Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

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Topper
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Topper »

A couple of recent articles.

Dowbiggins in praise of the cooked figures

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/d ... le8785464/

and Allan Muir's rebuttal

http://nhl.si.com/2013/02/20/are-hockey ... ncy-stats/

I still believe you need to be aware of how the numbers are derived and their limitations. Also they should only be used in conjunction with watching games, not to prove something you think you see, but to identify trends and spot things you should look for.

I thought this was one of the best comments from Muir.
And while Dowbiggen calls this data “manna from heaven,” I’m thinking the vast majority of fans are just comfortable with the old Howie Meeker “Stop it right there, OK, watch what Trevor Johansen does here” style of analysis. It’s really all they need.
Sadly, we don't get any Howie Meeker analysis any more. I wish we did. Howie not only recognized great plays, but he went out of his way to identify the boneheaded plays that lead to goals and went further to show what should have been done. It was a brilliant segment on HNIC that pulled no punches.

Combining Howie's telestrator work with advanced stats would be a fantastic learning feature. People who now try to do Howie-like work, too often become hung up in a graphics showcase rather than demonstrating sound hockey skills and smarts.
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Re: I'm tho THoR

Post by Arachnid »

No wonder dEdmonton has no life...

http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/showt ... p=60097843

http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/20 ... rence.html

Fack meeee, Canucks had 3 people there....

Stats is for boozers :evil:
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Tiger
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Tiger »

Kind of enjoyed Burkes comments on "stats"..
“Statistics are like a lamp post to a drunk: Useful for support but not for illumination,” Burke said. “Statistics are going to tell you something. Where you take that data and where you take that research and apply it and add it to the other data sources you have — that’s where you’ll be successful. If you look at statistics and point to a column and say, ‘We’re drafting this guy’ — have fun. I hope you’re in my division.”
Notice he didn't really discount all stats.. just single column stats or " insufficient data" .. Kind of like the comparison between Bure' and Mogilny.. Bure' was ahead in goals scored but in +/- wasn't even close to Mogilny.. who was a far better defensive player.. The other ( never talked about stat ) is "how many fans does he attract".. this is were Jovo or Tiger although not great hockey players were consistent crowd pleasers and crowds means money .. Yep hockey is a business.. Moneypuck?
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Topper
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Topper »

One of the things lost on "moneyball" guys is that it still costs money. Sure the A's built a competitive team using sabrematrics but the success was the 2004 Red Sox with the second highest payroll in baseball.
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Larry Goodenough
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Larry Goodenough »

Topper wrote:One of the things lost on "moneyball" guys is that it still costs money. Sure the A's built a competitive team using sabrematrics but the success was the 2004 Red Sox with the second highest payroll in baseball.

It's my understanding Moneyball is more about finding market inefficiency that stats. The A's used advanced stats when no one else did and found a market inefficiency. Now all teams in baseball used the advanced stats and it does largely come down to money because all teams are competing for players with the same knowledge. I assume it's a bit different in hockey when a cap is involved and you have to find value here and there to round out your roster.
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Topper
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Topper »

Did I say anything different. The Red Sox had Bill James and Henry's $'s. Billy Bean didn't have any money.
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by dbr »

Friedman wrote on the MIT conference..

A few choice snippets.
Four years ago, the Vancouver Canucks were the only NHL team to go.

"As we like to say, 'We don't know what we don't know,'" says Laurence Gilman, Vancouver's Vice-President of Hockey Operations and assistant general manager. "What we're trying to figure out is what we don't know. This conference helps get us thinking in ways in which we weren't thinking."
"This is a competitive business and sports analytics is untamed territory," Gilman says. "When people were out there discovering a new world, they didn't want anyone else to know what they were doing."

"But believe me when I tell you there are percentage results that allow you to coach and manage your team to hedge bets in certain events."
This year, Boston, Dallas, Edmonton, Tampa Bay, Vancouver and Washington were there. Technically, Anaheim attended too, although Brian Burke spent more time ripping statistical analysis than praising it. I couldn't stop laughing at his quotes ("Statistics are like a lamp post to a drunk: Useful for support but not for illumination"), picturing how much attendees wanted to strangle him.
Fuckin Burkie.

Anyway there's lots of other stuff in there involving teams other than the Canucks..
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Potatoe1 »

dbr wrote:
"This is a competitive business and sports analytics is untamed territory," Gilman says. "When people were out there discovering a new world, they didn't want anyone else to know what they were doing."

"But believe me when I tell you there are percentage results that allow you to coach and manage your team to hedge bets in certain events."
It's been pretty obvious for a number of years that the Canucks use some sort of scoring chance / zone time data tracking system.

They also seemed to figure out early just how beneficial face off deployment was. AV went from normal deployment to the most skewed deployment in the league (by a mile). I highly doubt he got there on his own, it seems far more likely that management crunched some numbers and pushed him in that direction.

