How Screwed are the Flames?

[jar_e]

Ugh I'm sick of this whole 'the flames are lucky' thought process.

Over 75% of the season is over. We're third in the pacific division. It's not just luck. Obviously things are working. I think Corsi, Fenwick, etc. are great supplemental stats but some media/posters treat it as an all knowing crystal ball which it sure is not.

[Mightyfire89]

The Flames keep staying in the playoff race and Lambert keeps whinging. Epic troll is epic. What a maroon.

[Armchair Quarterback]

Originally Posted by polak

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.

Exactly. Advanced stats may be a good indicator of why most teams will be successful, but, as you mention, there will always be exceptions because of intangibles. Not everything that human beings do is entirely knowable or quantifiable. Team chemistry, perseverance when you're down two goals in the third, etc...

[ramizle]

Bryan Lambert is no good.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Resolute spits hot fire.

[Red John]

Bet one of the "advanced" stats nerds in this thread is actually Lambert himself. Someone else can do the sleuthing but just a guess.

Don't forget to post your findings in a random graph so everyone thinks you're super smart!

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

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...

See, here is the difference. You are looking at other situational stats, and you are looking at basic stats, and you are looking at expectations based on the eyeball test and using that to form a more complete picture to form an understanding.

But the crowd I am talking about - and the ones that make up the majority of people pushing this argument, are looking only at CF% - or if they are marginally more interested in the stats, PDO. So they look at the Flames and say "OMG, 3rd worst Corsi, you're just lucky!" They looked at last year's Avs and said "OMG, 6th worst Corsi, you're just lucky!", but the 5th worst Corsi Habs? Dead silence. Why? Because their narrative said Montreal was a good team and Colorado was a bad team. Good team was good, so why look deeper? Bad team is good, so WTF?

But you do fall into their trap a little in your post by focusing on playoff success. That, most certainly was a post-facto rationalization. Because the fancystat guys needed to be right about the Avs, they just shifted the argument and pointed to Colorado's failure in a seven game series as justifying their original position. Funny how the dogma of sample size was tossed out the window when it became inconvenient, eh?

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.

I agree entirely. I am, however, arguing that both sides are using emotion and knee-jerk reactions more than rational thought. As Darren Haynes mentioned last night, his timeline fills up with charts and graphs and Corsi numbers every time the Flames win. This happens because of the fancystats crowd's emotional need to be right.

[JiriHrdina]

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.

Hmmm no because year over year the Avs changed. So you have that huge variable that you can't account for. You can't conclude you were right about last years team based on this years stats because it isn't the same team!

[PeteMoss]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Hmmm no because year over year the Avs changed. So you have that huge variable that you can't account for. You can't conclude you were right about last years team based on this years stats because it isn't the same team!

The Avs team save percentage is down a huge .004 over last year. Its obviously that huge difference that has caused them to be worse.

No mention of the fact the Bruins had better goaltending than the Avs last year... and their drop has been much worse than the Avs.

[Resolute 14]

The ironic thing about the "we were right after all" argument is that they are right, just not how they think they mean. The Avs shot percentage at ES is only 1/10th of a percentage below last year, and their save percentage is about .050 lower. But they are getting about three fewer SATs for and a similar number more against per 60 minutes of play. The cumulative effect is hurting them even though their PDO is relatively close. 101.1 this year, 101.8 last.

[Gaskal]

From HF Red Wings GT:

Yep, one of these games. Everytime they enter our zone they score or come close to it. We spend minutes in their zone and everything is blocked or wide.

[the2bears]

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.

Such passive aggressive rhetoric.

[Red John]

Stats nerds will love the win tonight.

Red Wings dominated time of possession and shots but Flames win. Good times

[Resolute 14]

Totally screwed...

[Daradon]

Holy smokes. What is Ryan's problem?

Two words. Suck it.

Also, I'm not against advanced stats, but another example how people use them wrong. (See Dallas Eakins)

[Don Benji]

Not sure if it's ever been mentioned here but flamesnation is owned by a company based out of edmonton. Seriously. FLAMESnation is owned and operated by a company from EDMONTON.

...the more you know.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Don Benji

Not sure if it's ever been mentioned here but flamesnation is owned by a company based out of edmonton. Seriously. FLAMESnation is owned and operated by a company from EDMONTON.

...the more you know.

Tis true. But only because this site is so huge and awesome, no one in Calgary wanted to challenge it.

Seriously, as far as fan sites go, CP is a different animal, and it changed the game locally.

[troutman]

Rope-a-Dope Hockey > Corsi

[Flames Fan, Ph.D.]

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.

This is very muddled thinking.

The whole point of using these numbers is to construct models that reliably predict winning and losing trends. There is no "ended up being right" in a quantitative model. In the case of the Avalanche, the model clearly failed last year.

Real life is not there to fit the model, the model is there to fit the data.


Edit: Apologies to all who made the same point before me. I'm the world's slowest post crafter, bar none.

[CroFlames]

It's funny how the first half of the season, almost every single analyst kept pointing the the Oilers enhanced stat numbers as being much improved, so it's just a matter of time before they get out of the basement.

Second half? Crickets from the same pundits.