Why is Time on Attack not one of the most common team stats?

[Derrty]

Agreed.

I always like to know the time of possession when I am watching football. I think it would become a staple in my routine, if it were tracked in hockey by the broadcasting company.

 

[glovesave_35]

Time on attack is so useful it seems strange that it isn't properly tracked. It seems like the league has adopted proxy stats to tell this story but it isn't good enough.

 

[MessierII]

Just because it's slightly easier to understand doesn't make it better. Time on attack is basically just a proxy for shot attempts - which soccer also keeps track of - so why not just use shot attempts? Corsi is more accurate and easier to track. No need to reinvent the wheel for people too lazy to figure it out.

There's absolutely no way Corsi is more accurate. That's completely ridiculous to suggest.

 

[Cursed Lemon]

"lol corsi is more accurate"

"Uh, how?"

"obviously by the eye test"

 

[AUAIOMRN]

Just because it's slightly easier to understand doesn't make it better. Time on attack is basically just a proxy for shot attempts - which soccer also keeps track of - so why not just use shot attempts? Corsi is more accurate and easier to track. No need to reinvent the wheel for people too lazy to figure it out.

No it isn't. "Time on attack" credits teams that spend effort trying to set up high quality shot attempts, Corsi doesn't.

 

[tfong]

Maybe they didn't want to look like football that uses possession time as a key instrument in which team is doing better

 

[Mr Positive]

Those old NHL video games always showed it

 

[Zoidberg Jesus]

There's absolutely no way Corsi is more accurate. That's completely ridiculous to suggest.

"lol corsi is more accurate"

"Uh, how?"

"obviously by the eye test"

No it isn't. "Time on attack" credits teams that spend effort trying to set up high quality shot attempts, Corsi doesn't.

Look at it this way - how many shot attempts happen when the shooting team isn't "on the attack?" Corsi is TOA, but separating out ineffective possession that doesn't result in shot attempts. Saying TOA is more accurate is like saying 1 minute of possession in the opposing zone gives you the same chance of scoring if you attempt 0 shots as if you attempt 10.

 

[Brunoford]

Whenever I play NHL video games I always look at time on attack between periods because I think it's a good reflection of team performance. If you aren't aware, time on attack is the amount of time a team has possession of the puck in the other team's defensive zone.

I've always thought that they should show time on attack at the end of intermissions and perhaps even show it during games, instead of showing shots on goal most of the time. Time on attack actually shows how well a team is playing, since the goal of each shift is to play in the other team's end of the ice. Shots on goal can be taken from anywhere, and don't necessarily reflect a team playing in the other team's zone for very long.

I just did a search on this and wanted to incorporate it into my routine but can not find it anywhere. So many useless stats out there and I have to dig for this one. Let me know if you find a good site that has it.

 

[qqaz]

Whenever I play NHL video games I always look at time on attack between periods because I think it's a good reflection of team performance. If you aren't aware, time on attack is the amount of time a team has possession of the puck in the other team's defensive zone.

I've always thought that they should show time on attack at the end of intermissions and perhaps even show it during games, instead of showing shots on goal most of the time. Time on attack actually shows how well a team is playing, since the goal of each shift is to play in the other team's end of the ice. Shots on goal can be taken from anywhere, and don't necessarily reflect a team playing in the other team's zone for very long.

I just did a search on this and wanted to incorporate it into my routine but can not find it anywhere. So many useless stats out there and I have to dig for this one. Let me know if you find a good site that has it.

On topic: The stat would be useful, yes.

Off topic: Are you both the OP, and it's a 2nd profile made to bump the thread? Because making an HF account to post in a 4 year old thread makes very little sense.

 

[Beville]

Well, this certainly is a “throwback Thursday”

 

[McFlash97]

Whenever I play NHL video games I always look at time on attack between periods because I think it's a good reflection of team performance. If you aren't aware, time on attack is the amount of time a team has possession of the puck in the other team's defensive zone.

I've always thought that they should show time on attack at the end of intermissions and perhaps even show it during games, instead of showing shots on goal most of the time. Time on attack actually shows how well a team is playing, since the goal of each shift is to play in the other team's end of the ice. Shots on goal can be taken from anywhere, and don't necessarily reflect a team playing in the other team's zone for very long.

I agree with you...bit it would be heavily skewed against rush teams and teams who convert on chances without needing additional zone time to do so.

 

[SotasicA]

Wouldn't the new smart puck enable easy data collection re:this topic?

 

[GeeoffBrown]

It's much easier for a video game to track this stat because in a video game, a player either has the puck or they don't and is either in the zone or they aren't. There are much more grey areas in an actual game

 

[Edmonton East]

It's much easier for a video game to track this stat because in a video game, a player either has the puck or they don't and is either in the zone or they aren't. There are much more grey areas in an actual game

Not really a valid excuse when many of the commonly referenced "advanced" stats on here have much larger grey areas.

 

[ToDavid]

It's interesting but it can be misleading. You can spend a lot of time in the opponents zone with nothing to show for it. A rush based team may not spend a lot of time in the opponents zone but could generate a good look on each rush. How often and how well you can generate scoring chances is more important which I think is better captured by heat maps and xG models.

 

[DJJones]

This was weird, started reading this thread and saw myself but had no recollection of typing it. Then I noticed 2015 haha.

On topic though, the guy the Flames hired that ran that one website that I forget the name of now was on the radio. Said he could have kept the site going but got disinterested when he had access to what he called "real analytics". From the sounds of it, NHL teams have a whole other level of analytics that we simply don't have access too and secrecy is big.

 

[ijuka]

It's much easier for a video game to track this stat because in a video game, a player either has the puck or they don't and is either in the zone or they aren't. There are much more grey areas in an actual game

How are there more grey areas? Those work the same in actual games all the same.

 

[GeeoffBrown]

How are there more grey areas? Those work the same in actual games all the same.

Uhhh in actual games it's not always clear where the puck is or who has possession of it, whereas in the video game it always knows those things. Also, there are mechanics in place in the video game where if a player is reasonably near the puck, they will gain possession of it. The video games have different controls with and without the puck, so there have to be systems in place that distinguish between them immediately.

 

[Finnish your Czech]

Time on attack is both harder to track and has more opportunity for data entry error than other stats. Even soccer doesn't have possession stats like that, and soccer is much slower and spread out, so it's even easier to see who has possession.

I'm sure individual teams have their own technology that gets them a mostly accurate time on attack number, but those wouldn't be available to the general public.