How Screwed are the Flames?

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I know this is going to fall on deaf ears and your question will be raised again, but that's the way it goes on the internet.

Because every single win the Flames achieve produces a new round of crying and whining from the "Corsi is god" crowd? I like analytics. I like the value Corsi and the like offers, but some of you advanced stat geeks are hilarious in how you take exceptions so personally. And some of you have no sense of proportion.

You guys were truly offended by the Avalanche last year, and you are truly upset about the Flames this year. Instead of just pointing out that exceptions exist and that the general goal should be to be improving in terms of possession, all we hear is whining and crying about how lucky the Flames are. All you do with that is drive people away from your arguments. Or, in Lambert's case, drive the foolish masses to Yahoo's website.

I've said this before, but "luck" (in this context) to an analytics guy is the same thing as "god" to mankind. It is nothing more than an invention used to offer an easy explanation to what you don't yet understand.

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

You absolutely can. It's just hard. In the Penguins' case, it requires having the two best hockey players on Earth, and to the extent they haven't been successful since, a lot of it has to do with how weak the rest of the roster is. Can't play those guys 60 minutes.

In other teams' cases, e.g. MTL this year, it requires world-class goaltending, or a massive difference between PK GA and PP GF (usually this also has something to do with goaltending).

In an ideal world, you want to give your team every chance to win. Hence, since it's really pretty hard to get the best players in the world (if "just draft Crosby" was a strategy the Oilers would have done it already), and it can be hard to get goaltending good enough for long enough to have the guy carry your team on his back. So, it's simply good management to try to get your roster and coaching staff pulling in the direction of puck possession, so you don't need those things to at least be competitive consistently.

I know this is going to fall on deaf ears and your question will be raised again, but that's the way it goes on the internet.

Not having Corsi in your username might help your cause.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

did a 'professional' journalist just use valley girl speak in their writing?

Amazingly though it's actually right.

Flames 5v5 TOI: 3112:21
Brodie 5v5 TOI: 1232:27

Wow.

[Quincy Egg]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Because every single win the Flames achieve produces a new round of crying and whining from the "Corsi is god" crowd? I like analytics. I like the value Corsi and the like offers, but some of you advanced stat geeks are hilarious in how you take exceptions so personally. And some of you have no sense of proportion.

You guys were truly offended by the Avalanche last year, and you are truly upset about the Flames this year. Instead of just pointing out that exceptions exist and that the general goal should be to be improving in terms of possession, all we hear is whining and crying about how lucky the Flames are. All you do with that is drive people away from your arguments. Or, in Lambert's case, drive the foolish masses to Yahoo's website.

I've said this before, but "luck" (in this context) to an analytics guy is the same thing as "god" to mankind. It is nothing more than an invention used to offer an easy explanation to what you don't yet understand.

Except we ended up being right about the Avalanche, and most of us realize what the definition of an adequate sample size is.

[Inglewood Jack]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

You absolutely can. It's just hard. In the Penguins' case, it requires having the two best hockey players on Earth, and to the extent they haven't been successful since, a lot of it has to do with how weak the rest of the roster is. Can't play those guys 60 minutes.

In other teams' cases, e.g. MTL this year, it requires world-class goaltending, or a massive difference between PK GA and PP GF (usually this also has something to do with goaltending).

In an ideal world, you want to give your team every chance to win. Hence, since it's really pretty hard to get the best players in the world (if "just draft Crosby" was a strategy the Oilers would have done it already), and it can be hard to get goaltending good enough for long enough to have the guy carry your team on his back. So, it's simply good management to try to get your roster and coaching staff pulling in the direction of puck possession, so you don't need those things to at least be competitive consistently.

I know this is going to fall on deaf ears and your question will be raised again, but that's the way it goes on the internet.

if Lambert explained things exactly like this, some people here would still disagree but there wouldn't be the torches and pitchforks reaction. where that comes from is he always splatters his articles with the Horribad/Awful Team/Joke of an Organization comments. that's the clickbait junk, and Flames fans are expected to wade through all of that to get his base message? no thanks. there's a sensible way of explaining an unpopular opinion, and then there's Lamberting. stop labeling everyone here as defensive just because we don't take too kindly to juvenile insults all season long.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Quincy Egg

Calgary has one of the highest OSh%'s in the league. They are simply getting scoring at opportune times despite getting trounced in corsi-events. Colorado and the Leafs did it with good goaltending, the Flames are doing it with an aberrative shooting %.

