Friday, October 18, 2013

About These Advanced Stats

The last few days, the hockey stats world has been looking at the Wild and their rather ridiculous stat lines to open the season. And while that is good and all, the Wild's nice stat line has lead to back to back losses where the hometown squad has only found the back of the net twice.

Now if the Wild were to hold these numbers for a majority of the season, they should have an impressive record. But whether that happens actually remains to be seen.

But something that has been noticed the last few days is what these numbers don't tell us. They can tell us how many shot attempts a team takes or a goalies save percentage at even strength. They are pretty nice things to know (still working on getting down Fenwick and Corsi).

These advanced stats can tell you a lot, but do they help the Wild score? No (the team is snakebiten and will try to bust out of that slump in Florida tomorrow). Do they help us when one of the game's elite scorers blows by your $98 million defenseman? No.



I try and further my understanding of these advanced stats daily, but when stuff like that happens, you wonder what's the point?

Can the Wild become a team who dominate the stat lines, but yet can't win a game? Again, only time will tell...


Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesferrell

4 comments:

  1. Strong puck possession numbers will help the Wild score more in time. The reason they're not scoring is because of their ridiculously low Sh% which is controlled by luck more than skill.

    History tells us that teams who possess the puck more, get more shots and thus get more goals over the course of a season and win more games. Percentages progress towards the mean and things even out. They've only played 8 games so it's not time to panic and start throwing the numbers out the window. This is a very normal, very easily explained scenario.

    It comes down to whether or not you want instant gratification with no long term success, or to see the team build something special piece by piece. I know which I want.

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    1. I aspire to be as knowledgeable in the stats department as you are. Maybe someday, I will get there.

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  2. Luck? How bout accuracy? Mike Bossey hit the net continuelly and didn't shoot around or over it. A look at those stats. Way way too much shooting wide and not even on goal...pathetic. Patience for a lot of Wild fans is about gone.

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    1. Not sure I can compare Mike Bossy to anyone on the Wild roster.

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