Confirmed with Link: Leafs sign D Simon Benoit (1 year, $775k) Re-signed ( 3 year, $1.35mm)

  • Work is still on-going to rebuild the site styling and features. Please report any issues you may experience so we can look into it. Click Here for Updates
He was very good last year a legit #5D

He was pretty ass the first 25 games this year a 7/8D who kept taking penalties and making dumb choices

Last 15 games playing like a good bottom pairing D again.

At 1.3M hes still a great 6-7D to have
 
Viewers are generally pretty bad at understanding defensive play. They miss defensive details, overemphasize goal events, misattribute things to defense and goaltending, and focus pretty exclusively on reactionary defensive plays - the flashier the better. Ironically, this leads to some players getting a boost in defensive perception by being worse defensively overall, but being skilled in reactionary defensive actions. There are also some people in this fanbase that will only appreciate one specific type of defenseman. Holl wasn't some bulking hitter, and he had the occasional flashy gaffe, and that made him a lightning rod for a subsection of the fanbase, but he was pretty effective at many of the quieter, less flashy aspects of defensive play.

Yes, Holl had a bad playoff series in 2022-2023, and yes, he made a glaringly bad play from time to time over the years, but he had been an effective complimentary player playing 20+ minutes a night in one of the toughest roles on the team at a really good price point. Benoit had one year as a decent complimentary bottom pairing defenseman. They don't really compare.
Yep, nobody understands what they are watching except you. A.I. has come a long way
 
Viewers are generally pretty bad at understanding defensive play. They miss defensive details, overemphasize goal events, misattribute things to defense and goaltending, and focus pretty exclusively on reactionary defensive plays - the flashier the better. Ironically, this leads to some players getting a boost in defensive perception by being worse defensively overall, but being skilled in reactionary defensive actions. There are also some people in this fanbase that will only appreciate one specific type of defenseman. Holl wasn't some bulking hitter, and he had the occasional flashy gaffe, and that made him a lightning rod for a subsection of the fanbase, but he was pretty effective at many of the quieter, less flashy aspects of defensive play.

Yes, Holl had a bad playoff series in 2022-2023, and yes, he made a glaringly bad play from time to time over the years, but he had been an effective complimentary player playing 20+ minutes a night in one of the toughest roles on the team at a really good price point. Benoit had one year as a decent complimentary bottom pairing defenseman. They don't really compare.
Yes Holl is so good Detroit put him on waivers this year, nobody claimed him and he's barely holding on to the #6 spot with a team in the bottom 3rd of the league.
 
Viewers are generally pretty bad at understanding defensive play
And none quite as bad as you. We tried telling you for years that Holl is a terrible player but your Dubas blinders just couldn't quite let you see reality. We told you directly that Holl would be exposed the second he played for another team and exactly that happened.

If you knew what was best for you, you'd just take this L and move on.
 
Yep, nobody understands what they are watching except you.
Lots of people understand what they're watching. That's why our coaches limit Benoit's minutes and role relative to some of our former defensemen, and why he only gets 1.35m coming off a career year, instead of something like say 3.4m. And while some here struggle to understand what they're watching, most understand what they're watching and just don't understand how much there is that they're not watching, and their limitations.

I never said I was immune from this. These things are types of universal mistakes that people make when watching sports in general (and even more so in a fast pace, free flowing game like hockey), and that's why the analytical revolution has been so widespread and dominant across all sports. But when you understand and accept your biases and limitations, you learn the things to look out for, expand what you watch, use tools to assist, and get a more accurate picture. Unfortunately, some choose the path of thinking they're already perfect, and ridiculing the tools and people that try to help them. That tends to lead to a narrow view of what defense means, and they struggle to appreciate different types of defensemen and the positives they provide. The venom against some of our former players is a perfect example.
Yes Holl is so good Detroit put him on waivers this year, nobody claimed him and he's barely holding on to the #6 spot with a team in the bottom 3rd of the league.
What a player is doing now on a mess of a team doesn't change what a player did years ago. Benoit was bad in 2022-2023, got waived last year, and is struggling this year, but that doesn't take away from the good play he brought to the team during most of last year.
 
