Closing the Book on 2017-18

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Locke

I'm sorry....is there a statistic that counts for more?

I was under the impression that the points in the standings determine eligibility for the playoffs. Is that incorrect?

You can be sarcastic as you wish ... all good. Or are you really implying that I don't know a) what the standing are or b) what their level of importance is for NHL hockey?

But still waiting ... what stat is wrong?

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by The Fonz

These stats are inaccurate because they only consider half of the equation. It's not enough to just get shots from high danger areas... shots alone from those spots are not dangerous.

It is shots from those areas combined with your opponent being out of position, which if you play a slow game (Gulutzan), is very rarely.

You'd be crazy not to see how much quicker the Flames are playing this season, and so when they get shots off from these high danger areas (or any area for that matter), there is a much higher likelihood of it going in the net as the other team is often scrambling as a result of our speed.

There's a massive flaw in Gulutzan's coaching for corsi and shots from high danger areas, because he's not taking the other team's positioning and awareness into account.

But they take that into an account to a degree as well.

A low danger shot is outside the home plate area.
A medium danger shot is inside the home plate area but not with a pass or a deflection that makes it more likely to score.
A high danger shot attempt is deflected or passed into the home plate area.

So no tabulation method is 100% comprehensive but they do take into account level of danger in close.

[the2bears]

Originally Posted by Locke

I'm sorry....is there a statistic that counts for more?

I was under the impression that the points in the standings determine eligibility for the playoffs. Is that incorrect?

No, there's certainly not a stat that counts for more. But, that's obvious.

Look at last year's standings, go to the bottom, and tell me what that team has to do to fix things. Can you do that? No. Who knows what needs fixing based on what we both agree is the most important number.

There will be a wide variety of approaches, and combinations of approaches, for how to fix that team. Would be silly to ignore any of them as you analyze, adjust, and iterate again until you're satisfied.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Bingo

When you have 65 shot attempts with no break down of where they came you may have a team that is a perimeter squad that never generates anything.

But when you have a team that is off the charts in high and medium chances, but not as high in low, they're actually shooting from dangerous areas more often than most NHL teams.

Appreciate the additional insight. I guess my question then becomes why did a team that on paper took shots from good areas, have such a poor track record in terms of translating to the results that matter, ie goals and wins?

I don't think you can put much of that to luck...at least not over a span of a whole season. Luck doesn't account for a league 9th worst -30 DIFF. Lack of finishing skillset is probably a big one. This years team definitely seems to have quite an upgrade on that front. Predictability and a slow game (as Fonz brought up) is probably another big one. Teams knew exactly what they were going to get with the Flames. To me that's mostly a systems issue, and also something that I see being upgraded this year.

I guess in the end we had a combination of subpar hockey players led by subpar coaching, led to a subpar result.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Table 5

Appreciate the additional insight. I guess my question then becomes why did a team that on paper took shots from good areas, have such a poor track record in terms of translating to the results that matter, ie goals and wins?

I don't think you can put much of that to luck...at least not over a span of a whole season. Luck doesn't account for a league 9th worst -30 DIFF. Lack of finishing skillset is probably a big one. This years team definitely seems to have quite an upgrade on that front. Predictability and a slow game (as Fonz brought up) is probably another big one. Teams knew exactly what they were going to get with the Flames. To me that's mostly a systems issue, and also something that I see being upgraded this year.

I guess in the end we had a combination of subpar hockey players led by subpar coaching, led to a subpar result.

I think luck plays a role, it always does. But you can't be the Oilers and just suggest that it's luck and leave your roster intact after a terrible season.

Hartley's 14-15 Flames were a team that clearly had a lot of good luck. You don't get outplayed as often as they did and get into the playoffs, especially with all those come from behind points.

But yeah I keep coming back to that off the charts total of shots that missed the net. The Flames of 2017-18 miss the net more than any team has ever missed the net since they started counting in 2018, so 11 seasons x 30 teams is 1st out of 331 outcomes. That's nuts.

So are they pressing?
Thinking they can't beat goalies so they're aiming for the perfect shot too often?
Or were there systems that put them in the right spot with the wrong situation? (goalie gets too much time).

Likely a bit of all as you suggest.

[rubecube]

I mean, it's pretty clear the front office wasn’t willing to lean on the (mud)crutch of a bad luck team narrative, since they canned the bad luck coach and churned the hell out of that bad luck roster.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Locke

I'm sorry....is there a statistic that counts for more?

I was under the impression that the points in the standings determine eligibility for the playoffs. Is that incorrect?

Well, gee golly. All these people wasting their time trying to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of their teams, and how to improve them, and all they ever had to do was look at the standings! Want a better team? Win more games! It's that easy! Nope, there are obviously no underlying factors at all. Points in the standings are an effect without any cause. Locke hath spoken.

[icecube]

Flames had terrible luck last year because Gulutzan jinxed them with levels of suck and loserdom not seen since Dallas Eakins.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Ok man ... keep your head in the sand then. I'm fine with that.

Still trying to prove
Data is wrong
useless noise

Sounds like you are open to new ideas for sure!