Really, that shooting percentage doesn't take into account key scoring positions on the ice, something that the Flames are very good at getting into, they don't do a lot of shooting from outside positions because again, most of their chamces come off of the rush or into the slot.

Personally again, this is you looking at one stat, putting it into the most convenient model and harping unsustainable.

Again, I see a value in stats but I have a problem with them because they make the assumption that every team plays the same way and every player by position has to play the same way to be successful.

Stat tracking works well in baseball because baseball is a very linear game, you could argue it works well in football, because football is a pretty linear game.

Hockey has a massive degree of randomness and differences from team to team and player to player that makes it impossible to use stats as your primary indicator that a team is successful or not or over achieving.

Look at the failure in Edmonton where they had a coach and GM that I believe were overly obsessed with using stats to evaluate their team and their players and set their future course.

I believe that Russell had a pretty poor advanced Stat line in last nights game, but frankly I would take that kind of performance with that poor stat line every single time, over someone that has good possession numbers for example but achieves nothing on the night because he's floating around the perimeter on the forecheck.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

"Dim view" doesn't quite cover it. It's more the reaction you might get if you walked into public in Islamabad and started drawing caricatures of the prophet... minus the actual violence. It's amazing because I don't know that there's any other Canadian fan base that has so vitriolic a reaction to Hockey-Blasphemy as we do here.

Now you are just trolling yourself. If you are as smart as you think you are, you can make your case without such polemics.

Why lock it? If you disagree with something, or if something is downright stupid that's been said, it should be easy enough to point that out. The three pages of responses indicate at least that people are interested in this, if only to shout it down as heresy.

Because threads that exist only to "shout down heresy" are worthless? We have had several threads debating advanced statistics and the Flames position wthin that didn't rely on drawing attention to a troll whose only goal is to profit by it. And I have usually fallen on the side of the fancystats in those cases. By all means, resurrect one of those threads if you wish to re-hash the debate.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by HotHotHeat

Not having Corsi in your username might help your cause.

This is called a "fallacy". Incidentally my username is a mocking reference to Steve Simmons, who had much the same attitude as the majority here about the Leafs when things were going relatively well for that team.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Quincy Egg

Except we ended up being right about the Avalanche, and most of us realize what the definition of an adequate sample size is.

You were right about the avalanche without understanding the avalanche and why they succeeded and why they then failed. Your basically using stats in a vacuum on a linear track.

[Gaskal]

I read Lambert's writing in Hans Moleman's voice.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack

if Lambert explained things exactly like this, some people here would still disagree but there wouldn't be the torches and pitchforks reaction. where that comes from is he always splatters his articles with the Horribad/Awful Team/Joke of an Organization comments. that's the clickbait junk, and Flames fans are expected to wade through all of that to get his base message? no thanks. there's a sensible way of explaining an unpopular opinion, and then there's Lamberting. stop labeling everyone here as defensive just because we don't take too kindly to juvenile insults all season long.

I do think that the level of vitriol is definitely tied to the rhetoric, but I don't really agree that if these things are explained in a softer way that it produces any actual acceptance from the fanbase. Mostly just mockery and the same objections that have been made against the methodology since about 2007. Which is what leads some people to be glib and sarcastic and treat people like troglodytes when they do it - it's out of frustration. It's annoying to be mockingly chided with the same nonsense ad nauseum for years and human beings have human reactions. I'm as guilty as anyone.

That's not what Lambert's doing of course; he just wants the clicks.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Now you are just trolling yourself. If you are as smart as you think you are, you can make your case without such polemics.

I'm serious, it truly is different here. Hockey is religion everywhere in Canada but I really don't see the level of zealotry in other fanbases. To some extent Montreal, but their rabid fandom has more of a smugness to it and less, for lack of a better word, stridency.

Because threads that exist only to "shout down heresy" are worthless? We have had several threads debating advanced statistics and the Flames position wthin that didn't rely on drawing attention to a troll whose only goal is to profit by it. And I have usually fallen on the side of the fancystats in those cases. By all means, resurrect one of those threads if you wish to re-hash the debate.

Yeah, I see your point.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Quincy Egg

Except we ended up being right about the Avalanche, and most of us realize what the definition of an adequate sample size is.

