playoffs. But I kind of miss the days teams weren't penalized by public opinion for winning in a dominant way. The new age way of thinking of this seems backwards. Anyone else feel this way?

Edit: Just to make it clear, the example of 11-12 was BEFORE analytics became as big of a thing today.

I was ready to poo-poo your post, but I think I agree with the general idea. Analytics can be cool, but I miss just arguing about players. Analytics and reality say Ales Kotalik sucks, my heart says re-sign him. Afinogenov is gonna be a star any day now.

I do hate analytics and data in every other aspect of my life. Stop timing the cashier ffs.

 

[Boud]

I think there was a time a few years back when advanced stats and analytics really started to come to light where during that period of time it seemed like it was really the analytics crowd against the “eye test” crowd. It was almost as if the analytics crowd felt they could see the truth that no one could see. Some players who were not very good were talked about over and over because their analytics said they were good players. At that point of time a lot of people in the hockey community thought they could apply the “Moneyball” strategy and really believed that pooling a bunch of players with good advanced stats would result in a better hockey team. In theory it seems great and there is value added in using those stats but it certainly is not the entire truth.

From what I see now, this trend has shifted quite significantly. I feel like the analytics side of things is now used as a complimentary support to the eye test as compared to before where it was used as an all end all. It was the new thing back then and many people swore by it until a good number of outliers raised questions on the validity of the thought process and model.

I don’t know if I’m the only one who’s noticed that in recent years but I feel like player analysis is a lot more balanced that it was in years past. I feel like people have started to learn how to use it and there’s enough compelling evidence to show that some players with great analytics end up in Europe and then some players with below average analytics play key roles on winning teams. It’s definitely more complex than just looking at numbers.

 

[Mr grumpy]

Seems like whenever a team wins a lot of games by large margins now instead of people being impressed they start yelling PDO!!!

I remember during the 11-12 season the Rangers and Bruins were neck and neck but the Bruins most of the season but at one point in the season Boston ended up destroying teams. I had an argument with someone on HF and he said that Boston winning games by larger margins meant they're less fluky than the Rangers because each close game is closer to a loss than a blowout. So the Rangers were more likely to benefit from a bounce here and there than the Bruins who would have to have a lot more go against them to lose a game they won 6-0. As much as I argued with him I still think that's a sound argument. Now the Rangers ended up with more points and went deeper in the playoffs. But I kind of miss the days teams weren't penalized by public opinion for winning in a dominant way. The new age way of thinking of this seems backwards. Anyone else feel this way?

Edit: Just to make it clear, the example of 11-12 was BEFORE analytics became as big of a thing today.

Analytics have always been around. They were previously called advance stats. Problem is 99.99% of people who talk about analytics have no idea what they are actually talking about