Maybe in 2010, sure.

Maybe on EA sports too.

Maybe the mainstream media would agree.

Reputations too.

But time and time again, the stats say something differently.

Stats are reality.
- James_Tanner

I will take Keiths playoff performance over stats every day of the week
You give no consideration for what Keith did last year and simply dismiss it and that to me is trolling

Nah, you came off totally reasonable I thought. But I'm drunk so hopefully this makes some sense

But no, your analysis is not objective. It's subjective and based on the relevant numbers that you value

It's not about hockey neccesarily standing alone and the one exception, it's that the analysis you use isn't nearly as accurate as the sports that this type of analysis was designed for and based on.
Namely baseball, but even a sport like football which is played in 7 second spurts has well maintained positional play and a certain role for every position.
Baseballs even easier to analyze as it's essentially a stationary sport.
Set offences vs set defences with individual accomplishment easily quantifiable.
While hockey does not have near the clear defining characteristics the analytics community believes it does. And It seems almost ludicrous to me that they think it does

The average player doesn't have rests every 6 seconds. He plays like 17 mins a night, in 23 intervals of around 45 seconds. And probably doesn't have puck for 16 of those 17 mins. So if he can't play without possession, he's useless. In this instance it kinda shows playing without the puck more important than with the puck !!
No other sport can say something to that effect.

So much of hockey is random battles, loose pucks, ebb and flow, offence turning to defence and defence turning to offence often within seconds of each other. You can't boil that stuff down. You have to watch.

Offence determines scoring in almost every sport: In hockey, a defensive error — some quantifiable, some not — a breakdown, leads to more scoring than offensive creation does.

There are more random or scrambly goals than not most likely. You can't make them tidy through paper analysis

There are game and series-changing plays that can’t be defined by any statistic. There is a mistake and a bounce and a battle and a deflection and another bounce and a goal.

When sid was struggling, advanced stats were still saying he was playing magnificently. No he wasn't. He had like 1 goal in 13 games and was 100th in scoring
. And the answer is always 'sample size'. But that can't possibly be valid because the numbers are still often skewed in large sample sizes.

There's no numbers for neutral zone play which is an extremely pivotal part of the game.
None that defines vision or creativity.
Quality of scoring chances. Good dump in/bad dump in. Ability to win battles. Make the right decision in close games etc eye ec


There is a place for Advanced numbers, just not a defining one. The game is too free-flow, too incidental, too ever changing to be easily analyzed with math.



I read an article awhile back that was money and said so much of this. Ill try and remember and send a link

Before I start, I am a great fan of your hockeybuzz commenting, and if this comes across as jerky, my apologies.

But, you are acting like this is a debate that has a subjective answer. It does not.

Forget hockey for a second, in the history of the world - doesn't matter the topic - there are the things that people though, and then there were people who collected data and used it to test their hypotheses.

The answers they got (we are destroying the earth with pollution, the earth spins around the sun etc) didn't always match up to conventional wisdom (rarely ever) and people often called them idiots, burned them at stakes, had them crucified, exiled or in most cases, just mocked.

However, as time went on, people began to accept science and the results of provable experiments became accepted as facts
- James_Tanner

Which provable experiments have been run with hockey? Which double blind tests? You know, things that form the basis of the scientific method? None. Observational stats are not experimental stats, and are not comparable. If you can't make a point without making false comparisons, maybe you should re-examine if it's a valid point.

Forget hockey for a second, in the history of the world - doesn't matter the topic - there are the things that people though, and then there were people who collected data and used it to test their hypotheses.

The answers they got (we are destroying the earth with pollution, the earth spins around the sun etc) didn't always match up to conventional wisdom (rarely ever) and people often called them idiots, burned them at stakes, had them crucified, exiled or in most cases, just mocked.

However, as time went on, people began to accept science and the results of provable experiments became accepted as facts (until the early the 2000s when republicans decided it was inconvenient).

Hockey is the exact same thing.

- James_Tanner

Which provable experiments have been run with hockey? Which double blind tests? You know, things that form the basis of the scientific method? None. Observational stats are not experimental stats, and are not comparable. If you can't make a point without making false comparisons, maybe you should re-examine if it's a valid point.
- Antilles

I know you think you're being clever here, but you are just being pedantic. If you're so smart, you'd know that the dozens of stats companies, mathematicians and statisticians who have not only been hired by the NHL and its teams but also fundamentally changed the way the game is managed and talked about, have run thousands upon thousands of simulations and models and tested every possible data point for correlations to winning.

People collect data and find correlations to improve literally everything.

So yes, the science of hockey stats is real and the results they get are legitimate. But sure, everything from data collection to application of stats could be improved upon. But that doesn't mean they are already not ten times more effective than scouting already and it does not mean that people decrying advanced stats are getting more ridiculous and irrelevant with each passing hour.

The real resistance to stats is the same as it is to luck. People act like luck isn't the biggest factor in a game played by the best in the world in a league with so much parity - and stats are the same thing, no one wants to hear their opinion is flat out wrong. Honestly, the psychology behind why statistical analysis faces so much, (frankly stupid) resistance despite being objectively and conclusively more effective than scouting is far more interesting, I think, then debating a deadhorse topic where the answers are already known.

You guys really got to stop with the idea that anyone who disagrees with you is either just trolling or "doesn't know anything about hockey." It's annoying.

If someone has a different opinion, go do the research and find out why.

Don't resort to lazy arguments.

Keith provides a ton of offense, but plays for one of the highest scoring teams.

Brodie is the third offensive option on his team, so he has worse offensive numbers, but he drives possession better and he limits shots better.

And the numbers fully and without question back me up.

So how can a guy troll you with facts? Please riddle me that.
- James_Tanner

You really gotta stop with the idea that many of us think you are a troll or know nothing about hockey because you disagree with us. We think you are a troll because you blog like one.

Just because an argument is logical does not mean it has validity. Literally every stat you reference (and many you don't) are relative to the player's team. You cannot use these stats to compare players across different teams or you will get invalid results, like Brodie is better than Keith. Do you honestly, be honest, think that if Brodie played for the Blackhawks, he would have better numbers than Keith?

By the way, Duncan Keith has 8 goals and T.J. Brodie has 4. Please stop saying that there is zero evidence that Keith is better. I don't care how you minimize the stat, its still one small piece of evidence that Keith is better.

I know you think you're being clever here, but you are just being pedantic. If you're so smart, you'd know that the dozens of stats companies, mathematicians and statisticians who have not only been hired by the NHL and its teams but also fundamentally changed the way the game is managed and talked about, have run thousands upon thousands of simulations and models and tested every possible data point for correlations to winning.

People collect data and find correlations to improve literally everything.

So yes, the science of hockey stats is real and the results they get are legitimate. But sure, everything from data collection to application of stats could be improved upon. But that doesn't mean they are already not ten times more effective than scouting already and it does not mean that people decrying advanced stats are getting more ridiculous and irrelevant with each passing hour.

The real resistance to stats is the same as it is to luck. People act like luck isn't the biggest factor in a game played by the best in the world in a league with so much parity - and stats are the same thing, no one wants to hear their opinion is flat out wrong. Honestly, the psychology behind why statistical analysis faces so much, (frankly stupid) resistance despite being objectively and conclusively more effective than scouting is far more interesting, I think, then debating a deadhorse topic where the answers are already known.
- James_Tanner

It's not being pedantic, you are figuratively comparing apples and oranges in an attempt to make a point. Observational stats are not experimental stats. They are two different things. If you're so smart, you realize simulations are not the same thing as experiments. Of course, you'd also realize that all those people who are much closer to those stats than you still put a lot of weight into scouting. Because advanced stats have a mediocre predictive record. When your analysis fails to accurately predict outcomes, it means you are either mis-interpreting data or missing variables. And you cannot excuse failures to accurately predict based on chance if another system is consistently capable of making better predictions.

When's the last time you, using advanced stats, predicted a player that traditional scouting suggested was poor to do well, and were proven correct? Because the opposite happens consistently. That's why advanced stats face opposition. Because they do a worse job of prediction than traditional scouting then make excuses. Tell us again how the Oilers are making playoffs this year. How Sam Gagner is a dominate forward. Where advanced stats are used to make predictions that completely disagree with traditional scouting, the latter proves correct the majority of the time. And whether or not they quantify it the same way, hockey fans are actually similar to the scientific community as a whole. Where if there are two theories, and one gives far better predictive results, it is believed to be true until you can prove it otherwise.

Stone Roses. Now you're talking James.

Sally Cinnamon
Elephant Stone
Made of Stone
The Hardest Thing in the World
Sugar spun sister
This is the One.


- walshyleafsfan

Love Spreads
Made of Stone
Fool's Gold

You really gotta stop with the idea that many of us think you are a troll or know nothing about hockey because you disagree with us. We think you are a troll because you blog like one.

Just because an argument is logical does not mean it has validity. Literally every stat you reference (and many you don't) are relative to the player's team. You cannot use these stats to compare players across different teams or you will get invalid results, like Brodie is better than Keith. Do you honestly, be honest, think that if Brodie played for the Blackhawks, he would have better numbers than Keith?

By the way, Duncan Keith has 8 goals and T.J. Brodie has 4. Please stop saying that there is zero evidence that Keith is better. I don't care how you minimize the stat, its still one small piece of evidence that Keith is better.
- sniper11

And there's that whole thing about arguably being the most important player on the best team in hockey the last six years, Conn Smythe (earned doing something basically superhuman), 2 Norrises . . .

So yeah.

Nah, you came off totally reasonable I thought. But I'm drunk so hopefully this makes some sense

But no, your analysis is not objective. It's subjective and based on the relevant numbers that you value

It's not about hockey neccesarily standing alone and the one exception, it's that the analysis you use isn't nearly as accurate as the sports that this type of analysis was designed for and based on.
Namely baseball, but even a sport like football which is played in 7 second spurts has well maintained positional play and a certain role for every position.
Baseballs even easier to analyze as it's essentially a stationary sport.
Set offences vs set defences with individual accomplishment easily quantifiable.
While hockey does not have near the clear defining characteristics the analytics community believes it does. And It seems almost ludicrous to me that they think it does

The average player doesn't have rests every 6 seconds. He plays like 17 mins a night, in 23 intervals of around 45 seconds. And probably doesn't have puck for 16 of those 17 mins. So if he can't play without possession, he's useless. In this instance it kinda shows playing without the puck more important than with the puck !!
No other sport can say something to that effect.

