In light of the ongoing advanced stats debate, I decided to perform an experiment: To see what kind of Canadian Olympic Team would be assembled if advanced stats were the only criteria considered.
I collected all the advanced stats available from behindthenet and extraskater, and not knowing which players were which, I picked a team based solely on a balanced evaluation of their advanced stats. No names, no teams, no ages, etc. Just stats.
I then unblinded the experiment, and assembled the players into a reasonable roster.
There was no one single number used, but as I said, a balanced approach looking at player usage, strength of opposition, Corsi numbers, penalties taken/drawn, etc.
The results surprised me in a number of ways. Do yourself a favor and make a stand before you open the tags. Decide if you think it'll be close or completely bogus. It'll make things more interesting.
Results:
NSFW!
Kunitz Crosby Bergeron
Sharp Toews Giroux
E Kane Getzlaf Perry
Marleau Thornton Couture
Perron Turris
The forward ranks were much more reasonable than I was expecting. They look very similar to what the pundits are saying, with Kane, Perron, and Turris being the big surprises. And man, Evander Kane's advanced stats are an eye-opener. The kid is doing some damage against the best players in the NHL, while on a terrible team. Perron is also doing surprisingly well at keeping his head above water on an awful team.
The defence rankings, on the other hand, are even sillier than I was expecting. Which is not much of a surprise, because I think advanced stats are really bad at evaluating defencemen. Really, if it weren't for the Bouwmeester and Pietrangelo pairing having excellent corsi numbers, this would look basically nothing like an Olympic roster. Phaneuf is either doing something very very right, or he is the luckiest player in the universe, because his advanced stats look very good. Also, TJ Brodie is a stud, and clearly should be on the Olympic Team. That is all.
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Very interesting, especially for some bubble players like Kunitz, Sharp, Thornton and Marleau. Normally you would justify their place on the team based on team-mate familiarity with a stud player, but it's neat to see that their stats back it up. I suppose there is the Moulson/Tavares argument, but I'm surprised Tavares stats don't add up.
Very interesting, especially for some bubble players like Kunitz, Sharp, Thornton and Marleau. Normally you would justify their place on the team based on team-mate familiarity with a stud player, but it's neat to see that their stats back it up. I suppose there is the Moulson/Tavares argument, but I'm surprised Tavares stats don't add up.
Is this based only on the 13-14 season to date?
Based only on 2013-14 data.
Also, advanced stats are based on how a team performs when that player is on the ice. Since guys like Kunitz are never on the ice unless Crosby is on the ice, and Sharp is probably rarely on the ice without one of Toews or Kane, it's not so surprising to see excellent numbers.
And Thornton is only a bubble player because he's a playmaking centre, a position where he's stuck behind Toews and Crosby. A winger of Thornton's ability would be rock-solid lock.
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Canadian Olympic All-STATS Team
