Jump to content
  • Join us — it's free!

    We are the premiere internet community for New York Rangers news and fan discussion. Don't wait — join the forum today!

IGNORED

2019 Off-Season Thread: We Got This Bread, Man


Phil

Recommended Posts

Well, no, Arizona is way too low because it's partially based on a year where they were crazy hurt...Hence the reason his made up stat is based on flawed thinking.

 

Also, when he says "I adjust for X, Y, Z"...Adjusted how much? According to who? It half math, half made up. Might as well just say it's what he thinks and try to leave the [fake] numbers out of it.

 

Or they won't get 16 goals from Brad Richardson, their first line is damn close to being the worst first line in the NHL, and their whole team is basically mid-six/top-9 tweeners and Phil Kessel, who might not be as elite a wing at age 33 without Crosby or Malkin.

 

Verbatim in the article:

It comes back to the team’s roster where there is depth, but a lack of star-power. The Coyotes at this point appear similar to last year’s Montreal Canadiens who fell short of the playoffs only because of how strong the East was; 96 points would very likely be good enough in the West. The Canadiens were built on a death by a thousand cuts strategy up front, where nearly every player was good – just not great.

 

Arizona can try for a similar strategy this season, one that could work if goaltending stays strong, but there are still plenty of questions and they start with a very expensive back end that’s arguably not worth the price tag. Collectively, they’re strong on defense, but in terms of the whole package, they’re lacking relative to what other teams can ice.

 

There’s potential here, and for the first time in a while, it seems like the playoffs are a legitimate possibility. With strong goaltending buoyed by a stingy defense and the hope of youth finding its potential, there’s plenty of reason for optimism here. Few teams are as deep as the Coyotes at every position too with just three of its players not having top nine, top four or starting goalie value. The next best teams have at least four such players.

 

Better health and the addition of Kessel make this a better team on top of all that, but as it stands now that still might not be good enough as the team likely struggles to find goals once again. Unless a lot of things go right for the Coyotes, they still figure to be on the outside looking in this season.

 

That's about right. If things fall well, they make the playoffs. If they don't, they don't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 859
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

The point of a model is to project what probably will happen - not what will happen. There's a difference. I'm not going to sit here and tell you the Rangers will have exactly 84 points, but the odds are that they will finish last or second last in the division, probably not by much. There's a series of outcomes - around 16% of simulations - where they're a playoff team, including a small chance they actually win the division.

 

If you're playing blackjack and the dealer is showing an Ace, you're probably going to lose. You CAN win - you can beat the odds - but the most likely outcome is that you lose.

 

It doesn't matter in the end; Dom's model is one of the better models out there, it's constantly being tweaked and tinkered with to remove as much error and imperfection as possible, and is certainly one of the more interesting takes on how to view the game.

 

 

 

While almost any advanced stat won't directly take into account chemistry, those who play with better players likely have higher outcomes values. Almost any combination stat would weight, say, a primary assist higher than a secondary assist. That probably helps Nick Backstrom, but hurts your outlet pass defenders who pile up those secondaries.

 

Basketball having these stats kind of hits hard against your point though. While perhaps a more individual sport than hockey, it's similarly paced, reliant on chemistry, has similar variables and projection challenges, etc.

 

 

 

I can't make you care about it. Regardless, this wave of advanced analytics, hockeys version of sabermetrics, and the propensity toward using these models to identify good fits in personnel decisionmaking and long term planning is well underway and has been well documented. It's happening, and each year the models being produced by front offices, journalists, dedicated fans, and so on are getting better and better at explaining the nuances of the sport. Whether you choose to care or not is your call, but pretending it's not relevant to the game or the decisions made by folks close to it is equally wrong.

OK, I said WAR. Not all analytics. So I've pretty much checked out of this entire conversation.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Or they won't get 16 goals from Brad Richardson, their first line is damn close to being the worst first line in the NHL, and their whole team is basically mid-six/top-9 tweeners and Phil Kessel, who might not be as elite a wing at age 33 without Crosby or Malkin.

 

Verbatim in the article:

 

 

 

 

That's about right. If things fall well, they make the playoffs. If they don't, they don't.

Uh, maybe if you're going by Daily Faceoff?

Ottawa, LA, Minnesota, Columbus are all shit first lines.

 

And frankly, the Yotes "2nd line" might probably better than some other first lines if they pick up where they left off last year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Uh, maybe if you're going by Daily Faceoff?

Ottawa, LA, Minnesota, Columbus are all shit first lines.

 

And frankly, the Yotes "2nd line" might probably better than some other first lines if they pick up where they left off last year.

