Ryan Lambert article on sending Monahan down

[djsFlames]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

There is nothing "certain" about how an experience at the WJC will affect Monohan's development one way or the other. In actual fact, I suspect it would probably prove to be negligible in the long run. We do know that there are literally dozens of NHL prospects who participate in this tournament every year, and it makes no perceptible difference for those who never play more than a handful of NHL games.

Monohan has pretty clearly demonstrated that he can keep up and contribute at the NHL level. He has more importantly shown that he can make in game adjustments, and is already showing some small signs of progression. If he can develop at this level, then there really is no good reason to send him back to Ottawa.

MonAhan*


I'd like to see Moon's take on this thread haha.

[Coach]

If Monahan gets sent down in favor of Colborne and Street this place will s***. If Baertschi is sent down CP will cease to exist. There's got to be trades on the horizon for the Flames.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

A guide to advanced stats:

http://canucksarmy.com/2013/10/10/a-...d-hockey-stats

I almost posted this as a thread the other day but think it has a good place here. Pretty much discusses what advanced stats are and how they're used.

A good article in all and describes why they're so compelling.

You should post that in the comment section for Ryan Lambert, most people here (this thread anyways) seem to get it. Him? Not so much.

[mikeecho]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Yeah, it looks to me that he's just trying to create his own shtick by saying crap, to get hits for his column. Not worth reading or getting angry about.

It's the classic Eric Francis angle. Predict something bad and unpopular is going to happen. ie. Flames will finish 30th.

If it happens, then you look like a guy who knows his stuff. If it doesn't happen, well it's not like he wanted them to finish 30th to start with, so he wins because the team did better than expected.

These are the guys who aren't really worth reading because for the most part, the article is not so much about content, but about generating hits to their site by causing a controversy.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

A guide to advanced stats:

http://canucksarmy.com/2013/10/10/a-...d-hockey-stats

I almost posted this as a thread the other day but think it has a good place here. Pretty much discusses what advanced stats are and how they're used.

A good article in all and describes why they're so compelling.

That article kind of illustrates why calling advanced stats, advanced stats is a pet peeve of mine. They are all really basic stats, they just record different types of information. Shop attempts is no more complicated than shots on net.

Another example, the author tries to correlate shot attempts to possession times, and concludes "that is a pretty good correlation", without doing even basic stats (like a regression) to evaluate how good the correlation is.

/pointless rant.

[Five-hole]

Originally Posted by FlameZilla

The Flames lineup is set up for Monahan to be sent down. In fact, it doesn't look great for Baertschi at this point either. Once Cammalleri, Jones & Stajan are healthy the forwards lineup could look somewhat like this:

Cammalleri Stajan Stempniak
Glencross Backlund Hudler
Galiardi Colborne Jones
Bouma Street McGrattan

With so many youngsters on the Heat pushing to get the call-up, and the team having just given up a 4th rounder for Colborne, I think sending Monahan down is way too easy an option for management. Bouma sure doesn't deserve to be sent down. Argh, so frustrating!

First, it's unlikely that nobody is injured all at the same time. Second, you only rotate Street and McGrattan in if Beartschi/Monahan aren't playing well. You also don't make a determination on Monahan based on the fact that Street is currently with the big team. You determine whether Sean should be on the team or not based on what is best for his development. If he stays, you send Street down.

[gargamel]

Originally Posted by Jake

That article kind of illustrates why calling advanced stats, advanced stats is a pet peeve of mine. They are all really basic stats, they just record different types of information. Shop attempts is no more complicated than shots on net.

But it sounds more complicated if you give it a dumb name like Corsi or Fenwick. If you'd just call it what it is, it would probably gain more traction, unless you try to use it to draw conclusions 5 games into a season, in which case people would still laugh at you.

[the2bears]

Originally Posted by Jake

That article kind of illustrates why calling advanced stats, advanced stats is a pet peeve of mine. They are all really basic stats, they just record different types of information. Shop attempts is no more complicated than shots on net.

