wai_lai416 Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Sorry for starting a new thread didn't really look thru the others to see if this has been discussed.. but can someone explain to me how Horvat is leading the league in -?? even with his current hot streak with 12 points in his last 10 games.. he's somehow still -6.. with 4 of those points coming from the powerplay.. which means his line contributed 8 goals on even strength but given up 14 in the last 10 games? tbh i haven't been paying attention to WD line matching.. but is he tossing Horvat's line vs other teams top scoring line? and if that's the case.. perhaps that line matching with other teams top line ain't working? with 8 even strength points in his last 10 games.. i'd expect at the very least +/- 0.. not -6.. in a way that's counter productive.. for every point his line scores.. they give up almost 2 points back the other way =/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wai_lai416 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Share Posted January 24, 2016 1 minute ago, chilliwiggins said: he went 29 games with out a goal , that's an easy start. like i said he's -6 in his last 10 games despite having 8 even strength points.. so his line gave up 14 goals in the last 10 games.. that's more than a goal a game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cocanuck Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Line matching hasn't been favorable for horvat line, but a couple of factors here. 1. His line comes out after Sedins who generally are slow to the bench and change after loosing puck in the offensive zone. 2. His wingers are not exactly know for their defensive play. Horvat is a fantastic young player with great work ethic. The numbers would be better if his wingers put the same effort on checking that he does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baumerman77 Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Who cares about +/-? It is a horribly flawed stat (it doesn't account for: quality of competition, quality of linemates, zone starts; not to mention it has been shown to be recorded incorrectly). In this age of analytics there are much better ways to measure "two-way play" or "defensive ability". +/- is rather useless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wai_lai416 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Share Posted January 24, 2016 I don't question Horvat's defensive play nor his effort.. it just seems odd his line gives up so much goal.. perhaps they should try different lines against other teams top line.. isn't that technically what a 3rd line suppose to be? a checking shutdown line Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nas19 Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Horvat was -2 yesterday while Sbisa was +3. That right there should tell you all you need to know about +/- as a statistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wai_lai416 Posted January 24, 2016 Author Share Posted January 24, 2016 2 minutes ago, baumerman77 said: Who cares about +/-? It is a horribly flawed stat (it doesn't account for: quality of competition, quality of linemates, zone starts; not to mention it has been shown to be recorded incorrectly). In this age of analytics there are much better ways to measure "two-way play" or "defensive ability". +/- is rather useless. i agree with you +/- is a flawed stat, then perhaps it should be something the team should be practicing.. like changing lines while the play is going the other way etc etc etc. something they can work on Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darius Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Trial by fire. When Sutter got injured they put 20 year old Bo into a position where he had some tough defensive assignments. I attribute his bad +/- to his inexperience, the revolving list of wingers he had up till recently, the sub par D core they have had all year and the ~25 game stretch where he struggled offensively. Perfect storm + growing pains. Sutter would have sheltered him if he were in the lineup, but at the same time I think that Bo has gained invaluable experience during the past 3 months. Finally, those fans of other teams ragging on the kid for his +/- would take him in a second if they could. He is going to be a special player. Edit : forgot to mention that the kid reminds me of #16 for some reason. Trev elevated his game during the playoffs - Bo did the same in junior and even in last years playoffs vs the Flames where even the Alberta loving CBC commentators said the kid was performing better than the glorified Calgary rookies. Interestingly enough Trevor was a career minus player. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick_theRyper Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Lol bad sesin line changes.... Helps when the other teams breaking into ypur zone and the puck is in the net by the time you hit the hash marks.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baumerman77 Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 I think one of the biggest misconception of +/- is that it accurately measures two-way play. Most people think the better the plus/minus a player has on his team the better, but this isn't the case. Take for example a bad team, where would you expect their top defenceman to be on their teams plus/minus? Near the top? No, in all likelihood the teams top defender would be near the middle perhaps a little lower. That is because of two things: ice time bias and the fact that plus/minus is a team stat. Because the best defender is likely to be on the ice for the most minutes and with a team that isn't good we could expect his plus/minus to be very poor. Now the fact that he is the best defender will slightly bring up his plus/minus but not to the top of the team. Anyway this is often what happens (although there are exceptions). My point is plus/minus doesn't tell us much about anything, and a lot of our preconceived notions about it are wrong. There are just better ways to measure what is claims to measure. http://edmontonjournal.com/sports/hockey/nhl/cult-of-hockey/just-how-horse-$&!#-is-the-nhls-official-plus-minus-stat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGuardian_ Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 It is just the face offs, he is doing a fair amount of defensive zone FO's. And while there are more detailed stats, +/- can be an indicator of defensive responsibility or offensive prowess, the role of the player has to be looked at as well. Sometimes the entire line is looked at as well Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
on the cycle Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 I hate +/- because it doesn't accurately show a players impact. You could get an assist but no +, and you could make a bad play get to the bench and not take a -. It's a stat that should be forgotten. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down by the River Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 The OP is making a good point re: looking into why +/- is such a misleading stat. Nobody in here is going to argue that its a good metric, that's been thrown out the window. The question becomes, why is it a poor metric? The answer is because players often receive a minus despite having no opportunity to impact the play. The question then becomes, why are they having no opportunity to impact the play? What is going on with poorly timed line-changes? Is the desperation to get Bo on the ice against a team's top line resulting in guys taking themselves out of a good defensive position at the expense of putting Bo on the ice in a bad position? Its easy to jump on someone quoting a +/- stat, but I don't think the OP was trying to cite the stat to make a judgement about Bo's play, it was a question about the context of the game that is creating such a biased stat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Outsiders Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 thanks for starting this thread, as I was to wondering the same thing. Don't really like the stat IMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shazzam Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 It's not a great stat to judge a player. But when you're at -23, it's a bit more than just bad luck. He has been on the ice for 45 even strength goals against. That's almost 1 per game. But he has only been on the ice for 22 goals for even strength. At the end of the day, he is a young player who started to get more and tougher minutes. He struggled out of the gate but I certainly see him to be a solid 2 way center for years to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boddy604 Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Yes, Horvat's +/- isn't great BUT he's taking over 50% of the team overall defensive zone face offs and last I looked, over 85% of the defensive zone face offs vs top 6 opponents. So he's being put out to defend vs the best of the best. If his point production continues and Sutter returns, that +/- will balance out over time as Sutter will then man some of that responsibility but any player who is used as a defensive forward will always have a lower +/- than a player used as a goal scorer just because they have more defensive responsibility which inevitably means the other team will score more likely when they're on the ice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McCannon Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 40 minutes ago, cocanuck said: Line matching hasn't been favorable for horvat line, but a couple of factors here. 1. His line comes out after Sedins who generally are slow to the bench and change after loosing puck in the offensive zone. 2. His wingers are not exactly know for their defensive play. Horvat is a fantastic young player with great work ethic. The numbers would be better if his wingers put the same effort on checking that he does. Vrbata has actually been a very good 2 way player in his career, and Baer has been backchecking quite hard if you have watched closely. Rather, I think (and its just observation as I haven't looked at advanced stats), that the combination of not scoring early, then also having alot of defensive zone draws and having Sutter out of the lineup, has Bo drawing tougher competition and tougher zone starts. Henrik hasn't been great this year in the circle, then was hurt for a while, same time Sutter was, so one can surmise (again, without looking at the advanced stats), that he's likely been taking alot of heavy pressure situation defensive draws. Certainly (+/-) is a team stat so his wingers have alot of the blame to share, but so do the dmen and we know what's happened there as well. Confluence of events. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mll Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Baertschi is Horvat's most regular linemate but he is only a -1. Baertschi is not being sheltered - his O-zone/D-zone ratio is 47% which is even less than Dorsett's 50%. WillieD even said that it's Baertschi's solid D-game that kept him in the lineup because they were able to use him in a shutdown role with Horvat. So the difference comes from the time away from each other. The other day Bergevin in his recent presser said (roughly) "When you play not to lose you lose. I tell my guys they need to play to win". The problem is that as soon as the team has a one goal lead instead of staying on the attack WillieD goes in d-mode and shortens his bench (Baertschi sits) and he changes his line combination. Horvat is then the one that gets the assignment to preserve that lead and more often than not they get scored on. I think he also got a few of those minuses when the team had an extra attacker on the ice with an EN and he also got a few in OT. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apollo Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 40 minutes ago, Nas19 said: Horvat was -2 yesterday while Sbisa was +3. That right there should tell you all you need to know about +/- as a statistic. Yes sbisa played well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gstank29 Posted January 24, 2016 Share Posted January 24, 2016 Lots of empty net goals and times where he steps on the ice then a goal is scored. It's a useless stat especially when its a + for an empty net goal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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