Lots of people understand what they're watching. That's why our coaches limit Benoit's minutes and role relative to some of our former defensemen, and why he only gets 1.35m coming off a career year, instead of something like say 3.4m. And while some here struggle to understand what they're watching, most understand what they're watching and just don't understand how much there is that they're not watching, and their limitations.

I never said I was immune from this. These things are types of universal mistakes that people make when watching sports in general (and even more so in a fast pace, free flowing game like hockey), and that's why the analytical revolution has been so widespread and dominant across all sports. But when you understand and accept your biases and limitations, you learn the things to look out for, expand what you watch, use tools to assist, and get a more accurate picture. Unfortunately, some choose the path of thinking they're already perfect, and ridiculing the tools and people that try to help them. That tends to lead to a narrow view of what defense means, and they struggle to appreciate different types of defensemen and the positives they provide. The venom against some of our former players is a perfect example.

What a player is doing now on a mess of a team doesn't change what a player did years ago. Benoit was bad in 2022-2023, got waived last year, and is struggling this year, but that doesn't take away from the good play he brought to the team during most of last year.
What the player did years ago was sub par which is why he is no longer here.
 
Rough night for Benoit. 21.6 xGF%, and on for 2 goals against (one of which he put in himself) in just 13 minutes. Actually, this is the 5th game in a row that he's been below 35%. Might need to sit a game to reset.
What the player did years ago was sub par which is why he is no longer here.
Depth players come and go all the time. He is no longer here because what he did made him too expensive. Hopefully, one day, Benoit can put up the kind of results that make him too expensive.
 
  • Like
Reactions: leafsfan5
Rough night for Benoit. 21.6 xGF%, and on for 2 goals against (one of which he put in himself) in just 13 minutes. Actually, this is the 5th game in a row that he's been below 35%. Might need to sit a game to reset.

Depth players come and go all the time. He is no longer here because what he did made him too expensive. Hopefully, one day, Benoit can put up the kind of results that make him too expensive.
xGF% is a laughable stat to measure a defensive defenceman who has the third most starts in his own zone and doesn't get Powerplay time. These stats in general are almost useless, they don't take into account who you are playing with and who you are playing against. Also these stats are often compiled using faulty criteria and entered by people without in depth hockey knowledge. Who exactly is determining shot quality which is the basis for this particular stat? A former NHL coach or some University student who's never even laced up a pair of skates?

Advanced stats have a lot of value in a static game like Baseball, for a fast game in constant motion like hockey, their value is limited.

As for Holl's being expensive, he could have the same contract as Benoit and would still be overpaid, he's a player who lacks physicality and doesn't have the skating or puck handling skills to compensate for it.
 
Who exactly is determining shot quality which is the basis for this particular stat? A former NHL coach or some University student who's never even laced up a pair of skates?
lol what? You think people are manually assigning xG values to every single scoring chance in every game? Are you serious?

Shot locations get input by someone, yes, and sometimes have errors. Each website with a stat has different methods of computing xG but they pretty much all use the same shot locations provided by the league and assign a goal probability from the location. Some models - not sure about public models - supposedly use other variables like time since the last shot to identify rebounds, and in principle you can get skater speed and location and track passes and so on, but I don't think the public websites do that.

And anyway, all of that is mostly irrelevant. Benoit has a 42.5% CF% and 44.6% FF% 5v5, by far the worst of any regular D. His actual GF% is 52.6% because he has a very high on-ice sv% of 93.8%, second only to Timmins (who he plays with more often than not). Actually you can look at stats for defensive pairs and see that Benoit has poor possession stats with everyone he plays for save for 30 minutes with Myers. If you only care about goals then I suppose you can conclude that the Benoit-Timmins pairing should be broken up because they both do better with other partners (the difference being that Timmins has even better CF% with other partners while Benoit has much worse).