Hell when Gillis talked about pumping up Hodgsons trade value, what he was really saying was that once they decided to trade him they were giving him a much higher volume of offensive zone starts, that's how much the team believed it matters.
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Vpete »

Topper wrote:A couple of recent articles.

Dowbiggins in praise of the cooked figures

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/d ... le8785464/

and Allan Muir's rebuttal

http://nhl.si.com/2013/02/20/are-hockey ... ncy-stats/

I still believe you need to be aware of how the numbers are derived and their limitations. Also they should only be used in conjunction with watching games, not to prove something you think you see, but to identify trends and spot things you should look for.


I thought this was one of the best comments from Muir.
And while Dowbiggen calls this data “manna from heaven,” I’m thinking the vast majority of fans are just comfortable with the old Howie Meeker “Stop it right there, OK, watch what Trevor Johansen does here” style of analysis. It’s really all they need.
Sadly, we don't get any Howie Meeker analysis any more. I wish we did. Howie not only recognized great plays, but he went out of his way to identify the boneheaded plays that lead to goals and went further to show what should have been done. It was a brilliant segment on HNIC that pulled no punches.

Combining Howie's telestrator work with advanced stats would be a fantastic learning feature. People who now try to do Howie-like work, too often become hung up in a graphics showcase rather than demonstrating sound hockey skills and smarts.
"If that kid could skate and shoot the puck he'd be the best player in the league"

I loved Howie.
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Waffle
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Waffle »

Some recent articles related to "modern stats"

First article discussing modern hockey stats related to team-level stats March 13/2013
Los Angeles Kings: Masters of puck possession
http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2013/3 ... 58/kangzzz

Second article discussing modern hockey stats related to individual-level stats March 14/2013
An overview of modern hockey stats
http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2013/3 ... tro-primer

Cam Charron has been posting PDO numbers at NHL numbers (and also trying to predict rankings at the end of the season and first round match ups in other articles):
http://nhlnumbers.com/2013/3/11/pdo-num ... eam-mar-11

Article about score adjusted Fenwick by Eric T is here:
http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2012/1 ... ed-fenwick

Travis Yost has been posting Score Adjusted Fenwick Standings (here is the one for March 12/2013):
http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/Travis-Y ... UTh-nBEzbM
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Topper
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Topper »

What a fucking laugh. Thanks Waffle.
Cam Charron is BC-raised hockey fan and journalist and acts as the managing editor of The leaves Nation.
Cam explaining PDO.
The first reference I can find to the PDO number is in August of 2008, when some Edmonton Oilers fans were dissecting the finish of the Oilers in the previous year. Though the team finished out of the playoffs for the second straight year, they closed with a 14-5-1 record, giving fans optimism for youngsters Ales Hemsky (then only 24) Sam Gagner (18) Andrew Cogliano (20) and Robert Nilsson (23).

Vic Ferrari, in an attempt to mitigate some of the optimism, wrote a fantastic post about trivia craps, and the effects of luck on winning and losing. In the comment section, a guy under the handle “PDO” made the following point about the current crop of Oilers:
Hows this for ugly? Lets pretend there was a stat called “blind luck.” Said stat was simply adding SH% and SV% together. I know there’s a way to check what this number should generally be, but I hate math so lets just say 100% for shits and giggles.

Oiler players who had over 101%:

Nilsson (103.9), GlenX (103.8), Cogliano (103.4), Stortini (102.8), Horcoff (101.6), Rourke (101.4), Moreau (101.4), Gilbert (101.1), Greene (101.1).

And Oilers who had under 99%:

Smid (98.7), Brodziak (98.5), Roy (98.5), Tarnstrom (98.00), Stoll (97.6), Visnovsky (97.3), Sanderson (96.9), Reasoner (96.8), Pouliot (96.7), Thoresen (95.5), Jacques (87.1).

You’ll notice the first group tended to get extensions while the second ground tended to get shipped out of town.
PDO’s point was that the addition of team shooting percentage and team save percentage when a player was on the ice could lead a lucky player to make management believe he was “good” and earn an extension.
So PDO is admittedly a bullshit stat. Thanks for the effort Cam.
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Waffle »

You too Topper....thanks for the laugh :)
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Waffle »

Interesting post by Travis Yost yesterday.

From:
The Shot Quality Myth Revisited

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/Travis-Y ... Vc0unDcGIQ

Last paragraph:
"And, because of the above, it shouldn't be a surprise that Paul MacLean once famously stated that a team has to score its way to the Stanley Cup. That's a high-level of understanding, and probably one of the many reasons why Ottawa's play hasn't taken a precipitous downturn after an absurd run of player injuries."
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Waffle »

In case anyone hasn't seen it, there is an interesting post by Dan the Stat Man over at Nucks Misconduct with a summary of "advanced stats" through the first quarter of the 2013 season.

http://www.nucksmisconduct.com/2013/11/ ... m-report-1
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Re: Advanced stats/ Moneypuck

Post by Cornuck »

Doc: "BTW, Donny was right, you're smug."
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