It's funny looking at these hockey metrics. About half the people at the top of tese stats have no business being ranked among the best in the game at anything.
What are some examples? Is the error the metric itself or are the users of it reading too much into one metric when one is supposed to look at many to put everything into context?
How do you measure a grind line shift that doesn't result in a shot in goal but has the defense watching their back and running around and gets the fans into the game.
That's not even an advanced metric. That's simply TOP in the offensive zone.
Offense and defense being played simultaneously, players shifting on the fly for both teams, trying to distinguish what constitutes a quality shot on goal versus an easy save. I can see where metrics have their place in baseball, but I'm struggling to think of how hockey could be any more impossible to apply meaningful metrics to.
What you've described illustrates why it's more difficult to apply metrics to hockey than baseball, and why they can't be as advanced, and why there can't be as many of them, and why they are often abused by people. But....
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Stats-obsessed fans can try to reduce it to metrics but there's just too many variables for it to be meaningful in hockey.
....there are still some there. It doesn't have to be just two camps: metric deniers and stats-obsessed fans. There can be a balanced approach, and metrics can be a small part of that balance. Metrics, while imperfect, remove bias and can reveal latent things that we simply don't notice.
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More than anything I think fans on forums tend to overly rely on statistics (and not just the advanced metrics stuff) to support an opinion they have on a player they really don't get to see play that often.
I agree. And I think there are very, very few people on the internet who employ metrics correctly. Most just twist and abuse them, and reapply biases that metrics take out.
Which only further proves my point, if anyone bothered to keep Holmstrom's role in mind.
Except of course that we don't have 8/9 HOFers ahead of him this time and we might need a guy with more value in his position. 6-7 HOF forwards can carry a bit of dead weight.
We have great front-net-players at Mule and Bert. We have a superb playmaker at Datsyuk. What we need are the pointmen (Lidström & Rafalski level) and a right-handed sniper (Semin?).
The only time he is slightly effective is on the PP. And that's a weakness too. The Wings PP is too one-dimensional, predictable and slow. With a change of players, the coaching staff are forced to come up with a new system. There is no reason they shouldn't be looking at the most effective PP's in the league and take some inspiration from that. With the skill the Wings have, they should be able to be versatile and effective. One major point to improve for next year.
Teams who have had quality power plays this year...it wasn't so much about having a net presense. They either threw out a line of crazy skill...like a Philadelphia, Pittsburgh or Vancouver...or you see a team like Florida or Nashville that used a big shooting defenseman. San Jose plays a puck control game and they've got some good shooters and puck movers on defense. Edmonton has a young skilled team and didn't really have a prototypical QB at the point. They had an aging Ryan Smyth as well...obviously a comparable net presense to Homer but isn't what he used to be.
What I liked with Nashville's power play when we saw them in the playoffs was while they had Suter and Weber at the top...they moved the puck but they also moved players around the zone and they'd give you different looks and you have guys trying to move into dead areas to set up backdoor plays in the circles or near the net.
When Homer was at his best, the power play thrived. As he's slowed down, we've seen the Wings power play stagnate quite a bit. Losing Nick now and Rafalski the year before hurts on the back end perhaps you get a guy like Suter and Kronwall has developed as a scoring threat and Smith can become a bigger part of the attack in '12-13...their power play can evolve some. I just don't think keeping Homer makes their power play better...it's obvious his best years are behind him.
I'm not sure we'll see a big shift on the powerplay with or without Homer, though. Instead of Homer going to the net, Babcock will be sending Bert/Cleary/Franzen out there with instructions to go stand in front of the net.
Holmstrom standing in front of the net on the PP doesn't make us predictable, unless he's using the force or something. He's not making our dmen and other forwards pass it back and forth lackadaisically and predictably. I can pretty much map out where the puck will go for an entire shift before we even enter the zone. It's pathetic.
Holmstrom standing in front of the net on the PP doesn't make us predictable, unless he's using the force or something. He's not making our dmen and other forwards pass it back and forth lackadaisically and predictably. I can pretty much map out where the puck will go for an entire shift before we even enter the zone. It's pathetic.
Agree. The right-handed sniper is really a BIG missing piece. Goalies know always that we shoot only from point to make a tip-in for Homer, or shoot with a lefty (Datsyk, Zetterberg) from the right side where they are playmaking, and that is always easier for left glove-hand goalies. Because there's no threat on the left side (right-handed shooter), the goalies don't have to make that big side-movement to play that away. They just know that we can't shoot there. They wait that point shot, or shot to the glove.
Every goalie's weak spot is the stick side, and I guarantee, if we have a dangerous one-timer shooter there at left to bombard that weakspot, it gives more goals to us, and also opens better situations to the point and the right side, because after that it isn't so predicable anymore.
Wings entire PP needs a major overhaul; Homer isn't the issue here, but the strategies, I think, are.
Yeah, it worked better when Rafalski and Lidstrom were playing top level hockey. Without those guys, the powerplay being run from the point isn't going to work. Kronwall is good, and maybe Smith comes along, but seriously it's not Rafalski and Lidstrom. That WAS the powerplay.