As for context, I don't know how that helps. Benoit doesn't get the toughest matchups, McCabe & Tanev do. It's also not inevitable that defensive defensemen have poor possession stats - Tanev's are fine and McCabe's are the best on the team. Of course they're both much better players than Benoit, so no surprise, but it's possible for 3rd pair D to break even. And yeah, Benoit gets more D-zone starts than not because... he's not any good in the o-zone. The comment about PP time is irrelevant; we're only talking 5v5 here.
 
Anyway, what I've noticed is Benoit was getting kudos for showing some straight-line speed the last few days, mostly through the neutral zone. That's good, sure, but I don't see it really leading to anything - I mean if he can get to center before dumping it in and avoid an icing, sure, fine, but otherwise it's ironically Holl-like. He's not actually good at carrying the puck, and hardly anything good happens when he gets the puck in the o-zone.

The other thing I notice with Benoit-Timmins particularly and the team as a whole is a lot of defensemen switching sides (when it's a L-R pair) and I'm not really sure why. Timmins doesn't handle the puck well on the left side. Despite the odd burst of speed from Benoit, neither of them are really good enough skaters to chase down puck carriers. Timmins is if anything the slower of the two but he's still often doing the chasing when there's chasing to be done. I've never paid enough attention to divine what Berube's d-zone coverage system is (or is supposed to be) but it's definitely different from Keefe's, anyway.
 
The other thing I notice with Benoit-Timmins particularly and the team as a whole is a lot of defensemen switching sides (when it's a L-R pair) and I'm not really sure why.

Setting up for the one timer.

It's better to switch sides because then the shooter has a better angle on his off side.
 
Benoit seems to serve the purpose Berube wants. Toughness in our zone and around the net.

Berube does not use D much for offense and you can see how teams have been playing us for over a month. Make sure you have layers everywhere, limit rush chances and make us fight through people. Our team hates it and the roster is not built for it. When we get the puck in zone you can collapse or swarm us as there won't be much movement from the D.

I guess we will see if Berube's mission to win 2-1 playoff games with a terrible powerplay, works. Everything was great when our goaltending tandem was tops in the league. You don't need 4, 10 million dollar players when you play this way..
 
lol what? You think people are manually assigning xG values to every single scoring chance in every game? Are you serious?

Shot locations get input by someone, yes, and sometimes have errors. Each website with a stat has different methods of computing xG but they pretty much all use the same shot locations provided by the league and assign a goal probability from the location. Some models - not sure about public models - supposedly use other variables like time since the last shot to identify rebounds, and in principle you can get skater speed and location and track passes and so on, but I don't think the public websites do that.

And anyway, all of that is mostly irrelevant. Benoit has a 42.5% CF% and 44.6% FF% 5v5, by far the worst of any regular D. His actual GF% is 52.6% because he has a very high on-ice sv% of 93.8%, second only to Timmins (who he plays with more often than not). Actually you can look at stats for defensive pairs and see that Benoit has poor possession stats with everyone he plays for save for 30 minutes with Myers. If you only care about goals then I suppose you can conclude that the Benoit-Timmins pairing should be broken up because they both do better with other partners (the difference being that Timmins has even better CF% with other partners while Benoit has much worse).

As for context, I don't know how that helps. Benoit doesn't get the toughest matchups, McCabe & Tanev do. It's also not inevitable that defensive defensemen have poor possession stats - Tanev's are fine and McCabe's are the best on the team. Of course they're both much better players than Benoit, so no surprise, but it's possible for 3rd pair D to break even. And yeah, Benoit gets more D-zone starts than not because... he's not any good in the o-zone. The comment about PP time is irrelevant; we're only talking 5v5 here.
First of all we are discussing xGF%, but, thanks for confirming the stat is basically useless and there are errors with entries. So all it measures is shots from certain areas? I see so if a player fires a puck from the slot into the top corner it counts the same as a player fanning a shot in the slot that goes 5 feet wide or maybe it bounces off a defenders pads and they opposing team clears the zone. I guess that counts lowers his xGF%, what an absolute waste of time.
 
