Has Hitting become more of a negative statistic

[drktmplr12]

yes



if your objective is to lose

 

[johnnyonthspot]

Disagree, Panthers are a great example.


Ya you see lots of times on the forecheck , F1 goes in lays a hit, and F2 follows right behind and nabs the puck.

A poster did some analysis on this back in 2022. It was as follows:
Correlation rating of hits to losses was 0.1114 while the correlation rating of corsi to wins was 0.1047. Total matches used for analysis: 17751

Some teams are known for physical play of being heavy, which encompasses hitting, board battles and strong forechecking. Hitting alone is not going to win you a game.

 

[Golden_Jet]

A poster did some analysis on this back in 2022. It was as follows:
Correlation rating of hits to losses was 0.1114 while the correlation rating of corsi to wins was 0.1047. Total matches used for analysis: 17751

Some teams are known for physical play of being heavy, which encompasses hitting, board battles and strong forechecking. Hitting alone is not going to win you a game.

Lmao, no-one has said hitting alone is going to win you a game, you need a good balance.
Appreciate the satire on hitting though.
Has worked fine for Panthers and other tough teams in playoffs.

 

[57special]

It's not a negative statistic as much as it's a statistic that's just not really correlated at all with effectiveness. Thankfully, the idea that you have to throw hits to be a good defensive player is slowly dying. There are some really good defensive players that throw the body a lot, and also many that really don't. Ex: Slavin, Tanev, Brodin, Forsling, Toews.

Agreed, but i am an old guy, and even back then there was a distinction between using your body and hitting. Nothing wrong with a big hit, but it wears you down physically over a long season, and in today's NHL, is hard to pull off without getting penalized. Positioning your body so that it is between your opponent and your own net is something different, but still very effective, as is angling a puck carrier off into the boards, among many other useful, but less spectacular ways of using your body on things like FO's, crease coverage, etc.

The crunching body checks of yesteryear as practiced by Bobby Baun, Curt Giles, Pat Quinn, Scott Stevens and the like just aren't that practical. The game is called differently, the players are way faster, and the season is much longer.

 

[Gjman2019]

I think hitting can be a big intimidation factor and can give a team big psychological advantage in a 4 out of 7 series.......

If you look at what Reaves did to Nurse and what Scott Stevens used to do to some opponents, you know other players see that and know that it could easily be them on the worong end of one of those hits......

I don't take any pleasure in seeing guys get hurt like that but there is no denying the intimidation factor......

 

[dgibb10]

It's clockwork.

Team loses in playoffs: "they clearly weren't physical enough"
Team wins in playoffs: "it was all because of physicality"

Whether they were or won't, teams that lose get their physicality ignored, excused away, or lied about, and teams that win get their physicality overblown, overrated, and overhighlighted.

 

[Leafs1991]

It's a very poorly recorded statistic in the first place. Not to be taken seriously, good or bad.

I take it you know nothing bout how stats are tracked for the NHL or what hitting is even defined as?

 

[Nfumass]

we should get rid of hitting, maybe get rid of the sticks too as they can be dangerous as well, the puck is very hard and also dangerous so maybe introduce a ball instead and make them play with only their feet. I think those are the changes they need to make

 

[1989]

I take it you know nothing bout how stats are tracked for the NHL or what hitting is even defined as?

Even the NHL admitted the way they were tracking hits was overly subjective and inconsistent and that they literally had to do a game-by-game audit to fix old hit statistics which only concluded last year. Sounds like the NHL didn't even know how to track this stat category until recently so what's your point?

 

[majormajor]

I'm not saying hitting is bad but players just going out trying to stat pad as much as they can.
The way I see it if you're on the ice and have the puck, there's no need to hit cause you're maintaining possession.
Players with high amount of hits are just puck chasing and are usually playing in their own zone.

Currently the top 5 leaders in hits are playing on teams that are not in a playoff spot.

The differences in possession between teams does not explain the differences in hit volume between players. Like the Canucks are pretty much even in possession, but even supposing they were the bottom team, the Sharks, and only had 43% possession, that's still a relatively small difference. Sherwood has 50% more hits than the next player!

 

[Bounces R Way]

I take it you know nothing bout how stats are tracked for the NHL or what hitting is even defined as?

 

[Regal]

The differences in possession between teams does not explain the differences in hit volume between players. Like the Canucks are pretty much even in possession, but even supposing they were the bottom team, the Sharks, and only had 43% possession, that's still a relatively small difference. Sherwood has 50% more hits than the next player!

