cccsberg Posted January 29, 2015 Author Report Share Posted January 29, 2015 The NHL will be putting advanced stats on the main NHL stats site effective February. That's great news, and it will be even better once they implement the new tracking systems demonstrated during the All-star game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kehatch Posted January 29, 2015 Report Share Posted January 29, 2015 That's great news, and it will be even better once they implement the new tracking systems demonstrated during the All-star game. Agreed. Removing the subjective measurements will be a major step forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KACaribou Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 A TSN analytics guy - Travis Yost - was on Edmonton radio today, Feb. 10/15, just giving the Flames a beat down. He's been looking at his stats and has come to the conclusion they are a bad team, but a lucky team. I was shocked by what I was hearing. I watch ever single Flames game and must say I have enjoyed this year more than any other in Flames history - except of course one year. I wrote back saying: You know what I look at? I watch the game on TV or in person. I know this is a novel idea, but Travis you should try putting your pencil down and actually watch a Flames game. The Flames work hard, they skate fast. They pressure other teams into making mistakes and into coughing up the puck. They play a structured game with very little running around. They keep teams to the outside so they are forced to take a lot of shots but from a long way out. They're small, but they are tough. They don't back down from the Kings even, that's why they've beaten them. I heard you today on radio saying the Flames are a bad team, simply a lucky team. If you have ever watched them with regularity, or know anything at all about hockey instead of stats you would certainly realize how idiotic those statements were. Flames' speed and hard work creates errors. Errors which cause goals. Goals which win hockey games. Wins that count more than any possession stats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invin Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 Analytics guys hate it when reality doesn't line up with their predictions. I don't think luck carries a team through 54 games, and I remember going through plenty of bad luck along the way too (own goal on a delayed penalty anyone? Odd thing to happen to a team winning on luck.) If it was a small sample size sure, but we're pretty far into the season now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wreckening Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 The article is here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kehatch Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 Analytics are fine. Peoples conclusions are sometimes suspect. That said, it's tough to deny that the Flames have had their share of luck this season. Forget about advanced statistics. How many times have we won in OT? How many times have we come back in the third? How many times have we scored with our new empty? The answers to those questions isn't all luck. Good fitness. Never say die attitude. Etc. But luck is a partial factor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheersMan Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 If luck is scoring more goals than the other guys 30 out of 54 times so far this year.........................then were lucky Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmac70 Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 Show me a quantified numerical equation or data that clarifies luck. They all believe in qualified and collected data, but are the 1st to offset their lack of finding in an area that is statically unexplainable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robrob1974 Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 The amount of games in a row I scored in the same unwashed underwear is a quantifiable stat? No? Maybe the flames never wash their socks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_People1 Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 It takes a great team to win the Cup but it doesn't take a great team to make the playoffs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyerfan52 Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 Analytics are fine. Peoples conclusions are sometimes suspect. That said, it's tough to deny that the Flames have had their share of luck this season. Forget about advanced statistics. How many times have we won in OT? How many times have we come back in the third? How many times have we scored with our new empty? The answers to those questions isn't all luck. Good fitness. Never say die attitude. Etc. But luck is a partial factor. Luck is always a factor. An odd bounce, a ref looking the wrong way (not purposely, just wrong on which way he thought the play was going), a stick breaking as the player has a clean shot. Like in the real world a certain randomness makes a huge difference (you spill coffee, wipe it up & leave for work 3 minutes later. Don't get t-boned @ the corner). Stats are telling you what has happened & can predict the odds of what might happen. The abnormalities used to justify that what happened actually occured are considered a blip. A blip = luck. To those that live only by stats/odds the world must be a confusing place. No luck, no co-incidence & no accidents. What are the odds you step in dog poo? It wasn't there the other Fridays you walked down that same sidewalk so statistically that won't be there. It still messes your shoe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khrox Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 Unfortunately, winning games in overtime or shootout is not a repeatable skill. Damn, nobody show this to Monahan. If he finds out it's not repeatable than he might stop scoring in OT and SO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyerfan52 Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 It takes a great team to win the Cup but it doesn't take a great team to make the playoffs. Even advanced stats will tell you that your chances of winning the Cup rise if you qualify. 0 teams have ever won the championship when finishing out of the playoffs. (@ 1 time the SC was a challenge cup but that was long ago. Since then the NHL assumed total control so no other league is allowed to do that.) Damn, nobody show this to Monahan. If he finds out it's not repeatable than he might stop scoring in OT and SO Good thing Toews didn't know that in 2007. 