Edited May 25, 2019 at 11:39 p.m.
Quoting: dylanstoik
You are seriously stupid, he had the highest defensive rating in the NHL. He’s an excellent defensman with our without Klingberg, watch hockey before comment ridiculous stuff like that.
Genuinely curious, what defensive rating was he the highest in?
Oops, forgot about these posts lol
Quoting: DDoverChucky
Defensive defensemen are always going to look bad in advanced stats, which is why those stats will never be a big deal.
Here are the stats for Pesce and Theodore. (All the picks have Theodore as I was making a comparison and these are what I have saved.
Here is Giordano
Here is a certified OFD for comparison
And another one
And here are other underlying metrics
Tl;dr
You're wrong.
Quoting: pharrow
1) Looking at stats the way you look at them is simply off.
Numbers don't tell whole stories unless they are broken down into such small samples they are meaningless.
Which is why there are people who don't rely all that heavily on analytics.
They don't tell you if the player is mismatched. They don't tell you about the chemistry with the other players on the ice, or if the player is simply being put in a bad position or is being asked to do something out of his actual skill set. It's just a bunch or raw data that with no context is simply meaningless.
Just about every stat (there are one or two exceptions) you can list can be boiled down to be just as worthless as any other. Be it corsi or +/- or whatever. Which is why saying some are "good" while others are "bad" is fairly meaningless statement.
On a side note if you want to know what an exception is, I would say the faceoff stat. You either win it or lose it and it has very little to do with anything else on the ice other than a 1 to 1 match up. And it's a stat that definitely effects the game and is one of the most important and useful stats in hockey. Although personally I think it should be changed to "who gains possession" as you can "win" the faceoff and not get possession of the puck. But that's a different conversation.
2) The +/- stat like any other stat does tell you something on the ice just like the corsi does. If you have a high +/- goals are going in for your team and not the other team.
3) Yes there maybe reasons for it other than the player, but the same can be said about the corsi stat too.
4) But that doesn't take away from the fact that the team is winning with them on the ice.
5) The corsi stat is also famously known for not meaning anything because having possession does not mean winning.
6) There are plenty of teams and games where one hold possession of the puck and they don't score.
7) A simple example: the penguins had a corsi advantage over the islanders in 4 playoff games this year.....they got swept.
8) Furthermore, a players corsi can be boosted by other players holding the puck and winning puck battles not the player in question. They simply get credit for it. There are indeed "corsi vultures" just as much as there are "+/- vultures." So it's really a meaningless stat in that regard. It doesn't say that this player is the reason the team has possession of the puck, but only that the team had possession of the puck and they happened to be on ice when it happened.
9) Does that mean stats are useless, no but it does mean that looking at some stats and saying "those are the good ones" and ignoring others because they don't fit the narrative is a bad way to look at statistics.
10) They don't show you what is happening on the ice.
11) Players mesh together well. They might be losing the corsi consistently, they might be giving up more shots, higher fenwick whatever. But at the end of the game they are always coming out a goal ahead consistently which is why they are a +20 as opposed to a -10. If you want an example of that, the penguins beat CBJ in the playoffs on route to a cup several years ago and CBJ was dominating in about every statistical category but 1, the score board. CBJ was so frustrated little matt calvert broke his stick blind siding Kunhackle from the side. They let CBJ has possession, they let them take all the shots in the world, they even had more high danger shots. No stat will show you why they lost, but it just is that way. At the end of the game the only stat that counts is the score board.
12) Which is why the eye test is, and will always be the 1st thing used in looking at a player
13) and the vast majority of the "advanced" stats or whatever mean very little unless given a lot of context. Which is why broad generalizations and clumps of stats to make any kind of reasonable decision about a player, team, system etc... is ill advised.
1) The point is to figure out averages, to roughly predict future play. The numbers can never be accurate down to the individual play as they'd be meaningless as you pointed out, but the numbers essentially count the little plays. If a player is making a lot of little plays that help you win, chances are they are going to continue to do so.
2) The problem with the +/- stat is that it doesn't differentiate between you actually helping to make that stat, or if they are just a passenger on the line watching their team mates do it all. Ron Hainsey is a perfect example of this as he lead the Leafs in +/- this year on a pair with Rielly (who had a Norris calibre offensive season).
3) Blatantly false. To gain a + you don't even have to be in the play, to gain corsi you have to personally take a shot.
4) Sometimes teams win despite players (overcoming a poor goalie or a hot goalie overcoming a lousy team performance being the most common example.
5) Corsi effectively measures possession of the puck (as you said). I can not fathom how you don't see that not allowing the other team to have the puck (in either zone) would help you win. That is literally (<---- used correctly here) saying that shooting more and keeping the other team to fewer shots has no bearing on winning.
6) That is why you use more than one stat. No one is saying to ONLY use corsi to evaluate players. xGF for example measures shot danger by factoring in distance, where it was shot from etc. Also sometimes you get beat by a hot goalie. You can dominate all game but just can't beat him (Kristers Gudlevskis being a somewhat famous example), that doesn't mean you didn't dominate the game and if you play that way 82 games a year + playoffs you are going to win most of them (which is the whole point of tracking the stats, to get players who play better and to make systems that work better).
Additionally shooting % can wildly fluctuate. Sometimes you can take good shot after good shot and just not score (for a variety of reasons). One of the earliest development in the stats community (not even advanced stats, just stats in general) was that shooting % can vary and not to overreact to its variance. Nazem Kadri is a perfect example of this.
Either way none of that discounts corsi or underlying metrics as a legitimate tool to evaluate players.
7) See the above, especially the hot goalie bit.
8) Simply not true. Corsi is a stat used to evaluate possession. It is measured by shots taken, not how long you literally hold the puck for. In order to affect corsi you literally have to have the puck and take a shot. I always find it amusing that those who argue against advanced stats often have a less than full understanding of those stats they so vehemently oppose.
9) That is actually the point. No one (credible) is saying these are the only stats and to not use all others, or forgo the eye test completely. They simply measure other aspects of the game. I always like to put it this way: Normal stats measure outcomes, advanced stats measure the process of getting those outcomes.
10) That is literally what they do. Normal stats measure outcomes, advanced stats measure the process of getting those outcomes. They are the eye test crudely put into numbers.
11) Sometimes you get outplayed and still win. This is the age of parity, it happens. When building a team all you can do is give yourself the best chance to win year after year, and constructing a team that dominates on average is the best way to do it.
12) No one is arguing against that. We are saying that underlying metrics are a tool to be used in conjunction with things like the eye test. You are human and only have two eyes, you're going to miss things. The underlying metrics help to show you what you missed, or even accentuate what you saw.
13) untrue see rest of comment (especially 12).
A side note: You are showing your age here. You double spaced all of your sentences lol (that practice has fallen out of use). Not hating; just find it funny.
Sorry it took so long to get back, I honestly just forgot about this post lol.
Edit for additional notes:
1) +/- is bad because it mashes together a bunch of somewhat random stats (5v5, 5v4 etc). It gives no context to anything (whether the player actually did anything), which is the principle thing you are arguing about here. That is what advanced stats are, some of them are basically +/- (corsi is +/- for shots) but specialized to give you a more detailed look.
2) Funny you mention faceoff% as an important stat. Statistically (not underlying metrics, just plain old % and counting) they are largely unimportant. Thats not to say they are never important, just that they are less important than you would think. You also mention what it should be changed to (which is what underlying metrics are for other stats).