And Sherwood himself has better possession numbers than the Canucks as a whole so it’s not like his line is chasing the play and the others are propping up the numbers.

 

[Leafs1991]

Hitting has a literal definition (a body check occurs when an opposing player is dispossessed of the puck) that was used even prior to COVID and has been checked by a third party to ensure accuracy. So unless that has recently changed again, that is what it is currently defined as. Mind you, I haven't worked at said company for two years now so it is entirely possible they changed the definition again

 

[I Hate Blake Coleman]

It negates the soft players.

 

[Ratsreign]

As a team stats it's useless, as is blocked shots, because it means your team doesn't have possession of the puck. For individual it can still be a positive sign. Cuylle is a monster forecheck. Kastelic is having a good season. Etc.

It’s not really a useless stat if most (or many) of the hits are on the forecheck that lead to your team gaining possession. Or, for that matter if it’s back-checking and kills a scoring threat/causes turnover in your D zone.

 

[castle]

A poster did some analysis on this back in 2022. It was as follows:
Correlation rating of hits to losses was 0.1114 while the correlation rating of corsi to wins was 0.1047. Total matches used for analysis: 17751

Some teams are known for physical play of being heavy, which encompasses hitting, board battles and strong forechecking. Hitting alone is not going to win you a game.

So basically both are worthless. Those correlations show a very negligible relationship. It wouldn't be something I'd ever point to as having any impact at all.

 

[johnnyonthspot]

So basically both are worthless. Those correlations show a very negligible relationship. It wouldn't be something I'd ever point to as having any impact at all.

Fair enough

 

[saintunspecified]

So basically both are worthless. Those correlations show a very negligible relationship. It wouldn't be something I'd ever point to as having any impact at all.

Saying that hitting influences chances of winning ignores context. Saying that hitting does not influence chances of winning also ignores context. The limitation of statistics is that that (i) they lack context, and (ii) the more one tries to filter scenarios by utilizing multiple variables in combination the more likely any results one finds are flukes.

I think Islanders fans who have watched the team probably have a very good sense about hits. When you have a 4th line (particularly at home) who goes full blast dump and chase with hard hits, it's extremely beneficial. When you have a 4th line that's late to every puck battle & then finishes their check on the player who won the race, and moved the puck already, it's not so much (but maybe better than not finishing the check in that circumstance). Our 4th line went from hitting in the first way to hitting in the second way, and it's really obvious that those hits did not mean the same thing in those different contexts.

The reality is that there are certain players whose reputation alone would disrupt players. If you look at the all time hit leaders, the ones that affected opponents like that it was Clutter, Backes, and especially a younger Ovie. In recent years, nobody has done it more so than Wilson.

I think the style of playing defense has really changed with the increase in speed all around. Tighter gaps may lead to contact, but not stuff that's counted as hits. There's not really enough time for defenders to line people up the way they used to.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I take it you know nothing bout how stats are tracked for the NHL or what hitting is even defined as?

That’s a fair assessment.

Doesn’t look that is helping you atm.

 

[jbeck5]

This would be true of any stat that you do when you don't have the puck.

Does having high shot blocks mean you're not good at hockey because for you to block a shot, it means the other team has possession and is getting chances to score.

Are saves a bad team stat? Isn't accumulating a lot of saves bad? If you were so good, the other team would get zero shots and you would have no saves.

Are takeaways good? Because it implies the other team had possession to begin with. If you were so good, you would have possession and wouldn't be able to accumulate takeaways.

The list goes on.

 

[MadLuke]

It will be the kind of statistics that can correlated with loosing even if it is good, causation not being correlation, block shots-hitting, etc.. mean you do not have the puck.

Winning faceoff as an hard time correlating with winning, despite being really clearly a good thing to do (but that because no team tend to out win at the faceoff circle during an 82 game season significantly, team with the best FO% tend to still be below 55% and the worst above 45% and the best team often do not make the playoff, would it goes from 30 to 70%, correlation could start to show up).

Panthers had the most hits in the nhl last year, Panthers won the cup last year. Canes and stars had the least but really good season.

That said like blocks shots, save, etc... who counting can move those numbers a bit.

 

[Cup or Bust]

Hitting is definitely not a negative statistic, hitting is a good thing but it isn't always a positive. If your team is getting outshot 40-15 but your team is outhitting the other team 20-5 because you haven't had the puck all game, it becomes less positive.