Fifty Shades Trilogy / NASCAR Mobile - NASCAR Digital Media
Last summer, agent Allan Walsh was meeting with a general manager and assistant GM, discussing the value of his client.
They talked about the player's traditional statistics and his role on the team when Walsh mentioned they had been forgetting an important part of the equation.
"It is a state secret how much teams are using (advanced statistics)," Walsh told USA TODAY Sports. "If you ever want to see a GM or team executive clam up fast, ask them how they are using analytics internally. It is the most taboo of taboo subjects."
Walsh's client was tops on the team in puck-possession metrics. He said the team officials locked eyes.
"And it was kind of like, '(expletive), he knows,'" said Walsh. "It really brought discussion to a different level."
Advanced statistics have been used in the NHL for years, but last summer it entered the mainstream when the Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers and other teams made prominent hires. The Leafs hired former Ontario Hockey League general manager Kyle Dubas as assistant GM, while the Oilers brought in stats blogger Tyler Dellow as a consultant.
As a sign of growing acceptance, NHL.com plans to expand its stats database on Friday to include more than 45 new statistical offerings.
John Collins, the NHL's chief operating officer, said the stats will be there "to help better tell the story" for fans.
"Stats are something the league should be doing," he said. "We are the authority on what happens on the ice. We should give fans the league pass to do what they want to do. ... We want to let them go as far down the rabbit hole as they want to go."
The league had an internal debate about how to present what Collins called the "secret sauce" of how coaches and team personnel evaluate player performances. Though the site will acknowledge popular terms such as Corsi and Fenwick, it will call them in the column headers by their definitions. Corsi is shot attempts and Fenwick is unblocked shot attempts with figures counted at five-on-five play.
"As a league, we are not putting a judgment on the value of the stats," said Chris Foster, the NHL's director of digital business development. "What we want to do is put the stats out there and make sure that the calculations and data is correct and give the fans, the writer, the broadcasters great tools. Then it's up to GMs, and fans and writers to decide the value of the stats."
Therein lies the great debate.
Not everyone analyzes the game the same way. Some couple what they see on the ice with traditional measurements. Others are more reliant on the numbers.
The Dallas Stars have "dabbled," said GM Jim Nill. They look at the numbers regularly but are cautious about taking them at face value because of the lack of consistent information.
"Stats are kept by people in every rink around the league," Nill said. "What you might think is a hit, I might not think is a hit. That changes the consistency of it."
He and his staff realize the game goes beyond the numbers.
"A little bit of it is the game, the way it's played doesn't always add up to stats," Nill said. "There's things that happen in the game that just happen because you're dealing with a puck and ice."
Sportsnet analyst Nick Kypreos, a former player, acknowledges the usefulness of advanced stats but still trusts his gut instinct.
One interesting case study is Nashville Predators captain Shea Weber, among the top defensemen in hockey. The traditional numbers (14 goals, 28 assists) are glowing, but analytics suggest he has not carried the play and his defensive game has slipped in recent seasons. Thus, he might not be the Norris Trophy-caliber player many have made him out to be.
"Who could sit there and find faults with Shea Weber's game?" Kypreos said. "It's ridiculous. There's a lot of guys that can fall into that category — where you sit there and say his Corsi numbers don't favor him. High IQ means knowing when to give up the puck and when to hold on to it. There's no measure of Corsi for high IQ, and there never will be."
Corsi is a proxy for puck possession, an important principle for winning teams. It's simple: The more you have the puck, the better chance you have of winning. The Red Wings have long preached this philosophy.
"There are some parts that I think are real valuable," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "I think if you want to base signing players on shots, I think you're nuts. And I think it doesn't tell the story. It's like anything with stats — stats can tell any story you want. You've got to be smart enough to garnish the information from it."
Fans have become more interested in analyzing their favorite teams and players with these lesser-known statistics. A number of websites have long published various metrics.
Andrew Thomas, the co-founder of war-on-ice.com, realizes increased acceptance will take time. People have to rid themselves of the notion that you need an advanced degree to understand them.
"Maybe it's not as direct as goals on a scoreboard, but it is telling you about what is happening in the game," he said.
Foster refers to advanced stats as regular statistics "with simple seventh-grade algebra on top of them."
Thomas likened this era to the baseball stats community's bid to get on-base percentage recognized as a better measure of a player's performance than batting average.
"Every time that I watch and see something that really sticks out — like a bad giveaway or like the obvious ones — goalie being out of position, giveaways, takeaways, any of those, I try to put it back into context," Thomas said. "That's what a lot of that does. Am I really trusting what I'm seeing? I do try to process what I see, and back it up with other information that I've got out there."
NASCAR RACEVIEW MOBILE / Abbey Road - The Beatles
Entertainment Plaza - TV, Movies, Sports, Music, Soaps
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99
Babe Of The Month - Vote Now!
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99/babeofthemonth.html
Hunk Of The Month - Vote Now!
http://members.shaw.ca/almosthuman99/babeofthemonthman.html
0 comments:
Post a Comment