[News] USA Olympic Roster announced

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Bruce Garrioch ‏@SunGarrioch

Bobby Ryan says apology from US hockey is "nice" but that's the extent. He hasn't spoken to Brian Burke and doesn't have interest either.

[Tinordi]

More strawmen:

"Advanced stats are only corsi and it is ridiculous to build a team based on corsi you build it based on skill."

Advanced stats by my understanding is to take a quantitative view of teams and players using the best available data as a way to gauge your interpretations of players. If you used advanced stats you would have likely found that trading for Kotalik would have been a very bad idea. Or that the 09-12 Flames were not a good team and were way more than a piece or two away from the playoffs.

Nobody is saying put together the team with the best corsi players. That's a stupid strawman effort to try to belittle the use of stats. What people are saying is that going by scouting of "skill" alone is not a good idea and that you should weigh statistical analyses of players with your qualitative assessments of them. Should the Leafs had done that with Clarkson for example they wouldn't have backed the truck up for him.

We're getting the point that unless you start doing your statistical due dilligence on players and teams as a GM you'll be eaten by the GMs who are doing it. That was my basis for starting this whole conversation.

[strombad]

Originally Posted by V

Do you think that's any different? Practically every scientific experiment I've ever seen is using current data to predict future results.



Are you 8?

9 actually, can't wait to turn the big ONE-OH!

The point is this: advanced stats (the way they're used in regards to the NHL) are essentially an unproven hypothesis. People trot them out like they are of clear value and credence, but they simply represent an unproven notion of "what-if". They give no answer.

If ok with someone saying "Hey, we should sign _____, he's this this and this, and his advanced stats look good." There is nothing wrong with using them in that way.

The problem lies when you do what the two bloggers did in the links that 19Yeezie19 provided, and say "Contrary to any visual data or otherwise, this player is actually good/bad at this, because: advanced stats." They simply do not work that way. People who use advanced stats want to use them that way, but it's completely ignorant of their purpose or value.

You don't have to look any further than the lists provided, as has been pointed out, where borderline AHLer's have better "advanced stats" than some of the best all around players in the game. If you're going to say "Jack Johnson is bad because: advanced stats" then you need to be prepared to be totally ok with saying that Jordan Eberle is better than Steven Stamkos, Henrik Zetterberg, or Jonathan Toews. Now, those numbers were taken from the end of last season, but really, has he ever been better than any of those three? Ever? In fact, according to those numbers, the Oilers #1 line was the best #1 in the ENTIRE NHL. People can praise Corsi all you want, but when you say a player is bad because of it, you also should look at which players are GOOD because of it, and how good it says they are for that matter.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

More strawmen:

"Advanced stats are only corsi and it is ridiculous to build a team based on corsi you build it based on skill."

Advanced stats by my understanding is to take a quantitative view of teams and players using the best available data as a way to gauge your interpretations of players. If you used advanced stats you would have likely found that trading for Kotalik would have been a very bad idea. Or that the 09-12 Flames were not a good team and were way more than a piece or two away from the playoffs.

In fairness to your point and the larger discussion, those two points could also be and were determined without advanced statistics. They were useful in bellying the argument, but not in reaching the conclusion.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by MissTeeks

Hope_Smoke‏@Hope_Smoke2m
Kypreos "was it necessary to the story to print Ryan can't spell"

Seriously? People aren't really that stupid are they? I haven't exactly followed Brian Burke's career prior to his joining the Flames, but I've heard him use the "________ can't even spell __________" line many times and never once thought he was literally saying that the person was too stupid to spell a simple word.

Originally Posted by kyuss275

I feel sorry for Burke. If anything it sounds like he wanted Ryan on the team as a top 6 forward, but not as a bottom 6 forward. If anybody has watched the "Bobby Ryan story" at the end Burke is pretty proud of Ryan and even say's something along the effect of "having bragging rights" going forward. Sounds like a beat writer trying to make a name for himself publishing things he said he would not.

