Eric Johnson- Advanced Stats Nightmare

[Weave]

@Brawndo  I am not sure you can say this with any degree of confidence…..

“Granato isn’t making the most effective lineup decisions for the team based analytics, AKA He doesn’t always listen to them. “

…..if you also understand this to be factual…

“They do have both private data they gather themselves and data that is exclusive to NHL Teams “

We have no idea what data Granato may or may not be using.
 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Weave

[French Collection]

I met a guy last week who does analytics for the Leafs, Marlies and Raptors.

He explained that there are many guys at each game compiling data. The tasks are different for him every time. He will have a player or two to track and there are often specific things to track, that can change from game to game, player to player.

He gets different players in order to prevent biases. Even though he was a young guy (30ish) he used pen and paper and later transferred everything to his tablet to submit his report.

Things like possession time, zone time are tracked using stopwatches. He reviews video a bit to clarify/confirm a few issues but most of his work is live, he says you cannot get the whole picture from video only.

He does home games only for the Leafs/Raptors but he does travel with the Marlies since they have two buses going.

[Pimlach]

11 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

My problem with most fancy stats is that they are so often team-dependent.  Good teams have good fancy stats and bad teams don't.  For example, take our friend Eichel.  In Buffalo, his advanced numbers were lousy, just like the team.  Put him on LV and his stats are now wonderful.  

What I find more intriguing when I look at hockey stats is finding positive and negative anomalies.  For example, when Ullmark played here, the Sabres played at a playoff level and when any other goalie was in the net, the Sabres were awful.  It illustrated how vital Ullmark was to the team.  Too bad management didn't see it that way.  

Hockey is pretty simple.  The more shots you get on the net, especially in HD areas, the more likely to win most nights.  Have a goalie who can consistently stop 90% of the shots he faces and you'll win most nights.  Help the goalie by having a defense that limits shots and limits shots from HD areas, the better your chances are.  

The Sabres are 29th in shots per game at 27.8.  The Sabres are 17th in shots allowed at 30.4. Our differential of -2.6 is 25th in the NHL.  (Stats from NHL.com)

The Sabres are 19th in HDCF at 178 and 24th in HDCA at 199.  Our HDCF% of 47.21% is 23rd in the NHL.  (Stats from Natural stat trick)

Goaltending stats - 5 on 5 Save % - Buffalo .904 (NHL average .918); overall save % - Buffalo .890 (NHL average .897) (Stats from Hockey-reference.com) 

I don't need too many advanced stats to show us that the Sabres don't shoot enough, do a mediocre job of getting shots off from high-danger areas, and do a lousy job of suppressing shots and high-danger shots.

Now add that to the Sabres below-average goaltending and terrible PP, it's amazing this team is even close to 500.  

The anomalies are Mitts and JJP who are contributing at both ends of the ice.  Ryan Johnson who has been a positive upgrade on defense.  UPL vs Comrie and Levi.  UPL has a .914 save % while Levi (.876) and Comrie (.877).  This is just like Ullmark vs anyone else during his time here.  On the bad are Krebs and Clifton (no fancy stats needed)

A real GM would be working hard to fix these obvious issues.  Levi would be sent down.  Clifton would be in the pressbox.  Ryan Johnson would be playing a regular shift.  Krebs would be sent down as well.    The GM would waive Comrie and find a veteran backup to play with UPL for the remainder of the season.  The GM would also acquire a center to replace Krebs and Jost and at least one winger to upgrade KO and or Z.  

Excellent post.

Fancy stats are useful but probably should not be taken as a single defining entity.  The eye test tells us that Mitts and JJP have been the best forwards, that is backed up by data.   Sometimes the supporting cast has a lot to do with bad or good fancy stats - doesn't make the the stats wrong but it can explain a lot - per your Eichel example.  

Look at the players that were decent before they came here, struggled here, and then went back to being solid players when they left. 

Someday we will get enough NHL talent, coupled with the right coaching, to turn this around.   I still think we are close on the player side if we make the right additions.  

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by Pimlach

[PerreaultForever]

5 hours ago, Brawndo said:

Mixed results 

The prospect pool looks a lot better since they started helping with the draft.

There were a lot of picks, so there are a lot of prospects, but so far how good they are remains to be determined. 

imo there is only one way to evaluate success in drafting and that is to wait 3-4 years and then go back and look at the whole draft. Is your guy better than the next 10-20 picks made? If he is, they got it right, if he isn't they blew it. It's all relative to the entire draft pool.

Peterka looks like a win. Quinn remains to be seen but at the moment we might have blown that one. Rossi, Perfetti, Mercer, Schneider, maybe Quinn comes back from injury and is better than all of them but right now no.