3 shootout goals in the game against the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carty Posted February 10, 2015 Report Share Posted February 10, 2015 A TSN analytics guy - Travis Yost - was on Edmonton radio today, Feb. 10/15, just giving the Flames a beat down. He's been looking at his stats and has come to the conclusion they are a bad team, but a lucky team. I have been looking ay some of what Travist Yost has had to say, and I have come to the conclusion that he is a bad hockey analytics writer and he is lucky to have a job... He makes a living by trying to remain controversial while blowing smoke in an attempt to create the illusion that he possibly might have something worth listening to ... He is a huckster and a buffoon... This twits twitter is @TravisHeHateMe so it seems the name says it all... I sent him an email at travisnyost@gmail.com pointing out a handful of instances where he has contradicted himself and thanked him for providing so much laughter... The world needs idiots like this to keep the rest of us amused with their incompetence... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invin Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 The Oilers have a better corsi than us, don't they? I think that says a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carty Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 The Oilers have a better corsi than us, don't they? I think that says a lot. Travis Yost says that he's been looking at his stats and has come to the conclusion the Oilers are a good team, but an unlucky team... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CheersMan Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Would somebody mind checking this fellows work? Ah never mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kehatch Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Luck is always a factor. An odd bounce, a ref looking the wrong way (not purposely, just wrong on which way he thought the play was going), a stick breaking as the player has a clean shot. Like in the real world a certain randomness makes a huge difference (you spill coffee, wipe it up & leave for work 3 minutes later. Don't get t-boned @ the corner). Stats are telling you what has happened & can predict the odds of what might happen. The abnormalities used to justify that what happened actually occured are considered a blip. A blip = luck. To those that live only by stats/odds the world must be a confusing place. No luck, no co-incidence & no accidents. What are the odds you step in dog poo? It wasn't there the other Fridays you walked down that same sidewalk so statistically that won't be there. It still messes your shoe. I don't dispute that. I think analytics help put context around things though. It helps you avoid the David Clarkson type contracts. It helps you keep perspective at the trade deadline. The stats just provide more information to help complete the picture. But using them to absolutely predict the future. Or using them to try and justify the Oilers lack of success or the Flames success. Or just making false and unsupported inferences because the user doesn't know what he is doing. All traps. Gives the stats movement a bad name IMO because anyone with half a brain can see through that. The player or team with the better CORSI isn't automatically the better team. It is just one characteristic. It just means they generate more shooting attempts. That's it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conundrumed Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Analytics are fine. Peoples conclusions are sometimes suspect. That said, it's tough to deny that the Flames have had their share of luck this season. Forget about advanced statistics. How many times have we won in OT? How many times have we come back in the third? How many times have we scored with our new empty? The answers to those questions isn't all luck. Good fitness. Never say die attitude. Etc. But luck is a partial factor. Sorry buddy, but it must be getting hard to defend. It's exhausting listening to stats. No one wants to be one, everyone wants to buck them, etc, etc. Stats are simply not intuitive, they are averages. The laws of averages are awesome, but applying them to sports, of all things, and trying to pry aspect to be fact from them? It doesn't add up. They are used to make a point, provide an opinion, but they don't provide insight. As sports fans, in this case hockey, current insight has far more perspective than stats. In the comments section of the diatribe, I noted one person seemed to be be arguing that stats are definitive, that the Flames are a "1 in 100" stroke of luck. For our younger readers, don't ever buy into this crap. Stats are a virtual world look behind. Always look forward. Put down your calculator and go out and enjoy the world. There's an ages old saying I've always believed in, "stats lie". And I believe that is the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carty Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 There's an ages old saying I've always believed in, "stats lie". And I believe that is the truth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flame111 Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 I dove in early on the advanced stats in hockey and got into it as well. As time has gone on I am seriously questioning the entire paradigm when applied to hockey. Moneyball is famous for how it changed baseball but that is a series of one on one set encounters. In short the way baseball is played it fits very well and makes sense. Hockey in contrast is completely different. How do you factor in the coach. How do you factor in team morale. In short how do you factor in the team element which is so key to the game. A successful hockey team is a combination of of players working in sync. The laws of physics have not even solved the three body problem. In hockey you have a 10 body problem and patching numerical paradigms across will have them pulling out the word "luck" to explain away why their numbers don't work. I think advanced stats in hockey is going to turn out to be a fad. It may be used in the background to tip some decisions. Like this player or that in the draft or in a trade but these will be players who are already very similar. In short advanced stats is little more than the cherry on the cake or the sauce on the steak. It will never turn into the meat. Foundational decisions of how to make your team work or the direction to take it will never be driven by advanced stats. They are way overblown in the context of hockey. For example advanced stats guys love Backlund. Bottom line - guy is fragile and how you can ignore that is beyond me no matter how wonderful his advanced stats are. I don't need advanced stats to understand Backlund is a good player, I just need to watch him play but the fact he is a fragile player is something the Flames need to consider if they decide to keep him. I also think their