Quote:
Originally Posted by mikephoen
One thing that drives me insane with 'advanced' stats is the notion that taking a shot and having it blocked is a good thing. Where did this come from? If your shot is blocked that is a giveaway! It ends your possession, it doesn't improve it!
How often does a shot that is blocked result in a scoring chance for the shooting team? Almost never? At best it is like a dump in and leads to a puck battle for the offensive team. More likely, it is just a giveaway. And sometimes it's a giveaway where the shooter has taken himself out of defensive position, which leads to an odd man rush the other way.
This is what happened a ton when Russell and Wideman were on the ice last year. Russell blocks the shot. Wideman or the centre recover the puck. Quick first pass to a winger and the Flames are out of the zone and on the attack. Then this dude checks his spread sheet and says 'Another bad shift for Wideman and Russell! Derp!'
Start scoring shot blocks as take always and getting a shot blocked as a giveaway and maybe some of these 'advanced' stats will begin to pass the eyeball test.
|
If you block a shot, you're less likely to get it back. The more a team blocks shots, the more shots the other team gets and the fewer they get. It's a pretty strong inverse correlation.
I get you feel like that's the case, but there's a reason Wideman and Russell were on the ice for fat more shots against than for. You can try to argue that a good strategy, but you can't say blocking shots helps you get the puck. There's lots of evidence to the contrary