So much of hockey is random battles, loose pucks, ebb and flow, offence turning to defence and defence turning to offence often within seconds of each other. You can't boil that stuff down. You have to watch.

Offence determines scoring in almost every sport: In hockey, a defensive error — some quantifiable, some not — a breakdown, leads to more scoring than offensive creation does.

There are more random or scrambly goals than not most likely. You can't make them tidy through paper analysis

There are game and series-changing plays that can’t be defined by any statistic. There is a mistake and a bounce and a battle and a deflection and another bounce and a goal.

When sid was struggling, advanced stats were still saying he was playing magnificently. No he wasn't. He had like 1 goal in 13 games and was 100th in scoring
. And the answer is always 'sample size'. But that can't possibly be valid because the numbers are still often skewed in large sample sizes.

There's no numbers for neutral zone play which is an extremely pivotal part of the game.
None that defines vision or creativity.
Quality of scoring chances. Good dump in/bad dump in. Ability to win battles. Make the right decision in close games etc eye ec


There is a place for Advanced numbers, just not a defining one. The game is too free-flow, too incidental, too ever changing to be easily analyzed with math.



I read an article awhile back that was money and said so much of this. Ill try and remember and send a link
- HB77

Analytics are helpful, but they can lead you to really dumb conclusions as well. And there's a lot of evidence of that.

You guys really got to stop with the idea that anyone who disagrees with you is either just trolling or "doesn't know anything about hockey." It's annoying.

If someone has a different opinion, go do the research and find out why.

Don't resort to lazy arguments.

Keith provides a ton of offense, but plays for one of the highest scoring teams.

Brodie is the third offensive option on his team, so he has worse offensive numbers, but he drives possession better and he limits shots better.

And the numbers fully and without question back me up.

So how can a guy troll you with facts? Please riddle me that.
- James_Tanner

And he's a tremendous defensive defenseman. And that's a fact, too.

You really gotta stop with the idea that many of us think you are a troll or know nothing about hockey because you disagree with us. We think you are a troll because you blog like one.

Just because an argument is logical does not mean it has validity. Literally every stat you reference (and many you don't) are relative to the player's team. You cannot use these stats to compare players across different teams or you will get invalid results, like Brodie is better than Keith. Do you honestly, be honest, think that if Brodie played for the Blackhawks, he would have better numbers than Keith?

By the way, Duncan Keith has 8 goals and T.J. Brodie has 4. Please stop saying that there is zero evidence that Keith is better. I don't care how you minimize the stat, its still one small piece of evidence that Keith is better.
- sniper11

I posted the stats that PROVE Brodie is better than keith.

Total silence. Beat it pal!

It's not being pedantic, you are figuratively comparing apples and oranges in an attempt to make a point. Observational stats are not experimental stats. They are two different things. If you're so smart, you realize simulations are not the same thing as experiments. Of course, you'd also realize that all those people who are much closer to those stats than you still put a lot of weight into scouting. Because advanced stats have a mediocre predictive record. When your analysis fails to accurately predict outcomes, it means you are either mis-interpreting data or missing variables. And you cannot excuse failures to accurately predict based on chance if another system is consistently capable of making better predictions.

When's the last time you, using advanced stats, predicted a player that traditional scouting suggested was poor to do well, and were proven correct? Because the opposite happens consistently. That's why advanced stats face opposition. Because they do a worse job of prediction than traditional scouting then make excuses. Tell us again how the Oilers are making playoffs this year. How Sam Gagner is a dominate forward. Where advanced stats are used to make predictions that completely disagree with traditional scouting, the latter proves correct the majority of the time. And whether or not they quantify it the same way, hockey fans are actually similar to the scientific community as a whole. Where if there are two theories, and one gives far better predictive results, it is believed to be true until you can prove it otherwise.
- Antilles

Please admit that I just completely owned you dude. You guys get worse every single day. The idea that stats have to be 100% predictive to be helpful is just too much for this poor boy to bear.

I posted the stats that PROVE Brodie is better than keith.

Total silence. Beat it pal!
- James_Tanner

Thus proving what I posted four posts above.

Thus proving what I posted four posts above.
- John Jaeckel

Feel free to make an argument based on tangible, provable things.

Feel free to make an argument based on tangible, provable things.
- James_Tanner

We've already shown and explained that mathematics based arguments alone aren't as good a way to judge talent in the game of hockey. There's too many variables, too much change from second to second and too much wrong or misleading about trying to boil these numbers down

Just because you refuse to accept that, doesn't make it any less a fact James

I posted the stats that PROVE Brodie is better than keith.

Total silence. Beat it pal!
- James_Tanner

The first number on every single player's stat line, which I posted above for Keith and Brodie respectively, proves that Keith is better.