Another example, the author tries to correlate shot attempts to possession times, and concludes "that is a pretty good correlation", without doing even basic stats (like a regression) to evaluate how good the correlation is.

/pointless rant.

My wife's advanced stat numbers are through the roof.

[T@T]

Ownership wants a happy fanbase. Monahan is providing that.../thread

[TheContact]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

A guide to advanced stats:

http://canucksarmy.com/2013/10/10/a-...d-hockey-stats

I almost posted this as a thread the other day but think it has a good place here. Pretty much discusses what advanced stats are and how they're used.

A good article in all and describes why they're so compelling.

From the article: "Yes, skill clearly plays a part. But luck plays an even larger part. That's why it's not really useful to base any kind of meaningful analysis on goals, which are just a likely to bounce in off a leg as to be the result of some measurable skill on the part of the shooter."

I'm a big fan of statistics, but that's a pretty dire premise when looking for what statistics to examine. If success in hockey is primarily based on luck and not skill (and maybe skill is a bad word... maybe performance is a better word), then Crosby is one lucky player.

In fact, that's why you would want to break down how goals went in and apply weighting factors. That the data the public has is not perfectly valuable for analysis does not discredit it completely.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

A guide to advanced stats:

http://canucksarmy.com/2013/10/10/a-...d-hockey-stats

I almost posted this as a thread the other day but think it has a good place here. Pretty much discusses what advanced stats are and how they're used.

A good article in all and describes why they're so compelling.

I would not call this article a reason to consider these advanced stats as compelling. In fact, these aren't even advanced stats, they're just non-traditional stats without any basis to their validity. Consider these issues that I believe makes them untrustworthy and impossible to validate.

Methodology. There is no clear or consistent measure for many of these stats. What is a shot on goal varies from arena to area. Boston is nefarious for pumping the stats up for the Bruins. The same can be said for other areas around the league. There is no clear definition of what a shot is, or when a shot should be counted, and applied across the league with any consistency. It is subjective and interpreted differently across the league. To me this invalidates anything to do with Fenwick measures.

Consistency in measures. I think this falls outside of method because of the way the variables float around. Take Corsica, which measures the quality of opposition. The constant is sorely lacking. The bad teams are all going to have better Corsica numbers because everyone they play is better than them. Conversely, the good teams are always going to be rated low because everyone is worse than them. This measure can wildly fluctuate during the season, as a bad team gets better or a good team heads south. I've always sat back and looked at this and thought, well of course this guy is going to appear to be playing against stronger competition, he plays for the Edmonton Oilers. Everyone IS stronger! It doesn't take a Phd in advanced statistics to figure that one out.

To me these stats are an answer searching for a question. The first time I ever saw Corsi as a stat was when the Oilers sucked hard and were trying to pump the tires on some of their players. This stat was dreamed up to show that a guy like Shawn Horcoff was comparable to Sydney Crosby, if not better in some ways. It was a bull#### stat then and it's even a bigger bull#### stat now.

The lack of consistency of data collection and application of method makes these things useless. These stats are used to make arguments that have no validity in the real world. There is no way that anyone who watches and understands the game would make some of the leaps in logic these stats drive people to, unless they had an agenda to promote. Again, an answer looking for a question.

[Tinordi]

I would not call this article a reason to consider these advanced stats as compelling. In fact, these aren't even advanced stats, they're just non-traditional stats without any basis to their validity. Consider these issues that I believe makes them untrustworthy and impossible to validate.

What does this even mean? What do you hold as the standard for validation? That shots correlate to goals which correlate to wins? Because there's strong statistical significance between those three key variables.

Methodology. There is no clear or consistent measure for many of these stats. What is a shot on goal varies from arena to area. Boston is nefarious for pumping the stats up for the Bruins. The same can be said for other areas around the league. There is no clear definition of what a shot is, or when a shot should be counted, and applied across the league with any consistency. It is subjective and interpreted differently across the league. To me this invalidates anything to do with Fenwick measures.