No, troll, you were not right about the Avalanche. You guys spent the entire season last year predicting Colorado would fall out of the race. Instead, the Avs won their division. The fact that you moved the goalposts and used the first round exit to try and create a post facto rationalization of the failure of your position only made you look like fools.

The fact that you weren't calling the Habs lucky and the fact that you weren't predicting their demise despite having very similar advanced stats to the Avs further undermines your position.

The problem with the advanced stat crowd - and in particular the trolls who use them to cause arguments - is that first and foremost, you judge based on what you expect to happen. Then you fit the stats in where they support your position and ignore when they don't. That is why this argument is never "We all knew Toronto, Montreal and Colorado would eventually fall off". Because Montreal completely effs up the narrative you want to create.

The proper argument is to point out that playoff teams generally have good possession numbers, but exceptions do exist. After all, five of the 16 teams currently in playoff spot are outside the top 16 in Corsi. Over the last five full seasons, about two playoff teams each year have qualified despite being near the bottom of the league in Corsi. So you know major exceptions exist. So arguing that in the long run, the Flames are more likely to find success by improving their possession numbers than they are hoping for a high shooting percentage is a good thing. (Sean Monahan is a prime individual example of this.) Simply whining that the Flames are lucky reveals you for what you are.

[IamNotKenKing]

Originally Posted by polak

Do you think it's impossible to be successful long term without high possesion numbers?

If so you should tell that to the the Penguins who won the cup and made the finals with under 50% Corsi. Why is it so hard to believe that a team that has weak cycling can build a system to be successful in other ways?

And possession numbers simply mean shots towards goal - so the opposite of possession...

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I'm serious, it truly is different here. Hockey is religion everywhere in Canada but I really don't see the level of zealotry in other fanbases. To some extent Montreal, but their rabid fandom has more of a smugness to it and less, for lack of a better word, stridency.

Yes you do. Toronto was precisely the same last year.

And you fully understand the cause of it too. Just as fancystat guys are offended by the existence of exceptions (and they are far more common than you're willing to admit), the fans of those exception teams are offended by the argument that they are an exception. In the long run, both sides are going to be wrong (unless you have a gold medal winning goaltender on your roster).

[Azhouse]

I don't know if it's just me but when the "advanced stats" geeks start spewing random facts (percentages, pie charts, graphical representations etc.) as to why the Flames need to suck I kind of glaze over and lose interest in a hurry.

[DazzlinDino]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

This thread is hilariously defensive. He says nothing demonstrably wrong, per se, just does so in an extreme way (the Flames' shortcomings are HORRIBAD AWFUL and Gio / Brodie are THE BEST EVER, which is done for effect and to attract attention, successfully), and in response, everyone basically wants to burn the witch... not for any real reason, but because he doesn't think the local team is good.

What did you expect on a Flames forum, we love our team.

[Imported_Aussie]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Stat tracking works well in baseball because baseball is a very linear game, you could argue it works well in football, because football is a pretty linear game.

Hockey has a massive degree of randomness and differences from team to team and player to player that makes it impossible to use stats as your primary indicator that a team is successful or not or over achieving.

Hockey stats could be more likened to stats used in fast, flowing sports. In those sports, you do not see this advanced stats phenomenon in the media/fanbases. Maybe behind the scences in each team's analytics. But not to this extent.
In Soccer, you count possession, shots (on/off target) as basic, then time in zones of the field, ball touches/heatmaps, etc. as more complex.
In Australian Rules football, kicks, tackles, goals, etc. are tracked, and a stat tracked closely and valued is "disposals" as in a movement of the ball that does not result in a turnover.
Yet to see a tonne of advanced stats, as this is a very north american approach to covering a sport, to be so stats intensive. Comes from the major sports being linear as Captain Crunch states.

[polak]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

You absolutely can. It's just hard. In the Penguins' case, it requires having the two best hockey players on Earth, and to the extent they haven't been successful since, a lot of it has to do with how weak the rest of the roster is. Can't play those guys 60 minutes.

In other teams' cases, e.g. MTL this year, it requires world-class goaltending, or a massive difference between PK GA and PP GF (usually this also has something to do with goaltending).