 

Okay, so they're 27th of 31? Damn close to worst seems an accurate descriptor then.

 

I'd imagine their second line is Dvorak, Stepan, and Soderberg/Hinostroza. That's not a good second line either. Mid range to below average.

 

Their strength is that their third line is a top tier third line, and their fourth line is also a top tier third line.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Okay, so they're 27th of 31? Damn close to worst seems an accurate descriptor then.

 

I'd imagine their second line is Dvorak, Stepan, and Soderberg/Hinostroza. That's not a good second line either. Mid range to below average.

 

Their strength is that their third line is a top tier third line, and their fourth line is also a top tier third line.

 

Look, I'm not going to nitpick the little minutiae you're choosing to focus on.

 

Let's go with common sense...They had 86 points last year when they were ravaged by injury (including in net), they added Kessel, and somehow wind up with one less point this year?

 

I'd call that unlikely barring anything unforeseen on the injury front.

 

Regardless, when I was looking into the potential line combos for the Yotes, I found this regarding WAR:

Of course, the model only accounts for data available. If players like Keller and Schmaltz have breakout seasons, it will heavily impact the data. The Coyotes are banking on many of their returning players to take major steps forward this season.

 

So essentially, like I've been saying from the beginning, and you agreed...When you're doing a PROJECTION and your PROJECTION uses a stat that doesn't account for PROJECTED IMPROVEMENT for young players...the data is flawed and therefore IMO it's pretty fucking useless.

 

So I'm having trouble understanding what your argument is here, so I'll jump out so neither of us has to waste more time not convincing the other of anything.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, no, Arizona is way too low because it's partially based on a year where they were crazy hurt...Hence the reason his made up stat is based on flawed thinking.

 

Also, when he says "I adjust for X, Y, Z"...Adjusted how much? According to who? It half math, half made up. Might as well just say it's what he thinks and try to leave the [fake] numbers out of it.

The fact that you're just quibbling over Arizona being too low by ~10 points because you simply think they're going to be better based on the half made up thought that Phil Kessel is going to help them at 5v5, or that guys like Dvorak, Garland and Keller are all going to make huge jumps, or that Stepan isn't going to continue regressing means that the model is working exactly how it should.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Look, I'm not going to nitpick the little minutiae you're choosing to focus on.

 

Let's go with common sense...They had 86 points last year when they were ravaged by injury (including in net), they added Kessel, and somehow wind up with one less point this year?

 

I'd call that unlikely barring anything unforeseen on the injury front.

 

Regardless, when I was looking into the potential line combos for the Yotes, I found this regarding WAR:

 

 

So essentially, like I've been saying from the beginning, and you agreed...When you're doing a PROJECTION and your PROJECTION uses a stat that doesn't account for PROJECTED IMPROVEMENT for young players...the data is flawed and therefore IMO it's pretty fucking useless.

 

So I'm having trouble understanding what your argument is here, so I'll jump out so neither of us has to waste more time not convincing the other of anything.

 

Verbatim in my quoted chunk:

 

There’s potential here, and for the first time in a while, it seems like the playoffs are a legitimate possibility. With strong goaltending buoyed by a stingy defense and the hope of youth finding its potential, there’s plenty of reason for optimism here. Few teams are as deep as the Coyotes at every position too with just three of its players not having top nine, top four or starting goalie value. The next best teams have at least four such players.

 

I followed that with: That's about right. If things fall well, they make the playoffs. If they don't, they don't.

 

I don't really see how your point makes any sense here aside from you trying to high-horse the eye test. The author is explicitly stating that there's clear potential for the team to make the playoffs and be a good team, but it relies on a lot of variables hitting. Your argument is that there were variables holding them back last year, they added, and if all of those things stay consistent, they're a good team. I'm not really sure how these arguments differ.

 

While it is POSSIBLE that it all falls into place, the LIKELIHOOD is that all of it won't fall into place. Guys running 100000 simulations and aggregating the lot of them into most likely outcomes, acknowledging what leads to outliers and how a team can improve, and we're still having this discussion around not accounting for things it's clearly accounting for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Verbatim in my quoted chunk:

 

 

 

I followed that with: That's about right. If things fall well, they make the playoffs. If they don't, they don't.

 

I don't really see how your point makes any sense here aside from you trying to high-horse the eye test. The author is explicitly stating that there's clear potential for the team to make the playoffs and be a good team, but it relies on a lot of variables hitting. Your argument is that there were variables holding them back last year, they added, and if all of those things stay consistent, they're a good team. I'm not really sure how these arguments differ.

