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Advanced Stats Bluff?


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The Stanley Cup Champion has come out of a top 5 possession team in every season that these stats were recorded (going back to the early 2000s) except one. That one was the 2009 Pittsburgh Penguins... who were a top 5 possession team in the second half of the season (after gonchar returned, and after Therrien was fired).

Its not a fallacy to say that teams that possess the puck more than their opponents and generate more shot attempts are usually the best teams. The stats bear that out, and they also show that possession is a repeatable statistic over large sample sizes.

Yes, you need talent to generate good possession.... but the object of getting talent is also to improve possession. Its the chicken and the egg.

Upgrading your talent is likely to lead to better possession stats.....

Players with better possession stats are likely to be upgrades in talent (not just looking at one stat but the context of all stats combined and also scouting by eyeball).

Its not like I'm saying montreal is abandoning their scouting... no team is... but at the same time they are using these stats, its pretty clear knowing where Bergevin came from (Chicago) and the moves he's making now.

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As for the Habs system last year..... again they do much better in two instances.

1) When neither Bouillion or Murray were on the ice (fixed that problem).

2) When the score of the game was close (within two goals).

What this tells us is that yes, I expect the Habs to be a better possession team this year... especially with the roster that Bergevin is putting together.

Therrien has had good possession teams in his past... He's not a Carlyle where every team he has regresses possession wise year after year after year.

Therrien's 2008 Penguins were very good possession wise... His 2012-13 Habs were good in possession too, the 2013-14 team was good when the liabilities were removed. ... All of which makes me think that the 2009 result was more because he really missed gonchar who was still an elite defender at that time then anything else.

That's what I mean. The best teams are also the best in possession. A symptom of success, not the cause or cure. The reason I say that is that I don't think it's possible for a coach to say "ok, gang, hold it in the zone and try to shoot as much as possible" then find success.

Besides using possession as an evaluation tool, is there any way to actively improve Corsi/Fenwick, and will that lead to success?

For me, that's the next big step in advanced stats.

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You gotta have talent behind your possession.

Everyone picked the Senators to destroy last season because they were young and had great corsi and qualcom stats. Instead they were mediocre at best. And it wasn't just "bad luck" like what tends to be recorded for possession teams. On paper, replacing Daniel Alfredsson and Jacob Silferberg with Bobby Ryan and Clark MacArthur sounds like the right thing to do. It ended up being disastrous.

Ottawa was overrated for the same reasons the Lightning are as we speak. There are a few conditions, and I think that possession is now one of them, that cause a team to be criminally overrated before the season starts.

*Jack Adams win or nomination the year before.

*Man games lost to injury

*Free agent acquisitions

*"Because that's what my buddy said in his article." (See, Blues, St Louis).

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There were a few times I doubted myself but I had a good feeling the Blues weren't going far. They were overrated down the middle (the Blues don't actually want Backes to play center) and despite having this supposedly superior defence keep leaving their goalie out to dry. It reminded me of when the Predators were being talked about as a contender when they had next to no offence and had to import Radulov to get the puck in the net.

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That's what I mean. The best teams are also the best in possession. A symptom of success, not the cause or cure. The reason I say that is that I don't think it's possible for a coach to say "ok, gang, hold it in the zone and try to shoot as much as possible" then find success.

Besides using possession as an evaluation tool, is there any way to actively improve Corsi/Fenwick, and will that lead to success?

For me, that's the next big step in advanced stats.

You could try to game the system and shoot from anywhere as soon as you cross the blueline to improve your corsi/fenwick (but it wouldn't improve your chances of actually winning games). The idea here is that Corsi/Fenwick are an estimation of the amount of time you spend with the puck, not a pure measure of it. And when compared to people actually timing possession with stop watches, the corsi/fenwick method tracks extremely well.

The idea of it is to show players who are better than we've perceived for years.

What we've learned.

1) the big defenceman who blocks a lot of shots and throws a lot of hits.... but can't skate and can't make a pass... the type of stay at home defenceman that NHL teams have kept on rosters for years. Those guys are not helpful to winning.

Note here that the second part is key... skate and make a pass. A guy who plays that defensive game but can still start the transition game like a Seidenberg, or Dan Hamhuis or Vlasic are still valuable.... but the guys who can't start the transition are not.

2) Guys we've thought of as too risky on defence, but are puck movers are actually more effective than we thought.

3) Guys who can successfully gain the blueline and maintain possession without having to dump and chase are extremely valuable. While a good forecheck is also important, gaining the line off the rush is better for possession.

We've re-evaluated certain players over time, and found that possession matters.

Now what the next step is, i'm not sure, but I'm excited to find out.

Here is the thing, advanced stats are still being refined and developped. We are in the infancy of their use. While we've learned a lot; over the next few years even more stats will be developped.

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This is also why stats like Corsi/Fenwick can be over-valued. Because a lot of those points are dead wrong.

Take the idea of the big stay-at-home defenseman who can't skate and can't make a pass. Well, they CAN be a liability, yes. (See Doug Murray.) However, a guy like Hal Gil was absolutely essential to one Pittsburgh Cup win, they don't even get close to the show that year without him. Despite a few naysayers on this board, who are all dead wrong, Josh Gorges was a great asset to our team, saved us a lot of games, and never lost us a single one, for years.