Nitpicking. First you'd actually have to back up your claim that shot counts are widely disproportional. Even a cursory glance at the real-time NHL Gamecenter tracker would show that there's little cause for concern here. What you're doing is trying to discredit a whole field of inquiry based on an unsupported claim. Shots at least nowadays seem to be pretty meticulously tracked by the NHL.

Consistency in measures. I think this falls outside of method because of the way the variables float around. Take Corsica, which measures the quality of opposition. The constant is sorely lacking. The bad teams are all going to have better Corsica numbers because everyone they play is better than them. Conversely, the good teams are always going to be rated low because everyone is worse than them. This measure can wildly fluctuate during the season, as a bad team gets better or a good team heads south. I've always sat back and looked at this and thought, well of course this guy is going to appear to be playing against stronger competition, he plays for the Edmonton Oilers. Everyone IS stronger! It doesn't take a Phd in advanced statistics to figure that one out.

Friendly advice, before you start slagging something you should probably understand what it is first. Corsi does not measure quality of competition, it measures your plus/mins in shot differential. When a player is on the ice what is the shots for minus the shots against. You can use corsi to infer a quality of competition but it isn't what corsi is. The basic idea of corsi is that because goals are so rare and so reliant on luck, we need a better way to understand how good players are. Shots are an order of magnitude more frequent and so we have many more observations to start evaluating players. Because shots correlate to goals for (with a high correlation coefficient) it's a suitable proxy.

To me these stats are an answer searching for a question. The first time I ever saw Corsi as a stat was when the Oilers sucked hard and were trying to pump the tires on some of their players. This stat was dreamed up to show that a guy like Shawn Horcoff was comparable to Sydney Crosby, if not better in some ways. It was a bull#### stat then and it's even a bigger bull#### stat now.

It's then appropriate to really spell out why you don't like corsi. It's because you THINK that it's a measure developed by some Oilers fans to show that their team is good. This fits in with your fan orthodoxy to develop a story for how you should interpret the NHL based on tribal loyalties and a story that satisfies your own biases. There's no wonder you'd be hostile to something that would make you question that.

The lack of consistency of data collection and application of method makes these things useless. These stats are used to make arguments that have no validity in the real world. There is no way that anyone who watches and understands the game would make some of the leaps in logic these stats drive people to, unless they had an agenda to promote. Again, an answer looking for a question.

Again please point out this lack of consistency. And quite the contrary, these stats to provide useful insights. They called LA's deep run to the Stanley Cup, something that traditional stats couldn't have done. They also called Minnesota's mid season collapse two years ago.

If you don't want to use them that's fine. Completely in your right as a fan to just watch and enjoy the game and build narratives that you want to satisfy your own interpretation of the events. But if you're actually going to criticize the stats you need to bring much more than what you have to the table because your arguments don't stand to scrutiny.

[mikeecho]

@Tinordi - Re: the Wild and Kings... Pretty much the entire hockey community knew the Kings were a team that would be a contender and in many circles were considered a favorite to win the cup. Their lackluster first part of the season had many in the mainstream / non advanced stats community saying that the team was underperforming and capable of much more.

As for the Wild, the opposite applied. Even casual observers thought that the Wild were massively over performing and that it was not sustainable for an entire season.

I do see the relevance of some "advaned stats" when taken in conjunction with a healthy dose of watching games to draw a conclusion, but I'm comfortable saying that advanced stats were no more on top of the progress of the Kings and Wild teams as anyone who simply watched the games.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Nitpicking. First you'd actually have to back up your claim that shot counts are widely disproportional. Even a cursory glance at the real-time NHL Gamecenter tracker would show that there's little cause for concern here. What you're doing is trying to discredit a whole field of inquiry based on an unsupported claim. Shots at least nowadays seem to be pretty meticulously tracked by the NHL.

It is a well known, and long standing joke around the league, that a lot of stats are interpreted differently from arena to arena. That's all that needs to be said on the subject, because everyone in the game knows that certain teams cook the books. No attempt to discredit, the statisticians do it themselves. I am very interested to know how you know shots are meticulously tracked? Unless you are watching every game and are auditing the shot trackers you have no idea how accurate they are. Again, Boston is infamous for pumping up the shots for. Other buildings are generous in the hits department while others hardly give any. It is interpretation of what constitutes a given stat that is sorely lacking and which brings all of these measures into question. But I'm not changing your mind, so we'll leave it at that.