 

While it is POSSIBLE that it all falls into place, the LIKELIHOOD is that all of it won't fall into place. Guys running 100000 simulations and aggregating the lot of them into most likely outcomes, acknowledging what leads to outliers and how a team can improve, and we're still having this discussion around not accounting for things it's clearly accounting for.

 

Right, so you just said what I said, with more words. This is why I check out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right, so you just said what I said, with more words. This is why I check out.

 

You seem awfully checked out with your 9 minute response time and general constant presence in this thread.

 

Let me try to give more transparency here.

 

Screen-Shot-2019-09-02-at-10.05.03-AM.png

 

Phil, if it's not cool to post that image, take it down.

 

The above is the result of the sum total of all the simulations ran for the Columbus Blue Jackets - today's focus team. What you see there is a normalized curve comprised of bars representing how many times CBJ ended up with that specific point total across all the simulations, plotted on a curve to better understand how they stack up. On average, CBJ finished with 87.3 points. That's obviously mathematically impossible, and you can very clearly see at the top of the curve that the model favors something more in the 83-93 range...of which 87.3 is right around the middle. One of those scenarios - call it +/- 5 points - is the most likely outcome of the 2019-2020 CBJ season.

 

Now, of course there are outlier scenarios - there was at least one simulation where the Jackets were just absolutely Ottawa level awful - in which Dubois, Atkinson, and Jones missed the whole season, Wennberg didn't recover to something reasonably representing a hockey player, Texier and Bjorkstrand both washed out, their goalies were even worse than projected, etc - but that's highly unlikely. There was at least one simulation where the Jackets had EVERYTHING hit for them - Korpisalo or Merzlikins become a wall, Texier and Bjorkstrand blew the roof off, whatever - and they actually won the damn Cup. Also, highly unlikely. Possible - because models account for that kind of outlier variability of everything going perfect - but really...not likely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those interested in transparency around WAR...And other sports using them. Rather long read, but there are basically 2 models that have their positives and negatives. It's not exact science, and it's not fully adopted by even the analytics community. Here are some things that stick out.

 

https://theathletic.com/552366/2018/10/06/what-is-war-everything-you-need-to-know-about-hockeys-wins-above-replacement-revolution/

 

Why is WAR controversial?

 

Any new stat generally faces some resistance as it makes its way into the mainstream, but WAR is interesting in that it?s contentious even among the stats community.

 

Many in the hockey analytics community believe that the methods by which we are currently calculating WAR are flawed (or relying on flawed assumptions), and that the data we currently have available to us isn?t sufficiently rich enough to properly solve the problem of how to fully capture player value. This is valid, and we?ll get into that in a bit.

 

With the fans and media, though, WAR also does itself no favours due to its complexity. When shot attempts (i.e., Corsi, Fenwick) were first introduced, they were seen as pretty controversial but I think we can all agree that a motivated individual could probably understand the spirit and math behind the stat and why it might be important. WAR is much more opaque and there?s a learning curve to fully understand the math.

 

My concerns regarding EvolvingWild?s model are more conceptual in nature. RAPM makes a lot of sense in the NBA, even over the course of a single season given the relative level of noise in basketball data. Simply put, it?s rare for an elite player in the NBA to get outscored over the course of the season and when it does happen, it?s usually the result of unsustainably hot or cold shooting runs.

 

Hockey, however, is higher variance (given fewer events/goals) and since RAPM is based on goals (at least offensively), EvolvingWild often deems ?strong? offensive players who suffer from low shooting percentages in a given season as rather weak (and vice-versa). As a result, good players who are unlucky will see their WAR suffer, and bad players who are fortunate will see the opposite. This is not as much of an issue with Corsica?s WAR, as the only component that factors in goals is Shooting Talent.

 

As an example, in 2017-18, Sidney Crosby had a negative offensive RAPM. This isn?t the model misbehaving ? it?s by design. Crosby didn?t drive goals for in 2017-18 ? the Penguins goal rate at 5v5 was worse with him on the ice than off. However, the main culprit of this was an on-ice shooting percentage of just 8 percent (Crosby?s career average is 10.6 percent). Since EvolvingWild?s model regresses individual statistics to predict RAPM, and uses predicted RAPM to get to WAR, Crosby only has a barely-positive WAR at even strength (with his individual scoring likely making up for his poor goal impacts).

 

This is a case of the model working as intended and in a descriptive sense, it?s hard to argue a certain player provided high value in a season where they got outscored on the ice. But knowing what we know about hockey, Crosby likely wasn?t the reason the Penguins weren?t great when he was on the ice. The most likely culprit is ?shit happens.?

