By: Stephen Risto

Stephen Risto — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 15:39:32 +0000

I normally love your stuff, and am thrilled that we are now seeing these analytics for hockey. But we have to be very careful with the data and the extrapolations that we make from it. I found today's article in the Star, as well as your piece above to be very interesting, but seriously flawed due to some very obvious issues. Especially in the Star article, where you stretch the discussion into the impact of missed shots as opposed to rebounds, etc - which is an interesting conjecture - but how can you even go there when much more significant aspects have been completely missed? In short, shooters who are "snipers" tend to take far more shots that are targeted at at areas that have a higher impact of scoring - such as a few inches from the post or cross-bar in the top corner of the net. But inherently, these shots also result in a higher percentage of misses - becuase the target is essentially a circular area, of which almost three quarters is a missed shot. Contrast this with targeting the center of the net, where the probability of a miss is low, but so is the consequential probability of scoring. You talk about the distance of the shot and position of the shooter above, and these are certainly relevant - but I would argue that it isn't so much where the shot comes from that matters, but where the shot is targeted. And that fact negates this entire analysis of shot attempts versus shots on net. It is probably a strong factor in explaining why shooters like Ovechin and Kessel rank relatively lower in their percentages ratios when you consider overall shots - my presumption would be that they more often target their shots in a way that either result in a goal or a miss. Clearly, by your own stats, more of their shots that are on net go in - and a large factor in this is probably that they more selectively target the most vulnerable areas of the net, ie - they "snipe" - but which also has the consequential outcome that they miss the net more often as well. This represents a huge issue with your analysis - all shots are not created equal.

By: Skinny

Skinny — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:15:10 +0000

Congratulations, you've discovered Corsi shooting %, and managed to not at all talk about repeatability.

Comments on: Why Some Guys Miss the Net More Often

By: Stephen Risto

By: Skinny