so-called luck excuse is a joke. There was a time when brilliant men believed the sun moved around the earth and they watched the same stars and came up with these very complicated mathematical explanations to explain their observations. Including fantastical movements of the sun and other planets that made them look like they were somehow rotating all around the earth in this bizarre fashion. The math was all correct, the problem is that it was all soooooo unnecessarily complicated. The simple explanation that the Sun was the center and all the planets rotated around the sun magically made all the orbits elliptical instead of all these hyper-complicated orbits around the earth...Advanced stats guys remind me of very hyper kids. Super smart guys who can't just sit back and enjoy the artistry of the game. Kind of guys who want measure poetry by rhyme and meter or go into an art museum and try and measure the greatness of art by taking into account mathematical symmetry or some other math element. Advanced stats guys, after being into it, studying it, understanding it. I now say to them begone - you can not measure or predict the game of hockey.You can not calculate, predict or understand the degree of the Flames greatness this year. Hockey is poetry on ice. Just replace the word poetry with hockey in this clip and you will see my point. What I have to say to the advanced stat guys in hockey is pretty much this - rip them out of our enjoyment of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flame111 Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 In short the Flames themselves this year are proof that advanced stats in hockey should be looked at very skeptically. The Flames weren't lucky, they worked hard as a team together and that is the real reason for their position, not luck... The long NHL schedule of 82 games makes it an insult to the Flames to just call them lucky...Going on a lucky streak for 10 games, even 30 games, fine. But for an NHL season, I don't think so... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KACaribou Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 Advanced stats don't work in baseball either. Moneyball hasn't brought the A's a World Series. They won the World Series when they had Tony Larusa, the Bash Brothers and no advanced stats. The Cardinals use all sorts of stats but don't bank on them. They bank on signing under-achieving guys and then teaching them to pitch or hit. They bank on developing a minor league system where the players are coming up to the majors READY for the Show. Last I checked the Cardinals had 11 World Series in a small market just like the A's. They've won two WS since the A's starting playing Moneyball. If advances stats were going to work in any sport it would be baseball. MLB is numbers. Always has been. But thinking advanced stats work in hockey is ridiculous. The biggest sport in North America - football - doesn't even count errors on receivers that drop balls, it still counts against the QB rating. They give two craps about advanced stats in the NFL. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
conundrumed Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 I dove in early on the advanced stats in hockey and got into it as well. As time has gone on I am seriously questioning the entire paradigm when applied to hockey. Moneyball is famous for how it changed baseball but that is a series of one on one set encounters. In short the way baseball is played it fits very well and makes sense. Hockey in contrast is completely different. How do you factor in the coach. How do you factor in team morale. In short how do you factor in the team element which is so key to the game. A successful hockey team is a combination of of players working in sync. The laws of physics have not even solved the three body problem. In hockey you have a 10 body problem and patching numerical paradigms across will have them pulling out the word "luck" to explain away why their numbers don't work. I think advanced stats in hockey is going to turn out to be a fad. It may be used in the background to tip some decisions. Like this player or that in the draft or in a trade but these will be players who are already very similar. In short advanced stats is little more than the cherry on the cake or the sauce on the steak. It will never turn into the meat. Foundational decisions of how to make your team work or the direction to take it will never be driven by advanced stats. They are way overblown in the context of hockey. For example advanced stats guys love Backlund. Bottom line - guy is fragile and how you can ignore that is beyond me no matter how wonderful his advanced stats are. I don't need advanced stats to understand Backlund is a good player, I just need to watch him play but the fact he is a fragile player is something the Flames need to consider if they decide to keep him. I also think their so-called luck excuse is a joke. There was a time when brilliant men believed the sun moved around the earth and they watched the same stars and came up with these very complicated mathematical explanations to explain their observations. Including fantastical movements of the sun and other planets that made them look like they were somehow rotating all around the earth in this bizarre fashion. The math was all correct, the problem is that it was all soooooo unnecessarily complicated. The simple explanation that the Sun was the center and all the planets rotated around the sun magically made all the orbits elliptical instead of all these hyper-complicated orbits around the earth... Advanced stats guys remind me of very hyper kids. Super smart guys who can't just sit back and enjoy the artistry of the game. Kind of guys who want measure poetry by rhyme and meter or go into an art museum and try and measure the greatness of art by taking into account mathematical symmetry or some other math element. Advanced stats guys, after being into it, studying it, understanding it. I now say to them begone - you can not measure or predict the game of hockey. You can not calculate, predict or understand the degree of the Flames greatness this year. Hockey is poetry on ice. Just replace the word poetry with hockey in this clip and you will see my point. What I have to say to the advanced stat guys in hockey is pretty much this - rip them out of our enjoyment of the game. Finally, a rant beyond my wildest expectations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kulstad Posted February 11, 2015 Report Share Posted February 11, 2015 As I figured it would, the TSN Stats Guy conversation has devolved to the CORSI conversation again, therefore I have merged the 2 topics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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