Likewise, there have been highly successful teams that were entirely built on dump and chase. There have been successful teams built on collapsing into a defensive box and then capitalizing on the first mistake the other team makes. The Habs of 1993 gave opponents GREAT possession stats - they intentionally allowed every opposition rush a single path in at Roy, knowing he'd stop the first shot, and gobbling up the rebound and turning the other way. The Neutral-Zone trapping Devils of the late 90's used a strategy that was terrible for possession stats (for both teams on the ice), and yet they dominated the league in the most boring possible way for years. These are strategies that actively degrade Corsi/Fenwick numbers, but they work.

Corsi/Fenwick show something valuable, but are no more useful as a statistic than +/-. They don't tell a complete story. They undervalue some skills and utterly discount some effective styles/strategies. They are worth looking at, sure, and I actually think they are underused - we should see them more regularly reported on. However the promoters of them tend to push them as the be-all and end-all of hockey stats, and quite frankly, they aren't.

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What does goofy stat stuff say about goon types?

They are invaluable. correct? :nuts:

(maybe 'priceless' is better term)

The stats on goons I care about are EQ, entertainment quotient, and for a team like Florida, AiS, or asses in seats.

This revolutionary model suggests that seeing John Scott kick the crap out of someone is more entertaining and puts more people in the stands than Raphael Diaz dancing on the blue line to the tune of +.0000371 relative corsi.

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EQ eh.

I will take a nice open ice hit, sweet glove save or Galchenyuk making Chara look like a pylon on a 1-on-1 and scoring, over 2 unskilled 'hockey players' breaking hand bones on the brain bucket of each other for a few seconds.

No comparison.

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Have seen very entertaining games (High EQ :nuts:) which Habs lost and darn boring Hab wins (where they sat on a lead for 2/3 of game) that I wouldn't be too proud about and glad I didn't pay big bucks for a ticket.

But, obviously some wins are most enjoyable, like closing out the Bruins.

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I am with Machine 100%. My preferred form of entertainment is SEEING THE HABS WIN. I couldn't give a dried-up piece of rat poop HOW they win (provided it's not in ways I regard as morally disgusting, like deliberately injuring guys on an ongoing basis). I still remember all the moaning about "boring hockey" during the 1980s when we had a NJ Devils-style kickass team. Maybe those fans preferred the defensively inept but exciting (!!!!) Mario Tremblay teams that couldn't win their way out of a paper bag. Not me. While I do enjoy flashy players, in terms of team play, it's all about the Ws.

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Don, I don't think advanced stats covers how important an ass kicker is vs certain teams, I don't think advanced stats tell much about some things, all they are is averages. Although they have value, they are end all be all, and in some cases, very misleading.

Agree Icewater, exactly with what you said....

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Why would you trade anything of value for McGratton when there are ten guys kicking around on various AHL only contracts you could sing for free, who play the same quality of hockey and can also punch people in the face? You've also got a bunch who are UFAs still like Bisonette.

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I don't see the bisonettes flying off the shelves to new teams..we'd definitely have to trade for a fighter/hockey player..teams generally don't give away chris neil type players. I personally would prefer mcgratton or bordeleau

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Don, I don't think advanced stats covers how important an ass kicker is vs certain teams, I don't think advanced stats tell much about some things, all they are is averages. Although they have value, they are end all be all, and in some cases, very misleading.

Agree Icewater, exactly with what you said...

every cup winner will have a handful of these guys..they're listed as "intangibles" check out those stats don...

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I don't see the bisonettes flying off the shelves to new teams..we'd definitely have to trade for a fighter/hockey player..teams generally don't give away chris neil type players. I personally would prefer mcgratton or bordeleau

Why McGrattan? He's less talented than Bissonette. Bordeleau can at least play a little but McGrattan is another of those dime-a-dozen guys.

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Why McGrattan? He's less talented than Bissonette. Bordeleau can at least play a little but McGrattan is another of those dime-a-dozen guys.

I'd take Bissonnette in a heartbeat for the sheer entertainment value.

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I don't see the bisonettes flying off the shelves to new teams..we'd definitely have to trade for a fighter/hockey player..teams generally don't give away chris neil type players. I personally would prefer mcgratton or bordeleau

There isn't much difference between Bisonette, McGratton, Bordeleau, and those types (include John Scott, Colton Orr, George Parros) etc. None of them are good at actually playing hockey.

I agree that teams don't give away Chris Neil types, but there is a big difference between Neil and all those guys named above.

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every cup winner will have a handful of these guys..they're listed as "intangibles" check out those stats don...

Actually of all cup winners since the 2004-05 lost season, there have been only one of two Cup Champs who have even dressed this type of player in the playoffs.... Boston who played Thornton in the majority but not all of their playoff games, and the Ducks who played Parros for all of 6 playoff games. I'd also argue that when Boston won the cup Thornton was closer to a Chris Neil type in terms of ability than a pure goon.

The rest either had no goon at all, or didn't dress him in the playoffs. (Note: If the player could actually play hockey like Ben Eager, or Kyle Clifford, I'm not counting them as a goon).

These guys who can't play hockey and are just there to fight have next to zero value in the playoffs.

Again big difference between a tough player who can play hockey and a goon.

The goon is slowly becoming extinct in the NHL. The tough hockey player remains valuable.

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