In an ideal world, you want to give your team every chance to win. Hence, since it's really pretty hard to get the best players in the world (if "just draft Crosby" was a strategy the Oilers would have done it already), and it can be hard to get goaltending good enough for long enough to have the guy carry your team on his back. So, it's simply good management to try to get your roster and coaching staff pulling in the direction of puck possession, so you don't need those things to at least be competitive consistently.

I know this is going to fall on deaf ears and your question will be raised again, but that's the way it goes on the internet.

Not falling deaf ears at all. I'm glad that someone who preaches these stats can admit that they're not gospel.

I definitely 100% agree that it is much easier to be successful with a system built around the cycle and posession, but teams have to deal with the cards they're dealt and we've obviously built a system that has been able to be somewhat successful without relying on posession or unworldly goaltending. There is also something to be said about intangibles which is all a matter of opinion, but I believe the Flames have the intangibles needed to be successful when lacking talent. On top of that, you take into consideration our PK and 4 on 4 play and you can start to see why a lot of fans disagree that we're the next Toronto or Colorado.

The anger you see towards that article is not directed to the legitimacy of advanced stats, per se. It's towards the constant pounding of that drum by people who refuse to awknowledge context and the role that other variables play when constructing a successful hockey team.

Add the fact that Lambart has put out the basically same article multiple times this year, all of which can be summed up as:

"LOOK HOW BAD THIS TEAM IS"

and you can see why were fed up with his bull ####.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

The problem with the advanced stat crowd - and in particular the trolls who use them to cause arguments - is that first and foremost, you judge based on what you expect to happen. Then you fit the stats in where they support your position and ignore when they don't. That is why this argument is never "We all knew Toronto, Montreal and Colorado would eventually fall off". Because Montreal completely effs up the narrative you want to create.

I actually strongly disagree with this. I think everyone was nearly as surprised that the Habs did what they did (Boston should have beaten them, they outplayed them over the course of the series). The reason Montreal's success was less expected than Colorado's was,

1. They had a goalie who had a track record of being as good as he was (and still is). Varlamov had no such track record. Turns out stats guys were wrong about Varlamov.
2. Montreal's possession numbers were below average (still are), but they weren't ATROCIOUS like the Avalanche. EDIT: after checking, some actually were atrocious. Fenwick close numbers had a 2 point gap, but 5v5 CF% was basically equal.

In the end, I disagree that it's a matter of post facto rationalization. It should be about post facto explanation of why your predictions didn't pan out where they didn't pan out. In the Avs' case, it was their ability last season to sustain unreal goaltending that was totally out of the realm of what you could have reasonably expected from their tandem before the season, and their shooting percentage not falling off. In other words, the exact same formula that led to the Leafs making the playoffs 12/13.

In Montreal's case, as stated, they simply weren't as bad. But they also got a bit of luck vs Tampa that Bishop was out, and in the Boston series, the inherent issues with small sample sizes in a single series allowed them to beat odds that were in Boston's favour. But you have to realize that in no case are those odds insurmountable. If the Flames finish in 3rd in the pacific and play the Kings, it doesn't mean the Flames can't beat the Kings. It just means you'd be ill-advised to bet on it.

This was put really well by Cam Charron (borrowing from Garrett Hohl) when he was writing for Leafs Nation before he was, erm, hired by the Leafs. He said about the value of analytics,

Those readings led me to accept probability, not destiny, if I have permission to steal a line frequently used by my friend and occasional bartender Garrett Hohl. If you were given the option to pay 45 cents to predict the outcome of a coin flip, and should you be correct in your prediction you win a dollar, you may lose 45 cents on the first try and you may even lose 90 cents after the second try—but if you could take the same bet an infinite number of flips, you could write a script to program millions of flips per second and retire early. There's value there. If you pay 45 cents for an expected return of 50 cents ($1.00 divided by two possible outcomes) you can expect a large return in the long run even if you'll face a loss 50% of the time.

Analytics-based predictions, even when flawlessly reasoned (which is hard and depends on data quality), are not prophecies. They only predict the more likely outcome. Variances will occur - some major like the Avalanche; some less major like the Habs, and to some extent these variances will have good explanations underlying them (goaltending quality or good special teams results). Other times they may be random. Usually some combination.

If people could look at it that way and hopefully are able to be rational and not emotional, they'd be better equipped to participate in these discussions without knee-jerk extreme reactions.