Wednesday Morning Fly By: The Flyers Were Called Lucky? He's a Witch!

Interesting, it doesn’t really mention the Flyers’ save percentage. I would think that would have to increase, right? So even if the Flyer’s shooting percentage goes down, wouldn’t it possibly get cancelled out by an increase in save %?

Two other things that kind of bug me about the conclusions drawn in that article:

1) All of the data is presented together, so it looks kind of cherry-picked when its presented by category.

2) This statement:

More and more, NHL hockey is about puck possession, and those who are consistently in control are the legitimately strong teams, who will almost doubtlessly wind up on top when all 82 games are said and done.

There’s no evidence presented on how strongly puck possession correlates to wins. Intuitively, it makes sense but for an article using statistics to draw conclusions, it seems pretty thin to present that statement without support.

I’m very new to watching hockey, and even newer to following hockey statistics. I’m going to trust that a guy writing for Hockey Prospectus knows more about stats than I do, and if he says the Flyers are getting lucky, he’s more qualified to make that statement than I am to say they’re not getting lucky. I read that article carefully, because I like to know how “stats people” come to their conclusions, and it seemed valid to me. If it isn’t, I wouldn’t know, because I’m just beginning to attempt to learn about this stuff. I also know my limitations and realize that I will never be as good at interpreting the numbers as some here are, and I honestly don’t have the interest in numbers that those guys do. I believe that statistical analysis tells us more about the game than just watching the game does, because numbers aren’t biased like human brains are, so I guess I “buy into” this analysis.

As far as what I took away from the article, I believe that Mr. Vollman was trying to prove that the Flyers are due to regress. I believe that the Flyers are probably closer to “middle-of-the-pack” than “first-place-team.” I can’t explain why, it’s just a feeling I have in my hockey-n00b brain. I might be wrong. At any rate, I do believe in pure luck playing a role in a team’s success, and to me, if a team is doing better than the numbers say they should be, it’s not that the numbers are wrong. It’s more likely (to me anyway) that luck is playing a role. But like I said, I am too ignorant what the numbers are saying to be able to criticize what a guy who writes about numbers for a living says. I’m not saying his words should be taken as gospel, but I just can’t refute what he says myself, so I will accept his conclusion until someone tells me otherwise or I learn more about it.

However, even though I know that the team probably isn’t this good in reality, I enjoy watching them, watching the rookies grow up, watching the beautiful shows that Jagr and Giroux put on, etc. They’re an enjoyable team to watch, and I believe that I will enjoy watching them even when they begin to regress.

what other teams would be interesting to watch in any category, unlucky or lucky

As for this part, I’m not exactly sure what you mean. I’m sure most teams are interesting to watch, even if they’re getting unlucky, but I only have the time to watch the Flyers. I’m interested in other teams in that I follow specific players on my fantasy team. I watch some highlights of Red Wings games, for example, because I have Jimmy Howard on my team. But I don’t think I’d watch a regular season Wings game on TV. I might go to one, if I happened to be in Detroit. And I would definitely watch every game if I was born in Michegan, because I would likely be a Wings fan. The Red Wings are one of the “unlucky” teams listed. The Predators are another “lucky” team. I follow them in the same capacity that I follow the Wings, because I also have Pekka Rinne on my fantasy team. So I guess I’m moderately interested in both teams, but only because they affect me in some way.

how would one go about proving it? Look at the defenseman in question and their turnover tendencies before coming over to the flyers? looking at Lavvy’s defenseman and any turnover issues in Carolina and NYI? etc

Do we have stats on +/- turnovers Vs takeaways? I seem to remember us being a very takeaway positive team in the regular season last year.

Plus two short handed goals right? In one game…. flukulele.

Oh yeah definitely not comfortable. I’ll go outside in the winter without a jacket just to try to cool down and still be over heated.

It’s not bad, there are a couple garages if you can’t find street parking around there as well.

I have only been there twice and it was a few years ago. I remember walking several blocks to get to the car. I believe we parked in a garage, but don’t remember exactly where.

Yet the awsomness of claude giroux with jagr just gives the finger to this assumption

At this point in the season, in tied Flyers games there have been 400 shot events at even strength — 196 by the Flyers and 204 by their opponents.

Like you say, 400 coinflips leaves some room for noise (standard deviation would be 10), but it’s not a tiny sample either.

Yeah, although I think part of his point is that the sample is cut down considerably by looking only at tied games, and only at even strength.

But there are still more ES-tied Corsi events than total goals (by about a factor of 4), so like you say, it’s better than goal scoring.

I’d be curious to see analysis like what JLikens did looking at where the crossover is for using Corsi vs Corsi tied vs Fenwick tied. I remember seeing that Fenwick gets to be better than Corsi at large samples (~3600 minutes or so), but I don’t remember seeing whether there are sample sizes small enough that Corsi total is better than Corsi tied.

If you believe the team’s true shooting % is 12.2% than you wouldn’t believe this has been variance or luck. That’s fine, I just disagree.

I can’t comment on the second half of this, but for the first: Yes, from the time it was 2-0 in Carolina doesn’t count. Then the counter starts again at 2-1 and then stops again in the second when its 3-1.

Also remove any time it was 2-1 or 3-2 when teams were on the powerplay/penalty kill. (seemingly most of the end of the game)

So all in all the Carolina game added significantly less data (I assume) than a normal game would.

loaded question

Pumpkin, my parents keep it seasonal.

Sorry.

Actually, it does get easier after the first time. Wait. What are we talking about?

In all seriousness though, once a person starts to understand that most of these “advanced” metrics stem from simple counting stats everything gets a lot easier. Now where you take them from there, you can make it as complicated as you want.

NI … NI!

Oh, it absolutely is.

But where I argue most often is here. I don’t much have to worry about the best argument when I can win on the weak one :)

didn’t those drunks say they were uploading that chart?

Oh. I can’t remember which two attributes were connected, but not with an arrow. I remember thinking “those two attributes are the same stinking thing,” whatever they were.

Good point. I didn’t think this through. I was assuming that if one is disciplined, he is also hard-working. Didn’t consider the inverse.