Anyway, what I've noticed is Benoit was getting kudos for showing some straight-line speed the last few days, mostly through the neutral zone. That's good, sure, but I don't see it really leading to anything - I mean if he can get to center before dumping it in and avoid an icing, sure, fine, but otherwise it's ironically Holl-like. He's not actually good at carrying the puck, and hardly anything good happens when he gets the puck in the o-zone.

The other thing I notice with Benoit-Timmins particularly and the team as a whole is a lot of defensemen switching sides (when it's a L-R pair) and I'm not really sure why. Timmins doesn't handle the puck well on the left side. Despite the odd burst of speed from Benoit, neither of them are really good enough skaters to chase down puck carriers. Timmins is if anything the slower of the two but he's still often doing the chasing when there's chasing to be done. I've never paid enough attention to divine what Berube's d-zone coverage system is (or is supposed to be) but it's definitely different from Keefe's, anyway.
They have to switch sides sometimes depending on where there opponents are and where the play takes them. Tanev is very good at this, McCabe and OEL too. The other 3 not so much, they have trouble recognizing what their responsibilities are at times. Benoit and Myers are getting better, Timmins and Rielly not so much.

As I said earlier, hockey is a fast moving game with tons of transitions and changing variables, trying to assign advanced stats to it doesn't tell you much, unless you have every single element or factor accounted for. If Timmins falls down or gets caught in the offensive zone creating a 2-1 the other way and the opposing player gets off a shot "from a high danger area" that would lower his xGF% which is ridiculous. What if his stick broke, what if his D partner made a bad change, what if the left winger made a blind pass resulting in a great scoring chance? I could come up with hundreds of these scenarios. That advanced stat is a terrible way to measure someone's performance, about as useful as plus/minus.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PanniniClaus
xGF% is a laughable stat to measure a defensive defenceman who has the third most starts in his own zone and doesn't get Powerplay time. These stats in general are almost useless, they don't take into account who you are playing with and who you are playing against. Also these stats are often compiled using faulty criteria and entered by people without in depth hockey knowledge. Who exactly is determining shot quality which is the basis for this particular stat? A former NHL coach or some University student who's never even laced up a pair of skates?

Advanced stats have a lot of value in a static game like Baseball, for a fast game in constant motion like hockey, their value is limited.

As for Holl's being expensive, he could have the same contract as Benoit and would still be overpaid, he's a player who lacks physicality and doesn't have the skating or puck handling skills to compensate for it.
First of all we are discussing xGF%, but, thanks for confirming the stat is basically useless and there are errors with entries. So all it measures is shots from certain areas? I see so if a player fires a puck from the slot into the top corner it counts the same as a player fanning a shot in the slot that goes 5 feet wide or maybe it bounces off a defenders pads and they opposing team clears the zone. I guess that counts lowers his xGF%, what an absolute waste of time.
As I said earlier, hockey is a fast moving game with tons of transitions and changing variables, trying to assign advanced stats to it doesn't tell you much, unless you have every single element or factor accounted for. If Timmins falls down or gets caught in the offensive zone creating a 2-1 the other way and the opposing player gets off a shot "from a high danger area" that would lower his xGF% which is ridiculous. What if his stick broke, what if his D partner made a bad change, what if the left winger made a blind pass resulting in a great scoring chance? I could come up with hundreds of these scenarios. That advanced stat is a terrible way to measure someone's performance, about as useful as plus/minus.
There's so much wrong here. You seem to have poor understanding of our former players, and their impact, value, attributes, etc. You seem to have poor understanding of the many different attributes that exist, the different types of defensemen that exist, and the ways in which different defensemen utilize different attributes and skills to be effective. But worst of all, you're bashing valuable stats, and you don't even know how they work.

