I don't know anyone who's saying that we should use stats over observation. I haven't read a single basement blogger who's saying to fire your scouting department and buy my spreadsheet.
What I am seeing though are people saying that you need to start looking in this to help make decisions and alot of pushback from people saying that those tools are useless. Especially in some mainstream hockey circles.
So I think you're making my point, we knew that the Kotalik trade didn't pass the smell test? So why did it happen? Would using more advanced metrics have helped kibosh that deal? Maybe not. But you're going to find that GMs who are using these tools will be signing better value contracts for production and making better trades against GMs who don't use them.
Philadelphia and Toronto are good cautionary tales of ignoring these stats. They've made decisions that the stats wouldn't have supported and they look like bad decisions. In the zero-sum world that is the NHL that's all the difference.
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