Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
That's just you being ignorant of what they suggest.
Those three stats suggest that among players who played a defensive role on their teams, and yet drove the puck up the ice, Paul Byron was one in a select group of 6. Nothing more, nothing less. That's a unique player. If you're confusing that for "Maybe I should pick up Byron in my hockey pool and trade him for Bergeron or Landeskog?" then that's as dumb as saying "Malkin sucks at faceoffs, therefore he sucks at hockey"
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Do the stats actually suggest what you think?
The Flames were terrible overall in terms of zone starts. Literally half the players on the roster who had over 50 minutes at 5 on 5 had defensive zone starts greater than 33%. Most of those had offensive zone starts below 33% as well. So right away, we know that neither of those stats is particularly indicative of much. Byron was actually only 8th on team (6th among forwards) for highest DZFO and 9th overall (7th among forwards) for lowest OZFO.
Likewise, CF%Rel is also only relative to the team. Byron is undoubtedly one of our best puck movers. His CF%Rel of 3.1 was fifth best among regular players - only Gio (5.8), Gaudreau (3.6), Jooris (3.3), and Diaz (3.2) were higher.
However, all we can safely say is that Byron was typically used in defensive situations - along with half the team - and that we typically moved the puck into the offensive zone when he was on the ice. That's it. We can't compare against other teams and claim Byron fits in a group with the other players named.
Because if you want to do that, you're doomed. Out of those six players, Byron had easily the highest team shooting percentage when he was on the ice (10.85% - next closest was Bergeron at 9.41), but he also had easily the worst scoring rate (1.33pts/60; next closest was Stastny at 1.55). Byron was also slightly negative in both GF% (49.3%; 13th on team) and GF%Rel (-4.4; 19th on team; both out of 26 qualifying players)
So for all of his transition ability, it wasn't translating into points. And until the NHL starts basing wins and losses on Corsi events, points are what decide games. Byron is neutral at best in that regard.