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For reference: There are statistics that teams can keep and people measure which may or may not be useful. I have no problem with someone having their own numbers to track that s/he thinks are useful. However, the most common advanced stats are that common for pretty good reasons: they are easy to measure and serve as a solid proxy for important parts of the game that correspond to winning. As we noted, based on simple raw numbers and on the most common advanced stats, there was no excuse for Botterill to have wasted Pegula's money on Frolik and Simmonds, let alone have Thompson and Mittlestadt in the NHL yet, and really devalues getting Sobotka and, to a lesser extent, Berglund in the ROR steal deal. For those with inside information better than mine, how much of the analytics side was Botterill using invalid statistics, rationalisation for a bad move, or just plain ignorance that led to the ignoramus-like moves? For everyone, what are some statistics and/or representations of data that you believe are largely valid? I am here to learn and understand what people think on a myriad of topics related to the numbers.

The Sabres are decent at goal prevention but the goalies sv% are mediocre at best which has helped us stay out of the playoffs this year. My takeaway is that our defense might actually be fixed for the most part but it isn't enough to drag up other parts of our game.

Pending Admin approval, I created a new club so that we can have a repository for statistics references and discussion of the methodology, quality, etc. When I add a stat to the discussions, I will always give the simplest way to arrive at a variant of the stat, some more complex adjustments, etc. I will also try to add evaluation to the discussions. I have access to the very earliest of hockey data analysis, even pre-dating my own from 1992. I have the original computations used in The Hockey News for the columns, "For Argument's Sake." These are very primitive and date back to when a $2500 Atari 400 was close to top-of-the-line. For example Goaltender Perseverance ratings: (Save pct *6 + average shots against / game) / 0.6 Created: 1981 Inspiration: Avoid using GAA for comparing goaltenders because good goaltenders on bad teams look worse than bad goaltenders on good teams. Logic: Save Percentage is generally a more predictable long-term, team-independent statistic than GAA. Add in the shots against per game to measure workload; thus the same save percentage for a goaltender on a weaker team that surrenders more shots will show a higher perseverance rating and therefore better performance. Advantages: First goaltender stat to try to rate goaltenders by combining personal performance and workload; found goaltenders who were over-rated by GAA who were terrible but played on very defencive teams. (Prototype: Pete Peeters later in his career) Disadvantages: Rated all shots equally; proportions were derived to rescale goaltenders to the THN staff's perceptions and evaluations. (Prototype: Tom Barrasso early in his career) Common Adjustments: Varying the dependence on the shot rates; incorporating shot difficulty; incorporating situational issues, such as a two-man advantage. I did a pile of stuff when I got access to our old Sun machine at the MSU Math Department (the Solaris beta OS). I did a lot of work on what we call analytics back on my old Amiga in the 1990s. Most of this stuff has been largely superseded by modern analytics, but they are still pretty accurate, simple enough to compute, and easy enough to understand that I like to use them for basic analysis just to get a rough idea whenever I run into a claim that looks either counter-intuitive or completely out of whack.

... Grit, Tenacity, and Size. How should they be viewed at the draft?

As soon as the segment is on their site, I'll post it. It was a brilliant break-down of the Sabres' current state with measured and properly analyzed solutions for the problems the team faces. Sorry, I don't have the details in my brain. He said the goal-tending has under performed 5v5, that we're over utilizing low-value players, too many replacement or below-replacement level players.

It has been suggested that conversations that use statistics outside of the standard things such as goals, assists, minutes played, penalty minutes, and +/-... be removed to the club section of Sabrespace and off the main forum. So stats such as corsi, PDO, goals per 60, WAR would be not used in Main Forum discussions any longer. Vote in the poll accordingly.

I've heard a fair amount of Lose for Hughes talk, but the Atlantic is shaping up to be a division of extremes. How do you see things shaping up in the division next year and where do the Sabres fit in?

From the Athletic: https://theathletic.com/415611/2018/07/05/an-advanced-stats-primer-with-naturalstattricks-brad-timmins/ It covers more than just CORSI.

? EDIT 11/2: It's going to be close!