In the case of Rosen, Wyatt Johnson would have been a win. Time will tell if Rosen is a complete fail or not. 

I'm not saying you have to get every single thing right, but in overall terms you have to do better than the opposition and better than the average odds if you want to claim your analytics get the job done. 

Personally I still think you need the Rick Dudley type to point to guys and say "this guy's got it, that guy doesn't" and then you can run the analytics and if it meshes up that's your guy for sure. As far as I know, there is no analytic for character/attitude. 

[French Collection]

6 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Peterka looks like a win. Quinn remains to be seen but at the moment we might have blown that one. Rossi, Perfetti, Mercer, Schneider, maybe Quinn comes back from injury and is better than all of them but right now no.

Blown that one?

Early returns since all of these guys have fewer than 200 games played.

Perfetti has the best PPG avg at .61. He is skilled but softer than VO, no thanks.

Rossi is finally an NHLer but only has 11 points in 19 games this year.

Mercer has regressed, 6 points in 19 games.

Schneider is looking like a top 4 Dman down the road but is 6th in TOI on that team.

We will never know with Quinn but there is a good chance he would be putting up numbers similar to JJP this year. He is at .51 PPG so far in his career.

[Brawndo]

11 hours ago, Weave said:

@Brawndo  I am not sure you can say this with any degree of confidence…..

“Granato isn’t making the most effective lineup decisions for the team based analytics, AKA He doesn’t always listen to them. “

…..if you also understand this to be factual…

“They do have both private data they gather themselves and data that is exclusive to NHL Teams “

We have no idea what data Granato may or may not be using.
 

Being a part of a conversation with a member of the Sabres Analytics Staff gives me a little degree of confidence to make that statement. 

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, French Collection said:

Blown that one?

Early returns since all of these guys have fewer than 200 games played.

Perfetti has the best PPG avg at .61. He is skilled but softer than VO, no thanks.

Rossi is finally an NHLer but only has 11 points in 19 games this year.

Mercer has regressed, 6 points in 19 games.

Schneider is looking like a top 4 Dman down the road but is 6th in TOI on that team.

We will never know with Quinn but there is a good chance he would be putting up numbers similar to JJP this year. He is at .51 PPG so far in his career.

As I said, "remains to be seen" because of his stupid off season injury. The other guys are all currently contributing to their team's success so FOR NOW they are ahead. We shall see how it ends up when Quinn actually returns. Given the injury probably can't make a definitive on this for another year after that as well. 

[thewookie1]

32 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

As I said, "remains to be seen" because of his stupid off season injury. The other guys are all currently contributing to their team's success so FOR NOW they are ahead. We shall see how it ends up when Quinn actually returns. Given the injury probably can't make a definitive on this for another year after that as well. 

I can’t put Rossi ahead of Quinn since Quinn has 2 full AHL and 1 NHL season in him whereas Rossi has not anywhere near that.

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, thewookie1 said:

I can’t put Rossi ahead of Quinn since Quinn has 2 full AHL and 1 NHL season in him whereas Rossi has not anywhere near that.

AHL don't mean squat, that's pretty much the point. 

Rossi is on pace to put up more points than Quinn did for us last year so I put him ahead. For the moment. 

[bg17]

5 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

As I said, "remains to be seen" because of his stupid off season injury. The other guys are all currently contributing to their team's success so FOR NOW they are ahead. We shall see how it ends up when Quinn actually returns. Given the injury probably can't make a definitive on this for another year after that as well. 

So because of a “stupid off season injury” the Sabres might have blown the draft pick? Three years later? Good heavens. 

[mjd1001]

1 hour ago, bg17 said:

So because of a “stupid off season injury” the Sabres might have blown the draft pick? Three years later? Good heavens. 

Agree. Does he have a lot to prove? Of course he does. But after a decent rookie season last year, I wouldn't really entertain the thoughts that they might have blown the draft pick at this moment.

Blowing a draft pick doesn't mean who has more points or who is better right now.... If you're judging whether or not the draft pick was wasted, you have to take into account his injury and the missed time.

[PerreaultForever]

8 hours ago, bg17 said:

So because of a “stupid off season injury” the Sabres might have blown the draft pick? Three years later? Good heavens. 

FFS what part of the word "maybe" do you not understand? For the umpteenth time I said "so far" and "time will tell". 

This kind of selective critique is what makes the internet a bag of s%%t. 

[bg17]

Just now, PerreaultForever said:

FFS what part of the word "maybe" do you not understand? For the umpteenth time I said "so far" and "time will tell". 

This kind of selective critique is what makes the internet a bag of s%%t. 

The desperate need to work in even a potential negative at every turn (ref maybe/so far/time will tell) is what makes the internet a bag of s%%t.

