There is obviously more to hockey than just points, but I think fans have both come to overrate analytics and underrate production in recent years. A guy who offers things beyond his offense is better than a guy who produces the same that doesn't offer anything beyond his offense obviously, but it almost seems like production is taking a back seat to analytics when production is actually the thing that wins you games.
The thing about analytics vs production is that once you start digging into the stats on an analytics site like NST, you start noticing all sorts of things about production and how it comes.
Compile that with the eye test and I personally am left with a conviction that production is one part usage, one part dumb luck, and one part actual ability. I don't know the proportions of those parts, but I do know that I take raw production stats with a lot of salt. I believe they need to be broken down and compared to work out what's good and what's not. The ultimate example is Dominik Simon's 30 point pace over his first 2 and a bit NHL seasons, which seems to indicate reliable 3rd liner until you realise pretty much all of the point came from a freakish symbiosis with Sid that he couldn't do with anyone else.
I'd also question production being the thing that wins games. Teams scoring goals and preventing goals is what wins games. Production tells a tale on the first part of that, but not the whole tale.
I'm sure we can all think of goals where some of the guys getting points did absolutely nothing (whoever passed Sid the puck on that one handed backhander vs Buffalo got the easiest primary assist of their life) and goals where the vital play wasn't one of the last three passes (I can't think of actual goals but also Sid a lot) - not to mention all the stat padding games where guys turn 5-1 games into 6-1 in the 3rd. It's a useful measuring stick but imperfect.
It obviously does nothing to measure who's preventing goals.
It shouldn't be production vs analytics. It should be both, plus microstats and eye test and every other bit of info going. They're all flawed.
But production by itself without a ton of context is really flawed to me, and crucially, it looks like NHL GMs agree. If players were handing out big prices for guys with gaudy production all the time, it'd be different. But there's been numerous examples of guys who produce but little else not getting much value while tough reliable plays with okay numbers get the earth.
An idea I just had from reading the main board: I wonder if Vegas winning the cup this year may influence teams to try to go cheaper in net, like Vegas did with Hill as their starter. The NHL is a copycat league after all, and "the Knights won without paying goalies, so I'm not going to be willing to pay much for a goalie" sounds pretty similar to the other (usually stupid) ideas that GMs had after looking at cup winners.
It's funny because that's not even really what the Knights are going to do going forward, it's just what happened to be the case this year. Thompson is really cheap (2 years left at $766k AAV), but he's a damn good starter himself. That's not the cheap I mean, I meant cheap as in not try to go get great goalies.
If the sight of Matt Murray winning two cups as a rookie, or Jordan Binnington winning one as a rookie shortly before his 26th birthday, didn't get them to be all on board with this, I'm not sure Adin Hill being the next example will do it.