Finding more statistics that support your confirmation bias is not being "open to new ideas". You're presenting a variation of a failed case as if it's a fresh, intriguing slant on last season, but it's not - what would be intriguing is if you found some numbers that showed the Flames were about as bad as they should have been. What would be fresh is if you said, "In retrospect, those calling for the coach to be fired mid-season weren't at all premature."

Just because an idea is new, or seemingly objective, doesn't make it correct. A theory with no explanatory power IS useless, and data that supports no theorizing is equally so. It is incumbent on the person proposing the theory to show its validity, and not the skeptic's place to let error ride unchallenged.

[monkeyman]

I think when you rely on luck as a variable to explain the result of an equation you have to wonder about the science.
Surely there must be an exponent in the Flames game that would explain prolonged, historic "bad luck".
If you can't accurately predict the outcome over the long-run and your only explanation is luck, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of using stats in the first place?

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Gospel joke vs questioning someone's integrity. I think you know the difference. Maybe you don't.

85% correlated. If you want to believe it's a coin toss go for it.

How's leaving this thread working out for you so far?

Where did you get this 85% correlation number from? That's clearly not true at all.

Last year only 9 of the top 16 teams in 5v5 shot attempt differential made the playoffs. Three of the top 4 and 4 of the top 6 missed. Two of the bottom 5 made it, and the Stanley Cup champs finished 24th.

[mikephoen]

Taking a look at this site Bingo likes, I checked out the HDCF% last year. I assume this is High Danger Corsi %. This stat did better than the 5v5 Corsi in my last post, as 10 of the top 16 teams made the playoffs. That's still not a great correlation, but it's slightly better. However, consider this. The WORST team in the leage at HDCF%? The Washington Capitals. Yeah, if the Stanley Cup champ is the worst in the league at this, then clearly it's value is highly suspect.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Where did you get this 85% correlation number from? That's clearly not true at all.

An 0.85 correlation between a possession metric and winning percentage does not mean that 85% of the best teams at that metric will make the playoffs. Your calculations have no bearing on the question.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

An 0.85 correlation between a possession metric and winning percentage does not mean that 85% of the best teams at that metric will make the playoffs. Your calculations have no bearing on the question.

Can you point me to where this .85 correlation is shown?

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Can you point me to where this .85 correlation is shown?

I'm not the one who claimed it. Ask Bingo. I'm just pointing out that you are not doing the math correctly.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

I'm not the one who claimed it. Ask Bingo. I'm just pointing out that you are not doing the math correctly.

Well, this is exactly what Bingo said: I even gave you the correlation number at 85%, you can ignore that if you wish but it's been steady year over year. Or another way to look at it is out of 16 playoff teams 13 will have numbers that match, and three won't.

Clearly this is not true, not even close.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Well, this is exactly what Bingo said: I even gave you the correlation number at 85%, you can ignore that if you wish but it's been steady year over year. Or another way to look at it is out of 16 playoff teams 13 will have numbers that match, and three won't.

Clearly this is not true, not even close.

But that is not how correlation works. A correlation of 0.85 between A and B does not mean that 0.85 of A is B.

[bigpete]

There must be a disconnect between what the statkeepers register as a high danger scoring chance and what a fan like myself considers a high danger scoring chance. Because last year I watched a lot of flames games and I sure dont remember many. Most nights I was bored to death.

[gargamel]

Originally Posted by Bingo

I think luck plays a role, it always does. But you can't be the Oilers and just suggest that it's luck and leave your roster intact after a terrible season.

Hartley's 14-15 Flames were a team that clearly had a lot of good luck. You don't get outplayed as often as they did and get into the playoffs, especially with all those come from behind points.

That's not how you saw it back in 2015.

Originally Posted by Bingo

...the Flames finished the 2013-14 season at a 20-17-1 rate.

Add that to this season and this year’s playoffs and you have a club putting up a 69-49-8 record for 146 points in 126 games, good for a .580 win percentage or a 95 point regular season pace.

That’s 90% of two full NHL seasons of regular season hockey.

They are sustaining this.

Luck doesn’t last two seasons. If you’re lucky it lasts 10 games, maybe a dozen. Not two seasons.

For you to be right now, you must have been wrong back then, but both the standings and the eye test say it's the other way around.

Originally Posted by Bingo

But yeah I keep coming back to that off the charts total of shots that missed the net. The Flames of 2017-18 miss the net more than any team has ever missed the net since they started counting in 2018, so 11 seasons x 30 teams is 1st out of 331 outcomes. That's nuts.

If you take so long setting up your shots that there are several bodies between you and the net, it's going to affect your aim. That's bad hockey, not bad luck.

[Resolute 14]

The 14-15 Flames are an interesting case. Personally, I would not agree that they were frequently outplayed. They just had a severe case of LOFT. What made that season work was the fact that Hartley managed to get the entire roster pulling in the same direction, such that they weren't often outplayed.

Now, the number of late comebacks *was* decidedly outside the norm, and that obviously was unlikely to be repeated. But, how much of that was luck? How much was determination? How much was the team's relentlessness wearing down better, more skilled opposition?