 

This itself is not a deal breaker. If you?re attempting to make a descriptive statistic (as the Younggrens are), it is reasonable to want the outputs to align with who actually outscored the competition over the time-span you?re calculating WAR over. Furthermore, taking a larger sample of WAR can alleviate this issue, as many unsustainable runs of good or bad luck will revert to normal given a larger sample size.

 

Any other criticisms worth mentioning?

 

A lot of what we?ve discussed aren?t really criticisms ? just context that I believe makes WAR more useful. With that in mind, though, there are a few other things to keep in mind when interpreting the value of WAR. They include, but are not limited to, the following:

 

- Models are not objective and reflect the biases of their makers. If you disagree with modeling assumptions or decisions, you?re probably not going to like the output. And understanding how a model works tends to go a long way into explaining outputs that may be unintuitive.

 

- The player impacts that arise from regressions are estimates and have ?error bars? around them that we don?t typically see. In interpreting WAR results, we need to be respectful of the variance of these estimates. The common rule of thumb is that results within one win of one another are within the ?margin of error,? but in general, the variance of these estimates is not published. As a side note, Tyrel Stokes, a PhD student in Statistics at McGill recently wrote about how to formally test whether the difference between two players? WAR is statistically meaningful, which is pertinent to this discussion

 

- Hockey is incredibly high variance (duh), so results can be noisy from season to season.

 

- Despite the fancy math used to mitigate collinearity, it?s extremely hard to properly allocate value to teammates who spend the vast majority of their time on ice together and very little of it apart.

 

- There are edge situations that are not captured by current models due to the unique property of hockey in allowing changes on the fly (see here and here for an example). It is worth noting that the precise quantitative impact of these situations has not been meaningfully established, so this is more of a pre-emptive concern than anything.

 

TL;DR, this is great fodder for pre-camp chatter, but it's hardly an exact science and despite whatever anyone on this forum says, if you're not on board with WAR specifically, you're not "on the wrong side of the tsunami"...There are a metric ton of flaws with the data and the model. Like with all analytics, it needs to be weighted accordingly and IMO this model doesn't have a ton of weight...Especially after reading the article (where the oh-so-enlightened writer called Buch a shoot first player...among other small errors anyone who actually watched the team would NOT have made).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those interested in transparency around WAR...And other sports using them. Rather long read, but there are basically 2 models that have their positives and negatives. It's not exact science, and it's not fully adopted by even the analytics community. Here are some things that stick out.

 

https://theathletic.com/552366/2018/10/06/what-is-war-everything-you-need-to-know-about-hockeys-wins-above-replacement-revolution/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TL;DR, this is great fodder for pre-camp chatter, but it's hardly an exact science and despite whatever anyone on this forum says, if you're not on board with WAR specifically, you're not "on the wrong side of the tsunami"...There are a metric ton of flaws with the data and the model. Like with all analytics, it needs to be weighted accordingly and IMO this model doesn't have a ton of weight...Especially after reading the article (where the oh-so-enlightened writer called Buch a shoot first player...among other small errors anyone who actually watched the team would NOT have made).

 

I appreciate your posting this, largely because it's good to see you engaging with what I think is a fascinating conversation that you have quite a bit to add to. I'm miffed - candidly - that it's a really roundabout way to basically the same conclusions I've been espousing - models have flaws, they're constantly refined, there's variance and margin for error (which, to the model we're discussings immense credit, he shows and explains), while imperfect, it's a good sense, and so on. This particular critique is interesting to me, though, because it explicitly avoids calling out the model we're discussing because it's not a WAR based model. It's a variant on the more-lauded RAPM model.

 

The criticisms of advanced stats models here are well taken, but also somewhat out of date. Most probabilistic models - good ones for hockey, at least - have already moved to address some of this author's concerns with advanced statistical modeling in hockey. Aggregation-stat models have traditionally struggled with how to quantify defense, for example, so switching from quantifying defense w/Corsi in their aggregation formulae to quantifying using xGF has helped re-calibrate some modeling toward appropriately valuing more defensive-minded or two way players like Mikko Koivu and Ryan Suter.

 

At the end of the day, this is a pretty fun exercise to try and pinpoint where teams will land and why, and it probably won't be terribly far off.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So collinaritilly speaking (with a high variance) Buch is leading us on a path to war with Russia.

 

Eh. Buch is a real interesting case this year.

