Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John
Wouldn't be surprised if this entire "hire an analytics guy" thing is a passing fad that will eventually phase out once "advanced" stats are all readily and easily available to everyone and tracked on nhl.com
Once all these new stats are universally tracked GMs and execs will begin to interpret and understand the information themselves and use it to make decisions, rendering these "analytics" guys superfluous, unless they can stay ahead of the game by coming up with new categories to track.
This is just a thing right now because stuff like zone entries has to be tracked manually, so the guys that track them are a step ahead and possess information that others don't have. Once everyone has that info then what?
Eventually what is considered "advanced" stats right now will end up being "normal" stats as people become more familiar with them. It will be interesting to see what the stats experts do when their 15 minutes of fame are over and they will have to evolve in order to continue drawing a salary from a NHL team.
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Agreed . If there is someone that is given a job to do analytics their first job would be to decide what is meaningful statistics and then gather them.
Right now the quality of the public domain (NHL.com) statistics is very poor. The hits and blocked shots and Takeway giveaway stats are very suspect.
CORSI and the possession stats are based on very shakey shots directed at goal and blocked shots stats and whether you are on the ice when this event happens.
There are shots that are directed at the net that are scoring chances and there are shots directed at the net that are dump ins and giving up possession of the puck ... these are counted the same in the general NHL stats.
Even totally taken for grants stats like assists are qualitative as well as quantitative.
Does banging of the boards in your own end that due to another players excellent play and leads to a goal merit the same positive stat as being part of a three way passing play that results in a goal ???
the individual teams that are spending $$$ on analytics should have considerable effort in breaking down game film and extracting meaningful statistics like:
Actual individual time with puck possession.
completed passes.. bad passes
Individual scoring chances.
Quality shots on goal and shots that result in easy saves.
possession changing hits.
Punishing hits
important shot blocks and shot blocks of easy goalie saves.
Entry to the offensive zone: Going off side, carrying the puck in, passing the puck in dumping the puck in and the scoring chances that result from each of these events.
Defensemen standing up at the blue line or backing in, gone around for a scoring chance
Forwards getting back in time or late
picking out the correct player to check.
Teams that create this data would not be sharing it. I do not see how advanced stats would ever become public domain.