That's the thing that baffles me about the reaction to what Burke said. Burke was the one defending Ryan and arguing for his inclusion on the roster.

[MissTeeks]

Originally Posted by getbak

Seriously? People aren't really that stupid are they? I haven't exactly followed Brian Burke's career prior to his joining the Flames, but I've heard him use the "________ can't even spell __________" line many times and never once thought he was literally saying that the person was too stupid to spell a simple word.


That's the thing that baffles me about the reaction to what Burke said. Burke was the one defending Ryan and arguing for his inclusion on the roster.

Exactly!

Bruce Arthur‏@bruce_arthur27m
And the number of people taking Burke's comment about spelling literally tells me people have never heard Brian Burke talk.

Patrick Burke‏@BurkieYCP18m
@bruce_arthur I've gotten so many tweets asking me why my dad thinks bobby is illiterate and I can't stop laughing.

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by strombad

In fact, according to those numbers, the Oilers #1 line was the best #1 in the ENTIRE NHL.

Where on Earth are you getting this from? What numbers? In terms of Corsi, the Kopitar line tends to be the best in the league, with Toews's somewhere in the conversation.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by getbak

Seriously? People aren't really that stupid are they? I haven't exactly followed Brian Burke's career prior to his joining the Flames, but I've heard him use the "________ can't even spell __________" line many times and never once thought he was literally saying that the person was too stupid to spell a simple word.


That's the thing that baffles me about the reaction to what Burke said. Burke was the one defending Ryan and arguing for his inclusion on the roster.

Burnside article was long, people have low attention spans and poor reading comprehension.

Long Article + Nuance = confusion.

[MissTeeks]

Ok, this made me laugh:

Ryan Classic‏@ryanclassic8m
Poor Bobby Ryan. pic.twitter.com/tpGXcgISj1

[Resolute 14]

Speaking of strawmen Tinordi, where did I say "advanced stats are only corsi"? I gave Corsi and Fenwick as examples, which should have been obvious by my saying "for example".

So please, don't be the pot calling the kettle black.

Also, funny you should mention that fancystats would tell us that trading for Kotalik was a bad idea. We knew that from day one, without the stats. Likewise, one did not need fancystats to realize Toronto was likely to regret that deal.

Don't get me wrong, I like several of the fancystats. It's nice to be able to add quantifiable data to arguments. But my view remains that spreadsheets have not yet surpassed direct observation. One does not need a spreadsheet to tell us that Mark Giordano is our best defenceman. The spreadsheet helps, but it still isn't telling us anything we didn't already know through simply by watching.

[getbak]

Ha ha, Hartley weighs in...

Wes Gilbertson ‏@SUNGilbertson

#Flames coach Hartley on Burke's honest approach: "You know there's no hidden cards in his sleeve. He wouldn't be a very good magician."

[Tinordi]

I don't know anyone who's saying that we should use stats over observation. I haven't read a single basement blogger who's saying to fire your scouting department and buy my spreadsheet.

What I am seeing though are people saying that you need to start looking in this to help make decisions and alot of pushback from people saying that those tools are useless. Especially in some mainstream hockey circles.

So I think you're making my point, we knew that the Kotalik trade didn't pass the smell test? So why did it happen? Would using more advanced metrics have helped kibosh that deal? Maybe not. But you're going to find that GMs who are using these tools will be signing better value contracts for production and making better trades against GMs who don't use them.

Philadelphia and Toronto are good cautionary tales of ignoring these stats. They've made decisions that the stats wouldn't have supported and they look like bad decisions. In the zero-sum world that is the NHL that's all the difference.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

I was waiting for you to chime in with exactly that point. Correlation is not causation.

Here's a timely article discussing just that. That yes, advanced stats are a very good predictor of future results and not simply describing what has recently happened.

http://www.sbnation.com/nhl/2013/10/...nalytics-teams

edit: wrong page

What part of that shows teams are a good predictor of future results?

