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Statistics can be interesting


Googlie

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grrrr

Content didn't post

Intended to say ......

Perceptions often differ from reality

for example, posters have ragged on Vey for being soft. yet among players with 10 or more games, he is second best on giveaways, with 5 (Virtanen leads in fewest, at 4)

Worst is Edler (at 40) bur a surpising 2nd worst is Henrik, at 31

Similarly with takeaways.

Surprising first is McCann, at 21, followed by Burr and Cracknell at 18

Who'd a thought it?

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Using the number of giveaways in isolation is misleading. Edler plays a significant number of minutes and is often the D who moves the puck up the ice. It is likely that he passes more than most Canucks. Similarly, the Sedins play is centred around puck control, they play a high number of minutes and they have a tendency to pass the puck around a significant number of times. Their total number of giveaways is likely higher than someone like Virtanen or Cracknell.

If you added in a common denominator like giveaways per 60 minutes played, or giveaways as a percentage of total pass attempts, or a giveaway to take-away ratio it would be more meaningful.

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19 minutes ago, Googlie said:

grrrr

Content didn't post

Intended to say ......

Perceptions often differ from reality

for example, posters have ragged on Vey for being soft. yet among players with 10 or more games, he is second best on giveaways, with 5 (Virtanen leads in fewest, at 4)

Worst is Edler (at 40) bur a surpising 2nd worst is Henrik, at 31

Similarly with takeaways.

Surprising first is McCann, at 21, followed by Burr and Cracknell at 18

Who'd a thought it?

Edler and Henrick have the most giveaways, and without even checking I'm also guessing they have the highest TOI?  

Stats are interesting if you know how to read them

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I'm not understanding how giveaway stats relate to a player being 'soft' or not.  

Anyway, while i'm not saying anything about Vey, I've seen enough statistical analysis that attempt to boost the value of marginal players (such as Kyle Wellwood) here to fill a library.  The question is who are these analysts trying to fool, and why?  My first thoughts are 'themselves' and 'ummmm, money?'

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18 minutes ago, Duds said:

Using the number of giveaways in isolation is misleading. Edler plays a significant number of minutes and is often the D who moves the puck up the ice. It is likely that he passes more than most Canucks. Similarly, the Sedins play is centred around puck control, they play a high number of minutes and they have a tendency to pass the puck around a significant number of times. Their total number of giveaways is likely higher than someone like Virtanen or Cracknell.

If you added in a common denominator like giveaways per 60 minutes played, or giveaways as a percentage of total pass attempts, or a giveaway to take-away ratio it would be more meaningful.

Yes, the guys with the most giveaways are the guys who handle the puck the most. And they are normally the best players. The leaders are almost always PMDs (puck-moving defencemen). Here are the league leaders:

1 Subban

2. Burns

3. Doughty

4. Seabrook

5. Chara

6. Karlsson

7. Benn (top forward).

Not a bad list to be on, as it is dominated by Norris trophy winners! As a measure of performance, giveaways is perhaps the most misleading stat in existence. Edler, as the best PMD on the team and as a guy who logs the most minutes, is always going to lead the team in giveaways.

Last year Benning defending the big contract given to Sbisa by pointing out his low giveaway number (despite common perceptions). He was ridiculed by hockey analytics guys as a result. Sbisa did not have many giveaways because he did not carry the puck much.

We would like a number looking at giveaways per time with the puck, or giveaways relative to successful breakout passes, or something like that. On that number Sbisa would not look good. (Nothing against Sbisa, by the way. He has played well since coming back. But he is not a guy you want handling the puck much and he is still overpaid.)

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1 minute ago, TOMapleLaughs said:

I'm not understanding how giveaway stats relate to a player being 'soft' or not.  

Anyway, while i'm not saying anything about Vey, I've seen enough statistical analysis that attempt to boost the value of marginal players (such as Kyle Wellwood) here to fill a library.  The question is who are these analysts trying to fool, and why?  My first thoughts are 'themselves' and 'ummmm, money?'

I don't know if you ever saw the older 80s movie "Mr. Baseball" with Tom Sellek playing an aging American Big Leaguer, who had to go play ball in Japan to keep playing.  There was a point in the movie, just before the character got the news he was no longer wanted in the Big Leagues, where he quoted one of his stats to make himself seem a good hitter.  He quoted some rediculous stat about how he's hitting .300, on Wednesdays, during night games, while the pitcher is in the stretch, and there is a runner on second.  It's the same with hockey stats.  How about, does the guy help our team win?

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1 hour ago, snucks said:

Well Henrik and Edler are on the ice at the same time a lot, so that is not a good thing, but I guess management is unaware or doesn' care about give aways.

Have a look two posts above your own.

James B (+1) breaks things down pretty much the same way I would, regarding high raw giveaway totals and what they actually say about performance.

EDIT: And as far as management goes, I'm sure they are well aware of all this.

I highly doubt that Benning really believes that low raw giveaway totals are indicators of good performance. But he likely tasked Jonathan Wall (Canucks analytics guy) for some positive sounding stats on Sbisa that he could trot out during that presser.

And for a while at least, it worked as he intended and we saw lots of people quoting JB and suggesting that being 5th on the D in giveaways made Sbisa a "real good" player last year.

By the time we saw the backlash from the more stats-savvy community, the fair weather fans had already moved on to the next story. All in all, a nice piece of propaganda/PR work by management.

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1 hour ago, JamesB said:

Yes, the guys with the most giveaways are the guys who handle the puck the most. And they are normally the best players. The leaders are almost always PMDs (puck-moving defencemen). Here are the league leaders:

1 Subban

2. Burns

3. Doughty

4. Seabrook

5. Chara

6. Karlsson

7. Benn (top forward).

 

They all suck, and need to be bought out or traded now!  That kind of play is unforgivable.

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