Luck is a skill

[Bjornar Moxnes]

Bad bounces, bad puck luck, hitting the post, etc. are infuriating yes. However, I personally feel luck is absolutely a skill in ice hockey. Your positioning, angles, where you are on the ice all matter. Yes of course, there are plenty of moments of worse teams winning the game which one can attribute to luck. But overall the team that gets the most luck tend to be the top teams for a reason
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[zar]

You have to be good to be lucky, lucky to be good. It’s the way it goes.

 

[Obvious Fabertism]

The literal definition of luck: success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

The literal definition of luck: success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions.

Well yes I think it's possible to do all the right things in hockey and still lose and vice versa. But teams that inherently play well will get more lucky bounces for example.

 

[Tanknation]

Bad bounces, bad puck luck, hitting the post, etc. are infuriating yes. However, I personally feel luck is absolutely a skill in ice hockey. Your positioning, angles, where you are on the ice all matter. Yes of course, there are plenty of moments of worse teams winning the game which one can attribute to luck. But overall the team that gets the most luck tend to be the top teams for a reason
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Yea, good post. I agree with this.

 

[RustyCat]

No, it ain't. There is no such thing as luck, just unrefined use of intention.

 

[CanadienShark]

I think it's more to do with knowing where you need to be and what you need to do in order to get those "lucky" bounces. So not really luck.

 

[Stephen]

Luck is preparation meeting opportunity. Definitely a skill.

 

[King'sPawn]

You can put yourself in position to improve your chances of good luck. You're more likely to win the lottery if you buy lottery tickets instead of randomly hoping you find a ticket on the street.

Luck itself isn't a skill. The skill is managing the circumstances affecting the luck, good or bad.

 

[Bank Shot]

Well yes I think it's possible to do all the right things in hockey and still lose and vice versa. But teams that inherently play well will get more lucky bounces for example.

Kind of agree, but I think you are using the wrong terminology.

If you outshoot your opponents almost every game they have less chances than you to get a lucky break.

I wouldn't say doing the right things inherently improves a team's luck, it just gives a team more ability to mitigate bad luck.

You could say the team that outplays the other team gets 15 coin flips compared to 10. They will get Heads more often just by virtue of having more chances.

I would say good teams improve their probability of getting good outcomes, but they wouldn't improve their luck.

 

[NailsHoglander]

Yes and that skill is called perseverance

 

[Zobitembois]

To be fair luck "doesn't exist". It's just a word we use when the factors determining the outcome of a situation are too numerous to list.

 

[King'sPawn]

To be fair luck "doesn't exist". It's just a word we use when the factors determining the outcome of a situation are too numerous to list.

Yes, words by definition are another group of words.

I'd get tired if I had to say "may the factors determining the outcome be favorable and too numerous to list" instead of "good luck."

 

[MartinBe]

Ingemar Stenmark (arguably the greatest Swedish athletes ever) had a fun quote regarding this: "I don´t know anything about luck, just that the more I workout, the more luck I get". (Probably sounds better in Swedish but anyways).

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

You have to put in the work to succeed. The thought that there's a lot of luck involved implies that you don't need to work as hard to succeed. I never was a fan of that thought process.

 

[mattihp]

Niklas Hagman really was unlucky throughout his career when it came to scoring goals. I bet he holds records in posts and crossbars.

 

[Zine]

Bad bounces, bad puck luck, hitting the post, etc. are infuriating yes. However, I personally feel luck is absolutely a skill in ice hockey. Your positioning, angles, where you are on the ice all matter. Yes of course, there are plenty of moments of worse teams winning the game which one can attribute to luck. But overall the team that gets the most luck tend to be the top teams for a reason
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Luck isn't a skill. It's a result. Luck is predicated on the law of averages.

As such top teams maximize their chances by innately being better. If you out-shoot an opponent 30 to 10, the law of averages will be on your side to score a lucky goal.

 

[ACLEVERNAME]

 

[GeeoffBrown]

I do think there are players that are skilled at things that some might perceive as lucky. For example, to the untrained eye, Joe Pavelski tipping a puck might appear lucky

 

[ijuka]

Uh, no. If it was skill, then it wouldn't be luck.

 

[OrangePMD]

Niklas Hagman really was unlucky throughout his career when it came to scoring goals. I bet he holds records in posts and crossbars.

He played most of his career before NHL started tracking posts and crossbars (09-10 season), so no way to tell for sure. But officially he has 4 posts and 3 crossbars in 224 tracked games.

The all-time leader has 114 posts and 20 crossbars in 1102 games.

 

[weastern bias]

 

[mattihp]

He played most of his career before NHL started tracking posts and crossbars (09-10 season), so no way to tell for sure. But officially he has 4 posts and 3 crossbars in 224 tracked games.

The all-time leader has 114 posts and 20 crossbars in 1102 games.

Right about the time he started turning it around in Florida it was getting weird.

 

[TageGod]

Bad bounces, bad puck luck, hitting the post, etc. are infuriating yes. However, I personally feel luck is absolutely a skill in ice hockey. Your positioning, angles, where you are on the ice all matter. Yes of course, there are plenty of moments of worse teams winning the game which one can attribute to luck. But overall the team that gets the most luck tend to be the top teams for a reason
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Hockey sense, ability to understand angles, where the puck is likely to bounce based on where it hits, good positioning, etc. understanding these put you in positions to have good "luck" based on the statistics, but you created that luck by being intelligent. So yes luck is absolutely impacted by skill.

 

[nbwingsfan]

I agree with mostly everything but it’s always bothered me when fans talk about hitting posts as “unlucky” and if “the shot was an inch one way, we would have scored and won”

If it was an inch the other way you wouldn’t have even hit the post and missed the net entirely.

A post is just a missed scoring chance, there’s no luck involved