[moon]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

I'd like to see Moon's take on this thread haha.

Not sure why I have said my piece about advanced stats in hockey and it gets tiresome hearing stats guys trot out their defenses ad nauseum using the same tired examples of how it is successful ignoring the fact that they were obvious to non-advanced stats guys as well (Tinordi's Kings and Wild examples) and ignoring the failures that they have trumped up as ready to break out.

I think that if Advanced stats people approached the subject of how they should be used with a little more give and take and were willing to admit that their are big flaws and they aren't 100% predictors more people would care but in my experience if anyone questions advanced stats they are labeled morons and old farts who are too stupid to understand the math. There seems to be 0 desire or ability to address the problems that advanced stats face in every sport especially hockey.

As for the article in question. Seems pretty stupid and short sighted. Sure Monahan has played sheltered minutes but so what? He is a 19 year old kid playing for a team with 0 play-off chances and 0 play-off expectations. He can continue to play those sheltered minutes all season long boosting hi confidence and learning the game.

Any inference to fans expecting 90+ points is stupid and just trying to justify his own desire to diss the fans that disagree with. I am one of the first to get tired of the overhyping/overrating of players by Flames fans the past few years and outside of a crazy few can't say I have seen anyone that I think that has these expectations. Fans are excited for his fast start but realize that he is not going to keep up the PPG pace.

[strombad]

I think the important thing here is that advanced stats are a tool, not the solution. Coming to a conclusion using just one tool is pretty much impossible. That's the general problem with guys like Lambert who look at ONLY advanced stats and say "well they say this, so this must be true." It's like getting a new tool, you want to use it as much as you can, but any intelligent person knows that one tool is not capable of doing all jobs, you need more than one. Advanced stats are an interesting addition to actual visual game analysis and your more typical stats, but they're only an addition. They don't work by themselves.
I'm pretty comfortable saying that everyone who rests heavily on advanced stats either a) don't know better or b) are trying to make themselves sound a lot more intelligent than they actually are (it isn't working).
Granted, I think it's wrong to write them off entirely. They're a good tool, but it's just a small piece of proper analysis.

[edn88]

Over 82 games the Flames will show what they really are - for real or otherwise. Regardless if #23 can hang with the big boys let him develop in the NHL being better than everyone else in the OHL won't make him better, and burning a year on his deal will be a good investment.

This year finishing dead last is not important - teaching our young guys how to win is - and if they accidentally finish 20th - so be it. They probably have to do it without serious reinforcements - trading away assets to increase our chance of making the playoffs would be unlikely at this point -

[Five-hole]

So this article boils down to the following argument:

1. Junior-aged players have to play 9 games or the whole season
2. It is desirable to hold off on junior-aged players using up years of their ELCs
3. Sean Monahan is a junior-aged player
4. Advanced stats show that Sean Monahan is a junior aged player
5. If Sean Monahan is sent down to junior, #4 will not be true at some point in the future
6. Sean Monahan should be sent back to junior

So, #1 is factually incorrect, as Sean can be sent down until February if it really comes down to it. #2 is highly debatable and FAR from canonical truth. #3 is, of course, true (hey, he had to get something right). #4 is the meat of the article but in my opinion can be boiled down to that rather flippant one-liner. Of course Sean is playing sheltered minutes and has made some mistakes. Regardless of whether he plays this year or next or the year after that, he's going to have to learn the NHL game. Thus #5 is not true.

All this is meant to support #6, and it just doesn't.

[devo22]

at this point, I don't even care about letting a year of his ELC slide anymore. The Flames will probably be close to cap floor for a few years, who cares if Monahans ELC is up in 2016 instead of 2017?

[browna]

In a loose tying in of the theme of "advanced stats", I'll let CP's good friend Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, give his opinion: