Quote:
Originally Posted by AlbertaOiler72
except Eberle had a 23.6 shooting % in the AHL, even after most of the stats guys said there's no way he could sustain it...how do you explain that?
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It's the AHL - let's see what he does at the NHL level. You can't simply convert shooting% numbers from one league to the next.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AlbertaOiler72
I'm not saying Eberle will sustain his shooting percentage but stats only tell half the story...you also got to watch the player. Eberle doesn't just flick a wrister from the blue-line...he only take shots from high % areas which leads me to believe he'll always have a high shooting percentage...will it be 19%? who knows
I get it that a lot of "stats guys" wanna be the next Bill James and their are definitely some great advance stats out there...but they simply do not tel the whole story
so dismissing a guy simply based on stats is a flawed argument
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I don't doubt that Eberle does make his shots count, but if you want to say he'll always have a high shooting percentage you have to look relative to the rest of the league. 19% is not a high shooting percentage - it's one that's off the charts. The only active player near that total is Tanguay (18.5%) and that's for obvious reasons - he truly only shoots when he's absolutely forced to. After that, here's the only three active guys above 16% for their career:
Stamkos (17.0%) - Eberle is no Stamkos. Eberle's great, but there isn't a better pure scorer in the league.
Holmstrom (16.32%) & Brunnette (17.68%) - Two guys who made a career of putting home garbage in front of the net. They have high shooting percentages for a reason. Tons of shots from 5-10 feet away from the goalie and off rebounds too.
So when you say "maybe his shooting% will be 19% moving forward" it lacks any realistic backing. There's a ton of great players with shooting% between 14-15% (Toews, Briere, Datsyuk, Kovalchuk, Ryan, Spezza, etc.) - that's the realistic settling point for a highly accurate shooter.
At the 180 shots he took last year, with a 14-15% shooting percentage (which, again, is still very elite) Eberle is looking at 25-27 goals - a big drop from the 34 he had. You can talk about how all shots are different, but can you realistically say that Eberle is taking better quality shots than other elite NHL players?
You can't simply discount the stats because you don't like them. Eberle's shooting percentage is unsustainable unless he's the rare exception and you think he's a more gifted shooter than Stamkos. A simple look around the league shows you that. He can certainly score 34 again, but he's going to have to find a way to generate more shots & chances than he did last year to do so.
EDIT: Here's a list of career all-time leaders with active players bolded:
http://www.hockey-reference.com/lead...ct_career.html