One of my biggest pet peeves in hockey analysis is "goals against personally responsible for" as a rebuttal to a player's bad defensive numbers (where you go through the GA and pick out whether the guy directly caused it with a turnover or missed coverage)
Shockingly, it almost always concludes that the player (especially if they're a forward) actually isn't bad defensively and the numbers are lying to you and blaming him for things outside of his control
Whereas the thing that it's supposed to be rebutting is focusing on the aggregate flow of scoring chances (not goals against) against, adjusted for those teammates. This kind of analysis will never tell you why the Oilers give up so many more chances with 29 on the ice, e.g.
The reason 97 and 29 sucked defensively was not that they were making big oopsies in the d-zone that were leading to goals against, but that they were playing run and gun rush hockey that exposed their D to transition chances the other way. And those D would often fuck up...
...making it "their fault" that the goals went in.

But if you just look at that and say "That was Bear's fault" you're not explaining why these chances against are happening way more often when 97 and 29 are out there.

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More from @JFreshHockey

7 Aug
It is in fact not misleading.

First of all, on the shooting percentage bit. The shooting percentage is clearly unsustainable. Nurse did not get better scoring chances this season on average but doubled his highest full-season scoring rate and sh%.
If you watch the goals themselves, it's pretty clear from the number of five hole tricklers (and even an own goal) why this is the case
His point is that even if that shooting is unsustainable, it doesn't matter because his A/60 numbers dropped.

But his assist numbers didn't drop because of unsustainably bad luck. Quite the opposite: his linemates scored and finished at a much higher rate this season
Read 8 tweets
6 Aug
Darnell Nurse, signed 8x$9.25M by EDM, is an offensive D who scored a lot of goals this season but who has consistently surrendered quality scoring chances when on the ice. Don't think he's nearly as bad as the overall projection suggests, but this is a BIG number. #LetsGoOilers
This is a really tricky player to evaluate. First of all, we know that special teams WAR is tricky, and the Oilers for the past two seasons have ranked highly on the PK while giving up a lot of xG. Could be goaltending, could just be something the model is missing.
Second of all, there's simply no getting around the fact that with McDavid, Nurse's numbers were excellent (55.6% xGF%) and without him they were awful (43.7% xGF%).
Read 5 tweets
5 Aug
NEW PATREON PERK: The WAR Roster Builder 4.0 is LIVE for $5+ subscribers

Build the team of your dreams and see how it would be projected to perform based on Wins Above Replacement. Image
Or if you just want to see how your favourite team is projected to perform, use the NHL Depth Chart projector to check out their lineup and how they're projected to rank in every aspect of the game. Image
Or see every team's Wins Above Replacement projection breakdown: Image
Read 4 tweets
5 Aug
Tomas Tatar, signed 2x$4.5M by NJ, has simply been one of the league's most effective 5v5 offence creators in the past three seasons. This is a major discount considering his recent body of work. #NJDevils Image
If you're not one for analytics and expected goal driving, his production in the past three seasons tells the same story. Image
He was bound to be had for a discount following his playoff scratching. Frankly I would say that his "playoff ghost" reputation is based more on a combination of the Danault line being turned into a pure shutdown unit and a 4.1% on-ice shooting percentage but what do I know
Read 5 tweets
12 Jul
who cares. nothing wrong with scouting, nobody thinks there shouldn't be scouts. drafting a player with 5 points in 77 games because he showed fearlessness or whatever is I think the issue people take with overvaluing intangibles
i have fearlessness when I play beer league. i have heart. i stink

Patric Hornqvist and Brendan Gallagher have fearlessness and heart. they win puck battles, forecheck, and get dangerous scoring chances in front of the net. the intangibles lead to something tangible
the dumb part about Pierre's tirades were never that he doesn't like analytics - who cares about whether a 58 year old career hockey man has a hockeyviz subscription - but his unshakeable faith that intangible qualities in a player can't possibly translate tangible results...
Read 5 tweets
11 Jul
NEW PATREON PERK:

Prospect Cards are finally LIVE for $5+ Patreon supporters.

These are built using @TopDownHockey's new NHLe model and include all 2021 draft prospects and all NHL prospects.

Such as 2021 top prospect Owen Power: Image
NHLe is a model that translates data from other leagues to project an NHL "equivalency" of point production. From there, it can be used to estimate a player's chance of becoming a star or full-time NHLer

topdownhockey.medium.com/nhl-equivalenc…
These cards include not only 2021 draft prospects but already-drafted NHL prospects, like 2020 10th overall pick Cole Perfetti of the Winnipeg Jets: Image
Read 4 tweets

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