Just this morning Helene St. James
analytical focus was on one of this website’s namesakes, Brendan Smith. After
mentioning a few of Smith’s many attributes, chief among them his skill with
the puck, she finishes the piece by discussing his potential trade value.
Meanwhile, in the same analysis of Danny DeKeyser she finished by describing DK
as “a building block for years to come.” Her attitude towards these two players
seems to reflect that of most Red Wings fans. With the Wings struggling to find
elite defenders, these two have been thrust into the spotlight. Watching from a
distance, we see DK’s solid defensive game, and Smith’s tendency to create
offensive for both the
Wings and the
opposition. As an admitted Smith fan, I am somewhat troubled by these
perceptions.
August 31, 2014
August 29, 2014
Howard after RBS or QS
Yesterday I looked at the goals Jimmy Howard gave up in Quality Starts and in his Really Bad Starts. The final results showed
that most of the time Jimmy posts quality starts by not allowing transitional
goals, leading me to the conclusion that the team defense may be a bigger factor than Jimmy himself.
However, this does not tell us if Jimmy’s previous starts are affecting
his confidence in the next start. To do that I did the same analysis for both the
game after a Quality Start and the game following a Really Bad Start.
August 28, 2014
Howard's Goals Against in RBS and QS
Today at WingingitinMotown, JJ from Kanas took a look at Jimmy Howard's number of Quality Starts and Really Bad Starts. You can check it out here http://www.wingingitinmotown.com/2014/8/28/6068191/red-wings-goaltending-analysis-jimmy-howard-quality-starts.
For those of you who are unaware, these stats come from Rob Vollman's Hockey Abstract 2014 (which I highly suggest you purchase) and are defined as
•Quality Start (QS): A performance where the goaltender put up a .917 or better save percentage or, if the opponent failed to get more than 20 total shots, a game where he stopped 88.5% or better.
•Really Bad Start (RBS): A performance where the goaltender failed to attain even an .850 save percentage.
One theory he mentions is the possibility that “Howard gets cocky after a dominant start and lets off the gas or that he gets fired up by a loss and bears down harder on the next go.” He and I are both hesitant to agree with that claim. I am hesitant mainly because simple regression to the mean explains at least part of this effect. Also, since we are dealing with the best goaltenders in the world I assume they have the ability to focus and manage their emotions, with some extreme exceptions. Supporting my theory, it has been demonstrated that no goalie is particularly streaky, at least statistically speaking (http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/5/11/the-myth-of-the-hot-goalie-consistent-goaltenders-vs-inconsistent-goaltenders) leading me to believe this is just simple variability rather than a change in concentration.
Regardless, I have slightly more information to add to this analysis since I broke down the type of goals Howard let in last season. Based on the theory I would guess in his RBS Howard lets in more clean goals, the goals over which he has the most control. While in the QS, if it is truly Howard “baring down,” we would see the opposite as he lets in less of these controllable saves.
For those of you who are unaware, these stats come from Rob Vollman's Hockey Abstract 2014 (which I highly suggest you purchase) and are defined as
•Quality Start (QS): A performance where the goaltender put up a .917 or better save percentage or, if the opponent failed to get more than 20 total shots, a game where he stopped 88.5% or better.
•Really Bad Start (RBS): A performance where the goaltender failed to attain even an .850 save percentage.
One theory he mentions is the possibility that “Howard gets cocky after a dominant start and lets off the gas or that he gets fired up by a loss and bears down harder on the next go.” He and I are both hesitant to agree with that claim. I am hesitant mainly because simple regression to the mean explains at least part of this effect. Also, since we are dealing with the best goaltenders in the world I assume they have the ability to focus and manage their emotions, with some extreme exceptions. Supporting my theory, it has been demonstrated that no goalie is particularly streaky, at least statistically speaking (http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/5/11/the-myth-of-the-hot-goalie-consistent-goaltenders-vs-inconsistent-goaltenders) leading me to believe this is just simple variability rather than a change in concentration.
Regardless, I have slightly more information to add to this analysis since I broke down the type of goals Howard let in last season. Based on the theory I would guess in his RBS Howard lets in more clean goals, the goals over which he has the most control. While in the QS, if it is truly Howard “baring down,” we would see the opposite as he lets in less of these controllable saves.
August 27, 2014
Reason for Optimism in the Big D
As I demonstrated when tracking the Red Wings goals last
season, a large percentage of goals come from the generation of shots off the rush. This compliments
nicely with the recent push from the analytics community to demonstrate the
importance of winning the neutral zone battle. Thankfully, Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) has been working to
track entries for every game in the past season. Once all this info has been
collected, I will analyze and post the data. However, he has been kind enough
to share what information he currently has (~60%) and it has been published on
a few sites around the web.
August 22, 2014
Glendening vs Andersson Part 2
Sorry for the lack of activity, its been a busy week as I get back into the swing of things. Last time I looked at the battle for the 4th line center between Luke Glendening and Joakim Andersson. My conclusions concurred with one reached over at WingingitinMotown, that Andersson should take the final spot.
August 11, 2014
Glendening vs Andersson
Today Ansar Khan gave us a player profile of Joakim Andersson, you can check it out here. With good size (6' 2" 205+ lbs) and defensive awareness he seemed destined to be the teams 4th line center of the future, lining up behind Datsyuk/Zetterberg, Weiss, and Helm. However with the emergence of Riley Sheahan as a offensive threat and Glendening as the defensive workhorse, has Andersson lost a spot in the lineup?
August 10, 2014
Red Wing Goals Against
Last time I took a look at every goal the Red Wings scored last season, this time I'm breaking down all the goals given up by the Red Wings. Since the amount of zone time prior to goals was consistent with other people's results I skipped those results and will take you directly to how teams scored against the Wings.
August 9, 2014
Red Wing's Goals Part 2
Last post I focused on when the Red Wing's scored and the answer supported results found elsewhere that teams score during transitional play. This time I broke down how the Red Wings scored, similar to the tracking done by Chris Boyle for the Shot Quality Project.
August 7, 2014
Red Wing Goals
Inspired by mc79hockey’s post a few
weeks ago, I wanted to look at how the Red Wings generated goals this past season.
First, I coded each goal and determined how long the puck was in the zone
before the Red Wings scored to the nearest second. The distinctions were by no
means exact; I defined a rush goal as any goal occurring as a result of an odd
or even man rush. Every other goal was coded an in-zone goal, goals where the
majority of the opposition was inside the defensive zone. After removing empty
net and power play goals, which I will revisit later, I am left with 157 goals.
The Power of 13 & 40
As a Red Wing’s fan, my optimism for next season surrounds
the possibility of seeing Datsyuk and Zetterberg back together again. Limited
to only 45 games each, I was interested to see what exactly we should expect
with those two back together.
August 5, 2014
Predicting the Eastern Conference Standings
Last week I did a rough prediction of what I thought the Atlantic
division would look like next season. This time I wanted to have a few more
numbers backing up my predictions and look at the entire Eastern Conference.
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