If anything the part about Nashville and Minnesota show the concern of trying to use small sample sizes to prove that things works. Minnesota has spent the last month dropping in the standings and Nashville's been brutal.

I'd also guarantee this is already happening:

I don't think it'll be long before teams shift to trying to get ahead of the blogosphere and develop unique proprietary methods of understanding and quantifying the game.

[Oling_Roachinen]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

So I think you're making my point, we knew that the Kotalik trade didn't pass the smell test? So why did it happen?

Sutter probably got on Behindthenet.ca and saw that Kotalik had a higher Corsi than Iginla.
http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_stati...34+45+46+63+67

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen

Sutter probably got on Behindthenet.ca and saw that Kotalik had a higher Corsi than Iginla.
http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_stati...34+45+46+63+67

zing!

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Philadelphia and Toronto are good cautionary tales of ignoring these stats. They've made decisions that the stats wouldn't have supported and they look like bad decisions. In the zero-sum world that is the NHL that's all the difference.

Honest Question:

What proof is there that the Leafs didn't use Advanced stats and what Advanced stats would have shown that David Clarkson was a bad pickup?

From what I can see David Clarkson actually tends to perform well when looking at advanced stats and is even one of the stronger Leafs when looking at Advanced stats this season.

[Tinordi]

Funny you should mention that.

Iginla's bad possession metrics were the canary in the coalmine on the trade him crowd. Were we ruthlessly manageing the Flames with stats and scouting we'd likely have identified Iginla rapidly deteriorating complete game and sold high on him 3 years ago. That's the utility of the stats.

But yes, Kotalik had a higher corsi, but was still the 10th ranked forward ahead of only 3rd and 4th liners (and Iginla). So uhh, what was your point?

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

I don't know anyone who's saying that we should use stats over observation. I haven't read a single basement blogger who's saying to fire your scouting department and buy my spreadsheet.

What I am seeing though are people saying that you need to start looking in this to help make decisions and alot of pushback from people saying that those tools are useless. Especially in some mainstream hockey circles.

So I think you're making my point, we knew that the Kotalik trade didn't pass the smell test? So why did it happen? Would using more advanced metrics have helped kibosh that deal? Maybe not. But you're going to find that GMs who are using these tools will be signing better value contracts for production and making better trades against GMs who don't use them.

Philadelphia and Toronto are good cautionary tales of ignoring these stats. They've made decisions that the stats wouldn't have supported and they look like bad decisions. In the zero-sum world that is the NHL that's all the difference.

Calgary under Feaster was one of the first teams to have a 'stats guy' and they made ridiculous moves left and right.


When it boils down to it - the anti-stat arguement is this - use your stats and tell me something that is going to happen before it happens (and preferably something less obvious than Toronto is going to fall in the standings because they get outshot by 20 shots every game). Tell me the guy contenders should be targeting that is going to make a difference (and isn't super obvious).

People just want some kind of bold prediction to prove these matter. We already saw the Kings win the Stanley Cup so telling us after the fact that the stats saw this coming doesn't impress anyone.

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Funny you should mention that.

Iginla's bad possession metrics were the canary in the coalmine on the trade him crowd. Were we ruthlessly manageing the Flames with stats and scouting we'd likely have identified Iginla rapidly deteriorating complete game and sold high on him 3 years ago. That's the utility of the stats.

But yes, Kotalik had a higher corsi, but was still the 10th ranked forward ahead of only 3rd and 4th liners (and Iginla). So uhh, what was your point?

Amazingly that's what everyone is saying... that the Flames made a mistake and didn't trade him years earlier. And they didn't need advanced stats to tell them that fact.... they just looked at the calendar and saw 'oh frig the guy is getting old'.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Embarrassing thread for some. It appears some posters had no idea who Brian Burke was prior to joining the Flames.