 

To Pete's point about Buch not being shoot first: we all agree that something flipped in Buch toward the end of last season. One of the things that changed? Buch started shooting the puck a LOT more. I'm not entirely sure where to draw the line or what the event was that trigger this, but...

 

Before 2/1:

33 GP

9G

16P

42 SOG

Avg 18.24 shifts/game

 

After 2/1:

31 GP

12G

22P

77 SOG

Avg 20.4 shifts/game

 

He was literally shooting twice as much per game, and getting results for it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Eh. Buch is a real interesting case this year.

 

To Pete's point about Buch not being shoot first: we all agree that something flipped in Buch toward the end of last season. One of the things that changed? Buch started shooting the puck a LOT more. I'm not entirely sure where to draw the line or what the event was that trigger this, but...

 

Before 2/1:

33 GP

9G

16P

42 SOG

Avg 18.24 shifts/game

 

After 2/1:

31 GP

12G

22P

77 SOG

Avg 20.4 shifts/game

 

He was literally shooting twice as much per game, and getting results for it.

Zibenajad.

 

Zib told Buch he was on a mission to get him 20 goals, he'd get Buch the puck and all Buch had to do was shoot.

 

It's nice to see the uptick but I'm not convinced there's a wholesale change in his preference to pass, and maybe there doesn't need to be... Depending on his linemates. Would love to see him with Chytil and Kravtsov.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Zibenajad.

 

Zib told Buch he was on a mission to get him 20 goals, he'd get Buch the puck and all Buch had to do was shoot.

 

It's nice to see the uptick but I'm not convinced there's a wholesale change in his preference to pass, and maybe there doesn't need to be... Depending on his linemates. Would love to see him with Chytil and Kravtsov.

 

When did he start playing with Zib? It was around February no?

 

Regardless, he started shooting a lot more. Maybe not to his preference, but certainly to his benefit.

 

Interesting to see him with Chytil and Krav - VK seems a strong playmaker and Filip was kinda snakebit for a good chunk of last year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When did he start playing with Zib? It was around February no?

 

Regardless, he started shooting a lot more. Maybe not to his preference, but certainly to his benefit.

 

Interesting to see him with Chytil and Krav - VK seems a strong playmaker and Filip was kinda snakebit for a good chunk of last year.

Probably around when Zucc got traded, he played a lot with Z an CK, IIRC.

 

Chytil needs a partner to help move the puck through the NZ, I don't recall who he played with the most but he's not a chip and chase player, and seemingly too often he was on the rush alone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think a Buch-Chytil-Kravtsov line will be a lot of fun, but very hit and miss.

Loads of talent and offensive potential, but also extremely lightweight.

 

I don't like that. Not a single player to dig the puck out of the corners. Very light weight. I think Lemieux could play an important role along with kreider being the "heavy" on one of the top three lines. You need someone who will get dirty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd like to see Howden centering Kravtsov. I think they both have a unique vision of how plays develope that may compliment eachother.

 

Howden should center Lemieux and Boo. The confusion line. No one knows whats going on. Theyll break up 100 plays a game, half will be their own plays in which theyll fumble away the puck.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't like that. Not a single player to dig the puck out of the corners. Very light weight. I think Lemieux could play an important role along with kreider being the "heavy" on one of the top three lines. You need someone who will get dirty.

 

When you're playing a possession game you don't need to dig the puck out of corners quite as much. And there's no reason to think they can't or won't, Chytil and Kravstov are both 6-2 and One of Buch best asset is escapability coming out of the corners.

 

I think people are too used to seeing this boring, unskilled, meat and potatoes hockey. That's fine for some lines, change of pace, but not for the entire team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When you're playing a position game you don't need to dig the puck out of corners quite as much. And there's no reason to think they can't or won't, Chytil and Kravstov are both 6-2 and One of Buch best asset is escapability coming out of the corners.

 

I think people are too used to seeing this boring, unskilled, meat and potatoes hockey. That's fine for some lines, change of pace, but not for the entire team.

 

Yea but Quinn

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When you're playing a possession game you don't need to dig the puck out of corners quite as much. And there's no reason to think they can't or won't, Chytil and Kravstov are both 6-2 and One of Buch best asset is escapability coming out of the corners.

 

I think people are too used to seeing this boring, unskilled, meat and potatoes hockey. That's fine for some lines, change of pace, but not for the entire team.

 

Sure but Buch, Kravstov, and Chytil are all flyweight players. Buch gets blown up more than anyone I've ever seen. They need to have at least some ability to chip and retrieve because in the NHL you're not stick handling around everyone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now



×
×
  • Create New...