[JoeSchmoe]

1 minute ago, PerreaultForever said:

FFS what part of the word "maybe" do you not understand? For the umpteenth time I said "so far" and "time will tell". 

This kind of selective critique is what makes the internet a bag of s%%t. 

I think the thing that has most people scratching their heads is that Quinn was likely the top guy out of the group you mentioned (or at worst 2nd) until he got hurt.

[PerreaultForever]

5 minutes ago, JoeSchmoe said:

I think the thing that has most people scratching their heads is that Quinn was likely the top guy out of the group you mentioned (or at worst 2nd) until he got hurt.

I think that when you say "most people" you mean Sabres fans with a bias. There are people here who pronounce prospects as stars long before they earn it. I don't buy in to that until I see it on NHL ice. 

Spinning this into me saying Quinn is some sort of a bust is simply a twist on my words. We were speaking in hypotheticals about how to evaluate the success of analytics in drafts. I merely said at this point he doesn't look like the best choice. After the injury he might come back and show that he is the right choice. But assuming it's a fact before it happens is just wrong. Because of the injury I even give him an extra year before that pronouncement. But it's all hypothetical at this point. 

[JoeSchmoe]

Anyone see that nightmare of a defensive play?

[JoeSchmoe]

Last year's and this year's 5 on 5 expected goals %.

For some reason Kale Clague looks to be wearing the career AHL'er label, but based on his reliable meat and potatoes play, he needs a chance, given how poorly our two FA's having been doing. Pair him up with Ryan Johnson on the 3rd pairing and we're looking as good or better on the back end as last year.

  

[sabresparaavida]

On 11/28/2023 at 2:51 PM, PerreaultForever said:

I think that when you say "most people" you mean Sabres fans with a bias. There are people here who pronounce prospects as stars long before they earn it. I don't buy in to that until I see it on NHL ice. 

Spinning this into me saying Quinn is some sort of a bust is simply a twist on my words. We were speaking in hypotheticals about how to evaluate the success of analytics in drafts. I merely said at this point he doesn't look like the best choice. After the injury he might come back and show that he is the right choice. But assuming it's a fact before it happens is just wrong. Because of the injury I even give him an extra year before that pronouncement. But it's all hypothetical at this point. 

Part of it is the language that you used in your earlier post. “We mighta blown that one” really comes off as he might be a bust.  As a reader, it definitely a lot closer to Quinn being a possible bust than “at this point he might not be the best choice”. 
 

In the NHL draft, you can’t expect a GM to pick the best remaining player on the board. There are great players that fall every year, some going in the 3rd-7th and in a redraft years later would end up top 5, but that doesn’t mean that the good players picked before them are “blown picks”.  
 

Back to your actual points, I am still very content with the selection of Quinn. He had .51 PPG last year, which is a solid rookie season. Along with that, the history of his development has always been a moderate first year in the league, and an explosive second year. Hard to say that would continue in the NHL, but I still would have expected an uptick in production pre-injury. I’m not expecting a ton this year, but I have confidence he’ll be better than 3/4 of those players next year. 
 

 

[PerreaultForever]

11 hours ago, sabresparaavida said:

Part of it is the language that you used in your earlier post. “We mighta blown that one” really comes off as he might be a bust.  As a reader, it definitely a lot closer to Quinn being a possible bust than “at this point he might not be the best choice”. 
 

In the NHL draft, you can’t expect a GM to pick the best remaining player on the board. There are great players that fall every year, some going in the 3rd-7th and in a redraft years later would end up top 5, but that doesn’t mean that the good players picked before them are “blown picks”.  
 

Back to your actual points, I am still very content with the selection of Quinn. He had .51 PPG last year, which is a solid rookie season. Along with that, the history of his development has always been a moderate first year in the league, and an explosive second year. Hard to say that would continue in the NHL, but I still would have expected an uptick in production pre-injury. I’m not expecting a ton this year, but I have confidence he’ll be better than 3/4 of those players next year. 
 

 

Sure, whatever. Who the F cares after watching that Detroit game. 

[JoeSchmoe]

I wonder how last night goes if EJ plays? It'd be nice if we could platoon him and Clifton until the end of the year. It'd be even nicer to get an upgrade on one or both of them and sit them until the end of the year. If only a GM could be so quick to admit where they went wrong.

[GASabresIUFAN]

When has this GM acquired a veteran player that has improved this team since Tuch? Do you really trust him to upgrade the players he just brought in?

[PromoTheRobot]

27 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

When has this GM acquired a veteran player that has improved this team since Tuch? Do you really trust him to upgrade the players he just brought in?

You don't think E. Johnson improved this team??