Shot quality, expected goals and the Royal Road

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Knalus

Tell me if I'm crazy, but I saw a lot of setting up on our end before rushing down the ice, trying to get the cross-ice pass happening, only to have the opposing defense also set up, and in position to break that pass up, prevent that pass from happening, and forcing certain players (Bennett) into a low percentage shot.

Hartley's team, however, was set up to use stretch passes and an active D, to account for our teams relative lack of team speed, to get past a defense already set up to break up the cross-ice pass. He got around how relatively slow we were, by giving up possession more often, and paid for that lack of possession by setting up our own D early in a tight box to allow the breaking up of cross-ice passes and shot blocking.

But because the current flames do not use the stretch pass the same way, committing to a team defense system, they just aren't fast enough to get the cross-ice pass, without the opposing defense getting in place - the top line has the ability to both get there faster, and to pass through the D to score (as long as they have the use of all their hands, that is).

I saw it largely the same way. About the setting up in the zone, I’ll use the example that drove me nuts. Smith has the puck behind the net, Gio goes and stands still in the left corner, Hamilton in the right. Opponent sends one forechecker in and waits. Whichever D Smith passes to moves the puck up ice and they are pretty much starting out 5 on 5 at best, 4 on 5 sometimes

Their stretch passes were often from that same configuration where the D were deep and they threw it up to a winger who could be as outnumbered as 1 on 3. That was a pet peeve of mine with Smith initiated passes.

I think people talk a little bit too much about Hartley’s dependence on the stretch pass, it was more about creating early outnumbered situations, for example quick puck movement up to the forwards while the opposing wingers were deep, and the D busting his ass to create a 4 on 3 (knowing that he has to hustle back when it turns around)

[Knalus]

Yeah, stretch pass is merely a good short way of describing that unbalanced way of attacking you described. I'm glad someone else noticed it too.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

It would be shocking if teams already do not have deep event tracking and the resulting analytics that Mr. Mustache is lusting after.

If the Flames are not doing this today they might consider offering Mr. Mustache a couple of hundred thousand budget to follow up on.

Of course there are teams (most, I would guess) that are tracking this among a myriad of other stats that we as fans are not privy too. They guard what they are doing.

This is about us fans looking at advanced metrics and figuring out the good from the bad, what does and doesn't add up, and how we can use available (if it is existing) data to explain how teams function, their strengths and weaknesses and even try and predict future success.

The data that we as fans are currently privy to is, IMO, an incomplete data set fraught with a lot of noise. This idea that Deluxe has not only pushed forward, but also has shown evidence of past critical analysis on, is a big step forward in tying the existing stats together and shedding more light on this rather interesting topic.

I should definitely hope that these franchises - some of which are worth a 1 billion dollars - manages to hire a few statisticians and try and develop their own metrics in-house. I would bet that this very same stat is something that they have discovered (or read about from the same guy who published it in the OP), and are probably tracking.

Heck, the Wild are all about cross-crease passes (I remember Hrudey saying he hates a PP like this - doesn't agree with it for some reason, but it looked really dangerous). I am sure they are not the only team. They probably already actively track a bunch of other stats that we haven't even thought about.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

Of course there are teams (most, I would guess) that are tracking this among a myriad of other stats that we as fans are not privy too. They guard what they are doing.

This is about us fans looking at advanced metrics and figuring out the good from the bad, what does and doesn't add up, and how we can use available (if it is existing) data to explain how teams function, their strengths and weaknesses and even try and predict future success.

The data that we as fans are currently privy to is, IMO, an incomplete data set fraught with a lot of noise. This idea that Deluxe has not only pushed forward, but also has shown evidence of past critical analysis on, is a big step forward in tying the existing stats together and shedding more light on this rather interesting topic.

I should definitely hope that these franchises - some of which are worth a 1 billion dollars - manages to hire a few statisticians and try and develop their own metrics in-house. I would bet that this very same stat is something that they have discovered (or read about from the same guy who published it in the OP), and are probably tracking.

Heck, the Wild are all about cross-crease passes (I remember Hrudey saying he hates a PP like this - doesn't agree with it for some reason, but it looked really dangerous). I am sure they are not the only team. They probably already actively track a bunch of other stats that we haven't even thought about.

I am worried that the consistent insistence on the style of play that the Flames played was driven in their belief in the CORSI measurement of possession that would eventually lead to winning.

With all the leaks on trades and contracts I don't know how well a NHL organization would hide a secret stats package department.

There would be players switching teams that would carry knowledge forward that they were supposed to make a pass rather than shoot and it was based on their coaching teams probability analysis.

There are a lot of ex-hockey players assigned the deep think spots in management who would have a hard time rejecting what they learned 10-20 years ago as players and made them unthinkably wealthy.

[Drunk Uncle]

Late to the party here but great post Deluxe! Echoing many others here, this is a much much better way to look at shot quality over just high danger shot metrics. Since I managed to sit down and watch some Carolina games, a bunch of condensed games and read the six questions with Bill Peters article: https://www.matchsticksandgasoline.c...ntry-questions

Here is what I think your analysis means for the Flames this year under Peters:

Defense:
1) I mentioned this before Bill Peters got hired in another thread but I thought the Flames defended fast (sometimes overly aggressive) and did not give up many chances against. However, I thought the chances we did give up were real high quality chances against (some royal road, but mostly clean shots from far too close with far to much time). I expect the same to continue based on the 6 questions article referenced. Given this look for goalie save percentages to be lower than career average... it won't have anything to do with the goalies though.

Transition:
1) Breakout: it looks like Peters likes to push the puck up the boards and exit the zone. I definitely did not see the D to strong side winger to weak side D breakout we saw under Gulutzan. I expect this to lead to a few more odd man rushes where we will have a better chance to take advantage of getting opposing goalies moving laterally.

Offense:
1) PP: One thing that drove me nuts last year was the lack of at least one inside shot on the 1/2 boards on the PP. This limited one-time royal road chances and led to less rebound chances IMO because the goalie has time to set and better control the rebounds. Peters teams have at least one inside shot on the PP. While you may still see Brouwer on the PP given Derek Ryan's time there, I do expect the PP will improve.

2) Tips, Screens, Rebounds: I said this before too, if you are going to be a team that is looking to generate a lot of low quality shots which I think GG's and BP's systems do, you better get to the net for screens, tips and rebounds. To me this was the biggest thing lacking offensively from last year within the system we were trying to play. Based on the 6 questions article it doesn't seem that there will be much improvement in this area.

If you are asking your players to take lower quality shots expect them to have lower shooting percentages. I expect the lower shooting percentage trend to continue next year despite people saying they think it will regress to the mean. One thing I should mention is that Peters will have our D collapse towards the opposition net when they collapse. This definitely led to some goals from Carolina's D last year and will help add offense from ours.

Overall:
With all that said, I think systematically the Flames are going to play very very similar to last year with only subtle differences. I think if they can find a way to limit the 10 bell chances against while making a more concerted effort to create tips, screens, rebounds and odd man rushes (all possible in Peters system), I do think the Flames can improve enough to make the playoffs and maybe make some noise even if they make no roster moves. Based on our expectations of an improved roster offensively, I would be surprised if we weren't set up to make a decent run.