First off, these stats are not "compiled using faulty criteria and entered by people without in depth hockey knowledge". Not only do the people putting these things together have way more hockey knowledge than you, but it's not like they're sitting there manually and subjectively entering every game event anyway. They use official NHL game data, and the models determining shot quality are built on in-depth analysis of the real results of tens of thousands of historical goal events, and hundreds of thousands of historical shot events. And it's not just shot location. It's shot location, distance, type, angle, angle changes, game situation, preceding game events, etc. There are like 15 variables before even getting into the more in-depth adjustments, and they're constantly testing their models for accuracy, and improving them even more.

Most of these obscure scenarios you're naming are either rare enough to not have significant impact on results, even out over time, or don't apply in the first place. It's measuring the quantity and quality of actual shots, so things like Benoit blocking a shot doesn't hurt him in this metric. It's also only 5v5, so things like Benoit not playing PP also do not hurt him. Linemates can impact things, but Benoit is the worst on the team by far, and most things suggest Benoit is dragging others down; not the other way around.

Having a poor xGF% is not an inevitability for a defensive defenseman, and while context is important (just as it is for any stat or subjective evaluation), there is no additional context or data that makes Benoit's results good. Both of our other defensive defensemen have a positive xGF%, and Benoit was positive last year. Yes, he gets more defensive usage (mostly because he's inept offensively), but he's getting secondary defensive usage behind both Tanev and McCabe. He's deployed as a bottom pairing defenseman against easier matchups. Even if we ignore half of the game and isolate only his defense (his supposed strength), it's still bad. He's been the worst on the team by a decent amount in pretty much every defensive metric, and his defensive results over the last 5 games are horrific.
 
Most of these obscure scenarios you're naming are either rare enough to not have significant impact on results, even out over time, or don't apply in the first place. It's measuring the quantity and quality of actual shots, so things like Benoit blocking a shot doesn't hurt him in this metric.
That first sentence isn't really a compelling defense of aggregate statistics - unusual plays (i.e. egregious breakdowns or superhuman effort/skill) do happen and people do attempt to track them along with more detailed microstatistics like zone exits and entries, neutral zone play and so on, it's just that most of the people doing this are being paid by NHL teams and don't release their data. Also the NHL has tracked subjective stats like giveaways/takeaways for years, just... badly.

The rest of your post was largely paraphrasing what I said earlier and while I'm glad you agree, it is kinda weird to do so without any mention.
 
That first sentence isn't really a compelling defense of aggregate statistics - unusual plays (i.e. egregious breakdowns or superhuman effort/skill) do happen and people do attempt to track them along with more detailed microstatistics like zone exits and entries, neutral zone play and so on, it's just that most of the people doing this are being paid by NHL teams and don't release their data. Also the NHL has tracked subjective stats like giveaways/takeaways for years, just... badly.

The rest of your post was largely paraphrasing what I said earlier and while I'm glad you agree, it is kinda weird to do so without any mention.
Yes, more detailed microstats are tracked to supplement the data, but I'm not sure what that has to do with my post. Yes, unusual plays do happen, but unusual plays (especially ones that result in shot events) are, by definition, rare. Sticks, for example, don't break and lead to a shot against often enough for that to have a significant impact on a reasonable sample of results. It's also not like only Benoit has sticks break. He's just as likely to be benefited by it. And some of the scenarios the individual was referencing wouldn't have any impact on the metric in the first place. If somebody has additional contextual information for Benoit, then I'm all ears, but he wasn't giving any valid reasons to ignore the macro data.

I'm glad to see that you have some somewhat similar answers to the same questions/claims, but I'm not sure why you'd expect a mention for the detailed response I constructed myself...
 
