Hockey Stats pieces

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http://www.japersrink.com/2012/2/11/2791943/on-the-randomness-of-plus-minus

I am not a fan of using a player's plus/minus as a barometer of their play on the ice. However, many coaches, players and fans disagree -- and that is OK, but the metric is far from perfect.

On the randomness of plus/minus - Japers' Rink

I haven't been impressed at all with Ryan Kesler this postseason, and not many people are.

Kesler's "Disappointing" Postseason | CanucksArmy

http://canucksarmy.com/2012/4/18/my-clouded-subjective-view-on-ryan-kesler

From time-to-time, I'll find myself surfing aimlessly throughout the hockey blogging world in search of articles, discussions, and other interesting stuff. In doing so, I'll occassionally find that others have referenced or linked to my blog. Typically, the link or reference will relate to the even strength data that I've been publishing periodically throughout the season. There seems to be a decided preference for EV tied and EV close data over the raw numbers.

Shots, Fenwick and Corsi

You can't swing a cat on the internet without hitting a goaltender apologist. Every time that a goaltender has a bad year in terms of save percentage, frightening and unrecognizable excuses come squirting out of every orifice of the hockey internet . A defensible rationalization would be "He was just unlucky, the shooters made their shots this year. Relax." But you never hear that one. It is always the defensemen , coaches, or perceived tactical changes that take the internet beatdown .

The 'Shot Quality' Fantasy

http://vhockey.blogspot.com/2009/07/shot-quality-fantasy.html

I thought I would take a quick look at the effect of defensemen on save percentage, relative to their teammates. This is just for 5v5 in the NHL during the past two seasons. To do this I used Desjardins' terrific behindthenet statistics site . I arbitrarily set the cutoff at 30 games played, and grabbed the 08/09 and 09/10 data.

Forest v. Trees

Positional Shot Quality

[Note: I had my curiosity piqued the other day, and I ended up writing this article. Since I don't have a blog, I thought I'd post it here. Thanks to Vic and crew. Hopefully I'll be able to contribute more in the future. - Sunny Mehta] Shot quality at even strength has been a point of debate around these parts lately. Some folks have built shot quality models.

Zone Time

From 1999/2000 through the 2001/2002 seasons, the NHL recorded zone times and published them on their game sheets . I don't know why the NHL stopped making this information publicly available, then again I don't understand a lot of the things that they do, I suppose they have their reasons. Zone time and possession are terms that are often used interchangeably by hockey coaches, and I think we all realize why; having a bit more than your share of touches in the neutral ice pachinko game doesn't represent much of an advantage. But having meaningful possession moving forward, and in the offensive zone, that often ends well for you. When Mike Babcock says "Possession is everything." we know that it's hyperbole, and we know that he's not talking about one of his defencemen standing behind his own net with the puck. Unfortunately the NHL never broke this down by game situation, so the PP stuff is in there too.