Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
I didn't say that. But since you brought it up, 'advanced metrics' (lol) - in this case corsi and a few of its variants - have not been 'proven to be highly correlated with success'.
The correlations are, in fact, not very strong at all. This is one of the biggest myths for the advanced stat groupies. Yes, the correlations with corsi and its variants have the highest correlation, among the various options available, but highest does not mean high. The fact is that none of the available metrics are very good predictors of success, and that corsi and its cousins are merely the best of a bunch of crap. But people read 'highest correlation with success' and think they have found some kind of keen insight, and awesome predictive tool, into the game of hockey. But it simply isn't the case.
Also, thank you for the nice bit of irony, quoting my post that claimed that people are too black and white on this subject, and then - falsely - claiming that I give no credit for one thing, but all the blame for another.
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I think Bax showed that teams with good score adjusted Corsi have a strong correlation with winning the Stanley Cup. That works for me.
And I would happily take an imperfect correlation to make sense of the chaos over some of the things you are measuring the team by that are filtered only through your lens of experienced watching, but are unfortunately, completely unquantifiable.
Do I disagree with any of the things you find lacking? No, but since there's little in the way of quantifiable data on that, we're left with a he said/she said difference of opinion on what makes Gulutzan a good coach or not. Would I like to see improvements on those things over the year? Sure, but a lot of that is secondary to winning games.
For me, I'm a results oriented person. If Gulutzan gets them into a strong playoff position and they have a good showing in the playoffs this year (meaning that they win a round or two), then I'm satisfied that he's done his job. How he gets there is irrelevant to me. Plus, if you really watch other teams over the course of the year, and not just the odd game here or there, but really follow another team consistently, you'll see that these inconsistencies plague ALL teams now. There are few teams who play the right way every night and are just unlucky to lose. The days of parity mean that a small difference in play from night to night or from shift to shift can mean winning or losing.
If you end up on the right side of that parity far more often than not, you're doing well enough in my books.