Benoit has stunk this season. Last year he did great in his role but he's fallen off precipitously since then

People like the idea of the player so much so that they can't see how bad he has been
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dekes For Days
The eye test hasnt been as bad as his analytics, but doesn't look likes he's going to be able to take the next step as we had hoped

I don't think there are too many next steps for him.

He's a simple, physical, defensively oriented player who does a dirty job out there. He spends a lot of time on the back foot but like those 2021 Canadiens, you have to have guys who can be out there when the other team is sieging your net and survive.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Menzinger
There's so much wrong here. You seem to have poor understanding of our former players, and their impact, value, attributes, etc. You seem to have poor understanding of the many different attributes that exist, the different types of defensemen that exist, and the ways in which different defensemen utilize different attributes and skills to be effective. But worst of all, you're bashing valuable stats, and you don't even know how they work.

First off, these stats are not "compiled using faulty criteria and entered by people without in depth hockey knowledge". Not only do the people putting these things together have way more hockey knowledge than you, but it's not like they're sitting there manually and subjectively entering every game event anyway. They use official NHL game data, and the models determining shot quality are built on in-depth analysis of the real results of tens of thousands of historical goal events, and hundreds of thousands of historical shot events. And it's not just shot location. It's shot location, distance, type, angle, angle changes, game situation, preceding game events, etc. There are like 15 variables before even getting into the more in-depth adjustments, and they're constantly testing their models for accuracy, and improving them even more.

Most of these obscure scenarios you're naming are either rare enough to not have significant impact on results, even out over time, or don't apply in the first place. It's measuring the quantity and quality of actual shots, so things like Benoit blocking a shot doesn't hurt him in this metric. It's also only 5v5, so things like Benoit not playing PP also do not hurt him. Linemates can impact things, but Benoit is the worst on the team by far, and most things suggest Benoit is dragging others down; not the other way around.

Having a poor xGF% is not an inevitability for a defensive defenseman, and while context is important (just as it is for any stat or subjective evaluation), there is no additional context or data that makes Benoit's results good. Both of our other defensive defensemen have a positive xGF%, and Benoit was positive last year. Yes, he gets more defensive usage (mostly because he's inept offensively), but he's getting secondary defensive usage behind both Tanev and McCabe. He's deployed as a bottom pairing defenseman against easier matchups. Even if we ignore half of the game and isolate only his defense (his supposed strength), it's still bad. He's been the worst on the team by a decent amount in pretty much every defensive metric, and his defensive results over the last 5 games are horrific.
None of this addresses what I stated and you have zero citations to back any of this up. Nhl provides this data? From where? Again who is entering this data? Who is determining what a scoring chance is? Those events I mentioned happen multiple times a game.

Even a guy from the advanced sites says using these stats isn't the end all and be all, they also largely depend on context and players they are playing with..

Mike Kelly from Sport Logiq

“An important lesson I’ve learned is to not overvalue any one metric or model,” said Kelly. “There is no perfect way to evaluate a player. This goes for traditional scouting methods and by quantifying as much as possible of what a player does on the ice. There is value, over a large enough sample in looking at a players GF% and there is value in looking at a player’s xGF%.

“Independently, and combined, neither as a final evaluation of who that player is or how they perform. I often liken it to peeling an onion. A player has a good GF%, why is that? Let’s look at the process underneath the results — xGF% — also strong, why is that? Let’s look at the individual contributions — offensively, defensively, transitioning the puck, managing the puck, winning the puck back etc. Will a player succeed in one system despite failing in another? There are examples of this every year. Calgary’s third defence pair of Nikita Zadorov and Erik Gudbranson are a good example. I am a lot more interested in best understanding who a player is. From there you can determine how they can best be successful.”
 
I love Benny, but he doesn't need to play every night. Love what he brings, but he should be playing on a rotational basis. If he could add just a tiny bit more puck handling...
 
