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Hkyins

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Forum: NHL SigningsMay 19, 2019 at 3:04 p.m.
Thread: Dallas Stars signed Esa Lindell (6 Years / $5,800,000 AAV)
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Random2152</b></div><div>That plus minus is a useless stat for one. It is literally the first thing you learn. Ron hainsey led the leafs in +/- this year for example.
There are other dmen who get buried in their own zone and put up positive Corsi numbers and the like. Pesce, Theodore, Rielly, the list goes on and on.

Dzone starting % is also not as important statistically as one might think it is in determining how a player is affected stats wise. It does play a part, that is not in question, but we overcompensate for it in our heads relative to what it is actually worth.

You know, I'm trying to be helpful here, no need to act like a child with the last bit there.</div></div>

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.

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. Yes there maybe reasons for it other than the player, but the same can be said about the corsi stat too. But that doesn't take away from the fact that the team is winning with them on the ice. The corsi stat is also famously known for not meaning anything because having possession does not mean winning. There are plenty of teams and games where one hold possession of the puck and they don't score. A simply example, the penguins had a corsi advantage over the islanders in 4 playoff games this year.....they got swept. 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.

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. They don't show you what is happening on the ice. 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.

Which is why the eye test is, and will always be the 1st thing used in looking at a player 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.