None of this addresses what I stated and you have zero citations to back any of this up. Nhl provides this data? From where? Again who is entering this data? Who is determining what a scoring chance is? Those events I mentioned happen multiple times a game.

Even a guy from the advanced sites says using these stats isn't the end all and be all, they also largely depend on context and players they are playing with..

Mike Kelly from Sport Logiq

“An important lesson I’ve learned is to not overvalue any one metric or model,” said Kelly. “There is no perfect way to evaluate a player. This goes for traditional scouting methods and by quantifying as much as possible of what a player does on the ice. There is value, over a large enough sample in looking at a players GF% and there is value in looking at a player’s xGF%.

“Independently, and combined, neither as a final evaluation of who that player is or how they perform. I often liken it to peeling an onion. A player has a good GF%, why is that? Let’s look at the process underneath the results — xGF% — also strong, why is that? Let’s look at the individual contributions — offensively, defensively, transitioning the puck, managing the puck, winning the puck back etc. Will a player succeed in one system despite failing in another? There are examples of this every year. Calgary’s third defence pair of Nikita Zadorov and Erik Gudbranson are a good example. I am a lot more interested in best understanding who a player is. From there you can determine how they can best be successful.”
I addressed everything you stated, and if you want more information, Moneypuck has a whole section on their website to explain. The data is scraped from the NHL. It's public information. They have puck and player tracking, and for every game that's played, you can go and look at detailed play by play and shift information, team stats, player stats, and like 10 different game reports. XGF% isn't impacted by "scoring chance" labels, but those categorizations are determined by the objective chance of a goal. I don't know why you think these obscure events you're referring to discriminate against Benoit, but most of them don't have any impact on his xGF% results in the first place, let alone a significant one.

Nobody has argued that these stats are the end-all, be-all final evaluation, and that all additional data and context should be ignored. You just came in trashing them without understanding them; calling them useless, "terrible", and "laughable", and directly contradicting the quote you're now trying to use. I was the one who dove deeper. I was the one who looked at the context. I was the one who looked at the "process underneath the results" and individual contributions. As expected (since it would be pretty hard for results that bad to be justified), it just further reinforced what xGF% was suggesting.
 
I addressed everything you stated, and if you want more information, Moneypuck has a whole section on their website to explain. The data is scraped from the NHL. It's public information. They have puck and player tracking, and for every game that's played, you can go and look at detailed play by play and shift information, team stats, player stats, and like 10 different game reports. XGF% isn't impacted by "scoring chance" labels, but those categorizations are determined by the objective chance of a goal. I don't know why you think these obscure events you're referring to discriminate against Benoit, but most of them don't have any impact on his xGF% results in the first place, let alone a significant one.

Nobody has argued that these stats are the end-all, be-all final evaluation, and that all additional data and context should be ignored. You just came in trashing them without understanding them; calling them useless, "terrible", and "laughable", and directly contradicting the quote you're now trying to use. I was the one who dove deeper. I was the one who looked at the context. I was the one who looked at the "process underneath the results" and individual contributions. As expected (since it would be pretty hard for results that bad to be justified), it just further reinforced what xGF% was suggesting.
These stats do have value, but are next to useless without context and the people keeping track of them admit that. You posted a single stat xGF% and then declared benoit was a bad player. Yeah that's laughable.

I suggest you read through the following link where they explain these stats, the shortcomings that affect them, like goaltending, linemates, sample sizes, etc.


Also you keep saying the NHL provides the data, who are these people working for the NHL determining this data? Who is deciding a player took a wrist shout from the top of the circle and that was a scoring chance? What are the criteria? If the puck flies into the crowd was that a scoring chance? What if it bounces off of three skates and ends up in the net is that a scoring chance too? Who are the people determining these things? NHL employees that attend every game and note very single on ice occurrence? What qualifies them to do this job? Are they former scouts or coaches, who are these people exactly? Maybe their high school students who are given free tickets and they've never played hockey in their life? Who are they?
 

Ad

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad