The hill I’ve been dying on for the better part of a decade:
I don’t know why people insist on trying to boil hockey down to one all encompassing WAR stat like baseball. It’s feasible in baseball because there are limited outcomes and repeatable situations.
Advanced stats are fine for context, but hockey is way too random for a WAR-type stat to work.
What's the harm in trying though? Even if it isn't perfect it's still better than nothing, and it's a hell of a lot better than any fans eye test
Maybe we don't have the ability to do it now, but there models could form the foundation of a future model that IS able to properly account for QoT, QoC, Zone Starts, etc
Of course they're annoying when people say "well he has a higher WAR so he's better", but I also don't think that's any worse than saying "he has more points so he's better" or "he has a better +/- so he's better defensively"
I don’t think there is a harm of trying, but people will take this post and say something like *Kuch shouldn’t be in the Top 5!* because he’s the only one with a sub-50% section in this data.
Points represent results, but they don't represent process. They do nothing to tell you about how a goal was created, just who the last three people to touch it were.
They also ignore the 90% of plays that *don't* result in a goal but are likely the create goals in the future. In a game where only 10% of shots end up as a goal, it's important to recognize that there's an incredible amount of randomness that goes into whether or not a pick goes into the net.
And while the metric is far from perfect, an imperfect attempt at measuring defense is far better than a metric that ignores it altogether.
Every year we see guys get a whole bunch of points early in the season and be declared stars, only to fizzle out by the end of the year because their goals weren't coming in a sustainable way.
The flip side is worse, imo, which is people who flatly believe that whoever wins the Art Ross should win the Hart. Like, I've seen people on this sub argue in 2022 that Kucherov and Draisaitl were the undisputed best players in 2018-19 and 2019-20 because they won the Art Ross those years, even though McDavid was, y'know, in the league at the time.
How is that unique to WAR vs other hockey stats?
Not trying to be a dick or anything but I see this line of thinking all the time in regards to hockey, but I don’t think it really holds up under scrutiny.
I completed my Masters in Multivariate Analysis and work current in a statistics heavy field as an Actuary. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who think their model is 100% perfect but the bar is just to be better than the alternatives which I think WAR is when the alternative is basically points and the eye test.
Without knowing the inputs for a statistic, how can you make a determination if it is viable or not?
For instance, can you tell me how "EV Offence WAR" is calculated? As far as I know, nobody with their own model has made it public. So what makes one model more accurate than the next?
But we do know their inputs. It’s box score data.
Don’t know who’s model JFresh uses, but off the top of my head both HockeyViz (when he was active) and EvolvingHockey have pretty detailed documentation on their processes. Different models will have different “accuracy” depending on their techniques, but all have their pros and cons.
You can read EWs here for example:
[https://evolving-hockey.com/blog/wins-above-replacement-the-process-part-2/](https://evolving-hockey.com/blog/wins-above-replacement-the-process-part-2/)
But you are correct in that it’s not 100% objective. Any model will have to deal with feature selection and the trade offs between bias and variance and it’s up to the model owner to determine where that cutoff is. But that’s also true for normal stats, we see phantom assists being given all the time and vice versa for example.
What I’m curious about, and you may have looked into more, is what kind of validation are these guys doing for their models? E.g. for WAR models are they testing how correlated the sum of the individual WAR scores are to a teams actual wins? Without validation these models would be pretty useless, and the average sports fan isn’t going to get into the nitty gritty of model testing.
Yeah that’s fair as well. I think more should be done to make advanced stats more accessible for people.
To be honest I’m in bed while I write this and don’t feel like looking up what actual validation was done, but also didn’t want to leave you hanging lol but yes the way you described it is a possibility. WAR is a retrospective stat as in it tries to explain what has happened rather than predict the future, so comparing WAR with actual wins would be what I’d think any analysis would be based on.
They absolutely are and they usually post comparisons of their respective models at the end of each year.
I'm fairly confident Dom? Or Jfresh? Ran his model on old years (I'm sure they all have but one of em talked about it publicly) but data for older years is limited to non existent.
I wonder if Kucherov’s defensive WAR is lower than the rest because he has to compensate for lower-tier offensive teammates.
Many caveats here with the data.
Since we've drafted Matthews, the Leafs have never been ranked higher than 17th in the league in powerplay opportunities - his rookie season. It makes no sense given that was our worst statistically speaking in terms of posession stats.
The 15-16 squad that finished last overall somehow had more powerplay opportunities than any of the subsequent years.
Harder to draw penalties when you’re already ahead in the game? Honestly can’t explain it, feel like our play style should draw more penalties if anything vs. our teams of the past.
Easy to explain, there’s 2 main reasons.
First reason is we don’t play a particularly nasty or physical game and so we get fewer penalties called on us, which means in order to be “fair” this absolute joke of a league doesn’t call as many penalties for us as it should. Yes, this is incredibly damning for a pro sports league but welcome to the modern NHL. I would say this is the main reason.
Second reason is the other fanbases would fill their diapers if we even sniffed top of the league in PP opportunities and the league and officials know it, which results in subtle biases in penalty calling. This is why the Leafs are top 3 in suspensions over the past decade or so while being near the bottom of the league in penalties against. Because everything is magnified with them and the league is too fucking stupid to understand this impacts their supposed impartiality.
Additionally, this serves as a good example of how WAR models probably weigh finishing too heavily and aren't refined enough to recognize the effects of elite playmaking
Only if you begin with a preconceived belief that Matthews doesn't deserve the Hart or that goals are overrated.
There's nothing there that makes me think this is erroneously overrating goalscoring. You just have an opinion that differs from the model's evaluation.
Do you have any evidence/analysis that the OP evaluation is wrong, which doesn't rely on a prima facie claim that Matthews doesn't deserve the Hart or that the model's evaluation of goalscoring is wrong?
Also, did you miss the fact that Matthews is creating 5v5 scoring chances at a rate equal to or better than the other guys?
I don't think I made my point very clearly
I don't think it overrates goal scoring as a whole, I think it overrates it relative to playmaking
I believe goal scoring is the most important thing in hockey, and Matthews is absolutely a worthy Hart candidate, but I'd push back that Matthews' finishing on it's own is worth nearly as much as Kucherov in total, when Kucherov's playmaking also creates an exceptionally large amount of goals
[It's something JFresh has mentioned as a shortcoming on more than one occasion ](https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1777459741775544555?t=2AjNIDWZ3kuIAegCOMxaHw&s=19)
Yeah I still remember how WAR and other models had Huberdeau below regular top 6 players in terms of value due to how hard it is to value PP playmaking and secondary assist.
Not all goals are equal and there are some where the primary or secondary assist had a bigger role to play in there goal. Obviously, trying to weigh this is next to impossible and I understand the weighing of G>pA>sA.
Matthews has 5v5 goal scoring is crazy and is probably the part of his game that everyone overlooks. He currently has 48 even strength goals, two of them are from OT so 46 at 5v5 and he doesn't have any 4v4 goals this year.
The fourth leading goal scorer in the league (Mackinnon) has 48 total goals.
>Matthews is creating scoring chances at a rate equal to or better than the other guys
I did not, but I also don't think that the difference between him and Kuch(0.5 more scoring chances at 5v5, 0.4 fewer on the PP) makes him worth literally twice as many wins
Then is Kucherov winning Art Ross trophies by luck then? He is not only way worse at defense which people bring up every time they talk about the Hart, but apparently he is much worse at offense also.
If the system doesn't undervalue assists in relation to goals, how would you explain Kucherov leading the league in points despite losing to Matthews in every metric except assists?
The argument would be that it fairly values goals higher than assists.
Now, it's obvious that goals are more valuable than assists, the debate is always "by how much" and then you get into the nitty gritty of primary vs. secondary assists, teammate talent, etc.
Which makes it pointless to go to bat for these discussions unless you watch all of them consistently which 90% of this sub (including me) can’t or won’t do.
Models like this follow stats that don't really have a great way of tracking playmaking value. Most analysts will argue that playmaking is very well integrated into general on-ice expected goals because if you make a pass to give your teammate a high danger scoring chance, that will be registered in the on-ice expected goals count. Playmakers who make more of those therefore should have higher expected offensive results on ice, so there is no need to track anything beyond that. If you individually tracked the aforementioned in addition to on-ice expected goals, you'd be double counting playmaking. Finishing itself is explicitly included because an "expected goal" is for an average player taking the shot, so a high talent finishing individual will produce results that extend beyond the on-ice expected goal value of their shot
People don't seem to understand that all those models have a lot of parameters that are pretty much hand picked (over an finite space of potential parameters) to provide a nice fit over historical data.
All this tell me is a fanbase will be pissed come NHL Award voting.
Personally, Kucherov’s production is pretty ridiculous when he comfortably has had the worse supporting cast.
But again, McDavid’s 100+ assist and two-way play which has elite since Knob came, Mack’s offensive production on nuclear numbers and having a potential 50g 90a year is immense, while Matthews may have 70 with great 2-way play.
At the end of the day, there are four elite players having MVP-caliber seasons.
No matter who finishes 4th, they'll almost certainly be the best 4th-place finisher in modern hockey.
Seems like this WAR model really doesn’t care about the PP at all.
I’m also confused why they rate Kucherov’s EV offense so much worse than the rest, when he’s right there in the middle for 5v5 chance creation.
The finishing category includes the PP, but yeah I think PP offense is a fair bit smaller than EV offense in the model
The viz also doesn't include WAR from penalty differential, and I don't think it's a huge amount but the 3M have some of the best differentials in the league
Is it? Because to me, the standout is that apparently he is so much worse at offense than the others it doesn't matter.
This is a bad model, sorry. It doesn't even have anything to do with bias on my part, the Lightning sink down to a lottery team without Kucherov through the first 2/3 of the season. I absolutely do not believe that is the case with the other teams.
And my other point? Apparently Kucherov is out here winning Art Ross's by luck apparently because his offense is so much worse than the other 3 candidates?
I'm not saying you're wrong or saying he shouldn't be in the Hart race, I'm just saying the Leafs without AM are a wildcard team at best, inline with your impact on the team comment.
Fwiw, I wouldn't have one issue if Kuch win the Hart.
> Apparently Kucherov is out here winning Art Ross's by luck apparently because his offense is so much worse than the other 3 candidates?
This is not what anybody is saying, and you're conflating "Art Ross" with "Best Offensive Player."
Yea. If MacK went down I think we could make the playoffs..... Maybe? Its been a down year for a few of our higher profile players. When Nuke was out we would have absolutely cratered without MacK.
> the Lightning sink down to a lottery team without Kucherov through the first 2/3 of the season
The Avs *literally* were a lottery team (48 point season) before MacKinnon blew up. He blew up in 2017-18 for 97 points, and still lost the Hart that year. They snuck into the playoff by winning Game 82 vs STL.
The voters will pick literally any narrative they want, whether its "X amount more points than next player," "barely made playoffs," etc
Through the first two thirds of the season Kucherov was hovering around 8th on his team in +/-, for a guy that was in on close to 50% of his teams scoring that number was terrible and I know a lot of people don’t like to pay attention to +/- but in relation to his teammates it’s certainly indicative of something. Compare that to say Mackinnon who’s leading his team in points and +/- by a wide margin.
You didn't address my other point at all, you simply restated a belief that you already had. Tell me, in what world is Kucherov is that much worse at having an offensive impact? People like you argue that the others are all much better at defense, but apparently they are much better at offense too.
Here's what the team goaltending looked like through March 31 btw, interesting how this didn't get posted here because it helps Kucherov's case compared to the others.
https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1774463654269796552
I don’t even know what you’re other point was.
I was commenting on the fact that you said the lightning sink down to a lottery pick team the first 2/3s of the season with out Kucherov but the first two thirds of the season Kichrrov was like middle of the pack on his team in +/-, for a player that was in on close to 50% of the teams goals he should never be down around 7th on the team in +/- unless he was dreadful in his own end.
What’s the point in bringing up team goaltending ? Goaltending means nothing when you’re comparing a guys +/- to his own teammates, are you suggesting that the bad goaltending play only affects Kucherov and not his teammates?
Mackinnon is leading his team at all ends of the ice and it shows on the stats, Kucherov is a great offensive talent but in the MVP conversation he doesn’t hold up to the year Mackinnon is having.
I'd like to see their block shots and takeaways as well. Be interesting cause I know Matthews has quite a few of both. But maybe they are considered in their defense Stat?
They don't specifically affect the WAR, but if they're having a positive impact on the player's ability to suppress scoring chances then the player would have a higher EV defense WAR
A player could block a bunch of shots, but if it's because they spend every shift stuck in the D Zone then they'll likely have a poor dWAR
Is the WAR stat saying that without mcdavid the oilers would have (conceivably) won 6 fewer games this year, and the leafs without Matthew's would have won 10 fewer games?
What does the replacement mean;in this stat? If mcdavid is out, draisaitl is the new first line center, but someone like sam gagner is called up to fill the roster slot. So which of them is the "replacement"?
Sam Ganger is the replacement in this scenario, but you helped to explain why the number might seem low. I don't know the exact calculation, but I know EvolvingHockey uses the "average value of each teams 13th forward or 7th defenseman" as their "Replacement Level"
Intuitively you might think that McDavid is worth way more than 12 points in the standings, but taking him away means more minutes for other players who will have more opportunities to provide value.
The issue I have is why is 5v5 scoring valued so highly in these types of things? I get it for like yeah most of the game is played 5v5 and such but that doesn't matter overall. If a player is scoring 50 more points then their 5v5 play doesn't really matter (other than defensive metrics).
Ultimately it's important because it's a more consistent measure insofar as how effective a player can be. You can't guarantee powerplays, and you're (typically) going to generate chances automatically on the powerplay by virtue of being up a guy
Doesn't mean powerplay points are irrelevant but your 5v5 measures are more important because that's what most of your time will be and it's harder to generate chances
Yeah basically it’s just more difficult to score more 5 on 5. So if two players have the exact same point totals, but if player A has 10 more PP goals and 15 more PP assists than player B, I think player B had the better season personally.
I imagine it's because most of the game is played there, and that tends to be where the vast majority of points come from.
I also think it's a better measure of actual talent since you don't need a numerical advantage to produce. That isn't to say that 5v5 points are "worth more", but if we're actually trying to measure player talent, then the better player is probably the one who performs the best for the main 80% of the game when the field is level
Teams score over 2.5x more goals/min on the PP than at 5v5. So PP scoring is 'easier'. The ratio of TOI is also ~10x more at 5v5. Models typically 'weigh' stats relative to these factors.
Yeah, this model basically says, “Kucherov is carrying the top PP in the league? No, those goals he produced don’t matter because PP success is less repeatable over large samples”.
Which miss the whole point of a WAR model. You’re not projecting future performance, you’re supposed to measure how many additional wins they created. Scoring an extra goal on the power play leads to a win just as much as one at 5 on 5.
You do see there are Power Play stats in the image, right?
Also, I'm fairly certain total WAR does factor in special teams, but obviously it's going to count PP production at a lower rate than 5v5 production.
I mean the difference in point production between the top 3 is empty net points. Not like kucherov is absolutely killing everyone else. Mack and Mcdavid have also been the much better defensive players. I can understand thinking Kucherov should win the hart but imo it’s so close I don’t think it would be a robbery as long as one of those 3 wins it even if I’m not happy with the result personally
> I mean the difference in point production between the top 3 is empty net points.
McDavid without ENP: 125pts in 74GP (1.69 P/GP)
Kucherov without ENP: 123pts in 76GP (1.62 P/GP)
MacKinnon without ENP: 125pts in 78GP (1.60 P/GP)
I don’t really care who wins, I’ve already seen my favourite players win every single award except the Selke and Calder, I just think the campaign to discredit what Kucherov has accomplished is getting comical at this point. It’s become less of who should win the Hart and more why Kucherov shouldn’t win the Hart over the last few weeks.
The hill I’ve been dying on for the better part of a decade: I don’t know why people insist on trying to boil hockey down to one all encompassing WAR stat like baseball. It’s feasible in baseball because there are limited outcomes and repeatable situations. Advanced stats are fine for context, but hockey is way too random for a WAR-type stat to work.
There has to be some middle ground between using raw point production only, and trying too hard to incorporate everything into one convenient stat
I have a crazy idea this sub won't like. You can watch the games and judge.
You could argue it doesn’t even work *in baseball.* Properly incorporating base running and especially defence is tricky business
WAR what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
drink every time someone says "tHe MoDEl BEAts VeGas OdDs"
What's the harm in trying though? Even if it isn't perfect it's still better than nothing, and it's a hell of a lot better than any fans eye test Maybe we don't have the ability to do it now, but there models could form the foundation of a future model that IS able to properly account for QoT, QoC, Zone Starts, etc Of course they're annoying when people say "well he has a higher WAR so he's better", but I also don't think that's any worse than saying "he has more points so he's better" or "he has a better +/- so he's better defensively"
I don’t think there is a harm of trying, but people will take this post and say something like *Kuch shouldn’t be in the Top 5!* because he’s the only one with a sub-50% section in this data.
Yeh I’m not a huge fan of WAR but at the very least it’s interesting when shown alongside all the other stats.
The harm would be that the stat could be totally misleading yet gets taken as gospel because it's well presented.
I see a lot more people tout point totals as gospel than I do WAR
As they should. Point totals represent concrete results. They're the most important stats in hockey.
Points represent results, but they don't represent process. They do nothing to tell you about how a goal was created, just who the last three people to touch it were. They also ignore the 90% of plays that *don't* result in a goal but are likely the create goals in the future. In a game where only 10% of shots end up as a goal, it's important to recognize that there's an incredible amount of randomness that goes into whether or not a pick goes into the net. And while the metric is far from perfect, an imperfect attempt at measuring defense is far better than a metric that ignores it altogether. Every year we see guys get a whole bunch of points early in the season and be declared stars, only to fizzle out by the end of the year because their goals weren't coming in a sustainable way.
The flip side is worse, imo, which is people who flatly believe that whoever wins the Art Ross should win the Hart. Like, I've seen people on this sub argue in 2022 that Kucherov and Draisaitl were the undisputed best players in 2018-19 and 2019-20 because they won the Art Ross those years, even though McDavid was, y'know, in the league at the time.
Can you explain to me why being “too random” limits the impact of WAR?
Because it is far harder to isolate the impact of one player when there are 11 other players involved in any given play.
How is that unique to WAR vs other hockey stats? Not trying to be a dick or anything but I see this line of thinking all the time in regards to hockey, but I don’t think it really holds up under scrutiny. I completed my Masters in Multivariate Analysis and work current in a statistics heavy field as an Actuary. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who think their model is 100% perfect but the bar is just to be better than the alternatives which I think WAR is when the alternative is basically points and the eye test.
Without knowing the inputs for a statistic, how can you make a determination if it is viable or not? For instance, can you tell me how "EV Offence WAR" is calculated? As far as I know, nobody with their own model has made it public. So what makes one model more accurate than the next?
But we do know their inputs. It’s box score data. Don’t know who’s model JFresh uses, but off the top of my head both HockeyViz (when he was active) and EvolvingHockey have pretty detailed documentation on their processes. Different models will have different “accuracy” depending on their techniques, but all have their pros and cons. You can read EWs here for example: [https://evolving-hockey.com/blog/wins-above-replacement-the-process-part-2/](https://evolving-hockey.com/blog/wins-above-replacement-the-process-part-2/) But you are correct in that it’s not 100% objective. Any model will have to deal with feature selection and the trade offs between bias and variance and it’s up to the model owner to determine where that cutoff is. But that’s also true for normal stats, we see phantom assists being given all the time and vice versa for example.
What I’m curious about, and you may have looked into more, is what kind of validation are these guys doing for their models? E.g. for WAR models are they testing how correlated the sum of the individual WAR scores are to a teams actual wins? Without validation these models would be pretty useless, and the average sports fan isn’t going to get into the nitty gritty of model testing.
Yeah that’s fair as well. I think more should be done to make advanced stats more accessible for people. To be honest I’m in bed while I write this and don’t feel like looking up what actual validation was done, but also didn’t want to leave you hanging lol but yes the way you described it is a possibility. WAR is a retrospective stat as in it tries to explain what has happened rather than predict the future, so comparing WAR with actual wins would be what I’d think any analysis would be based on.
They absolutely are and they usually post comparisons of their respective models at the end of each year. I'm fairly confident Dom? Or Jfresh? Ran his model on old years (I'm sure they all have but one of em talked about it publicly) but data for older years is limited to non existent.
Too close to call. Give it to sid
This data definitely looks good for MacKinnon's case
I wonder if Kucherov’s defensive WAR is lower than the rest because he has to compensate for lower-tier offensive teammates. Many caveats here with the data.
This constant narrative that Kucherov is playing with a bunch of bums doesn't pass scrutiny.
So what you’re telling me is Auston is NOT a PP merchants /s
Since we've drafted Matthews, the Leafs have never been ranked higher than 17th in the league in powerplay opportunities - his rookie season. It makes no sense given that was our worst statistically speaking in terms of posession stats. The 15-16 squad that finished last overall somehow had more powerplay opportunities than any of the subsequent years.
Harder to draw penalties when you’re already ahead in the game? Honestly can’t explain it, feel like our play style should draw more penalties if anything vs. our teams of the past.
Easy to explain, there’s 2 main reasons. First reason is we don’t play a particularly nasty or physical game and so we get fewer penalties called on us, which means in order to be “fair” this absolute joke of a league doesn’t call as many penalties for us as it should. Yes, this is incredibly damning for a pro sports league but welcome to the modern NHL. I would say this is the main reason. Second reason is the other fanbases would fill their diapers if we even sniffed top of the league in PP opportunities and the league and officials know it, which results in subtle biases in penalty calling. This is why the Leafs are top 3 in suspensions over the past decade or so while being near the bottom of the league in penalties against. Because everything is magnified with them and the league is too fucking stupid to understand this impacts their supposed impartiality.
This tells me nothing
Additionally, this serves as a good example of how WAR models probably weigh finishing too heavily and aren't refined enough to recognize the effects of elite playmaking
Only if you begin with a preconceived belief that Matthews doesn't deserve the Hart or that goals are overrated. There's nothing there that makes me think this is erroneously overrating goalscoring. You just have an opinion that differs from the model's evaluation. Do you have any evidence/analysis that the OP evaluation is wrong, which doesn't rely on a prima facie claim that Matthews doesn't deserve the Hart or that the model's evaluation of goalscoring is wrong? Also, did you miss the fact that Matthews is creating 5v5 scoring chances at a rate equal to or better than the other guys?
I don't think I made my point very clearly I don't think it overrates goal scoring as a whole, I think it overrates it relative to playmaking I believe goal scoring is the most important thing in hockey, and Matthews is absolutely a worthy Hart candidate, but I'd push back that Matthews' finishing on it's own is worth nearly as much as Kucherov in total, when Kucherov's playmaking also creates an exceptionally large amount of goals [It's something JFresh has mentioned as a shortcoming on more than one occasion ](https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1777459741775544555?t=2AjNIDWZ3kuIAegCOMxaHw&s=19)
Yeah I still remember how WAR and other models had Huberdeau below regular top 6 players in terms of value due to how hard it is to value PP playmaking and secondary assist. Not all goals are equal and there are some where the primary or secondary assist had a bigger role to play in there goal. Obviously, trying to weigh this is next to impossible and I understand the weighing of G>pA>sA.
Yeah in the end you can't individually value every goal/assist, but doing it that way will probably be right more often than not
Matthews has 5v5 goal scoring is crazy and is probably the part of his game that everyone overlooks. He currently has 48 even strength goals, two of them are from OT so 46 at 5v5 and he doesn't have any 4v4 goals this year. The fourth leading goal scorer in the league (Mackinnon) has 48 total goals.
>Matthews is creating scoring chances at a rate equal to or better than the other guys I did not, but I also don't think that the difference between him and Kuch(0.5 more scoring chances at 5v5, 0.4 fewer on the PP) makes him worth literally twice as many wins
Then is Kucherov winning Art Ross trophies by luck then? He is not only way worse at defense which people bring up every time they talk about the Hart, but apparently he is much worse at offense also.
I have no idea where you got the idea that I was implying anything like that.
If the system doesn't undervalue assists in relation to goals, how would you explain Kucherov leading the league in points despite losing to Matthews in every metric except assists?
The argument would be that it fairly values goals higher than assists. Now, it's obvious that goals are more valuable than assists, the debate is always "by how much" and then you get into the nitty gritty of primary vs. secondary assists, teammate talent, etc.
Which makes it pointless to go to bat for these discussions unless you watch all of them consistently which 90% of this sub (including me) can’t or won’t do.
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Of course as analytics is the same as points - a metric of who’s doing well in a specific category.
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There is no logical structure to your question.
Models like this follow stats that don't really have a great way of tracking playmaking value. Most analysts will argue that playmaking is very well integrated into general on-ice expected goals because if you make a pass to give your teammate a high danger scoring chance, that will be registered in the on-ice expected goals count. Playmakers who make more of those therefore should have higher expected offensive results on ice, so there is no need to track anything beyond that. If you individually tracked the aforementioned in addition to on-ice expected goals, you'd be double counting playmaking. Finishing itself is explicitly included because an "expected goal" is for an average player taking the shot, so a high talent finishing individual will produce results that extend beyond the on-ice expected goal value of their shot
People don't seem to understand that all those models have a lot of parameters that are pretty much hand picked (over an finite space of potential parameters) to provide a nice fit over historical data.
All this tell me is a fanbase will be pissed come NHL Award voting. Personally, Kucherov’s production is pretty ridiculous when he comfortably has had the worse supporting cast. But again, McDavid’s 100+ assist and two-way play which has elite since Knob came, Mack’s offensive production on nuclear numbers and having a potential 50g 90a year is immense, while Matthews may have 70 with great 2-way play.
At the end of the day, there are four elite players having MVP-caliber seasons. No matter who finishes 4th, they'll almost certainly be the best 4th-place finisher in modern hockey.
I’d go one step further and say that 2nd-4th would be better than any non-McDavid MVP since the Ovi/Crosby years.
Yeah I didn't want to start an argument about Draisaitl or Kucherov's MVP years, but I have to agree.
It’s funny that Kucherov is having a far better year than 2019 and isn’t a lock to be nominated.
Seems like this WAR model really doesn’t care about the PP at all. I’m also confused why they rate Kucherov’s EV offense so much worse than the rest, when he’s right there in the middle for 5v5 chance creation.
The finishing category includes the PP, but yeah I think PP offense is a fair bit smaller than EV offense in the model The viz also doesn't include WAR from penalty differential, and I don't think it's a huge amount but the 3M have some of the best differentials in the league
Kucherov's defence is certainly a standout here. Ho-Sang was right: Papi for MVP
hell no
Is it? Because to me, the standout is that apparently he is so much worse at offense than the others it doesn't matter. This is a bad model, sorry. It doesn't even have anything to do with bias on my part, the Lightning sink down to a lottery team without Kucherov through the first 2/3 of the season. I absolutely do not believe that is the case with the other teams.
I think the Leafs miss the playoffs by a bit if you take subtract 64 goals and 100 points.
And my other point? Apparently Kucherov is out here winning Art Ross's by luck apparently because his offense is so much worse than the other 3 candidates?
I'm not saying you're wrong or saying he shouldn't be in the Hart race, I'm just saying the Leafs without AM are a wildcard team at best, inline with your impact on the team comment. Fwiw, I wouldn't have one issue if Kuch win the Hart.
> Apparently Kucherov is out here winning Art Ross's by luck apparently because his offense is so much worse than the other 3 candidates? This is not what anybody is saying, and you're conflating "Art Ross" with "Best Offensive Player."
That's not the case with the other teams because they're all stronger teams than Tampa. But they'd all have a noticeable drop without their candidates
Yea. If MacK went down I think we could make the playoffs..... Maybe? Its been a down year for a few of our higher profile players. When Nuke was out we would have absolutely cratered without MacK.
> the Lightning sink down to a lottery team without Kucherov through the first 2/3 of the season The Avs *literally* were a lottery team (48 point season) before MacKinnon blew up. He blew up in 2017-18 for 97 points, and still lost the Hart that year. They snuck into the playoff by winning Game 82 vs STL. The voters will pick literally any narrative they want, whether its "X amount more points than next player," "barely made playoffs," etc
Through the first two thirds of the season Kucherov was hovering around 8th on his team in +/-, for a guy that was in on close to 50% of his teams scoring that number was terrible and I know a lot of people don’t like to pay attention to +/- but in relation to his teammates it’s certainly indicative of something. Compare that to say Mackinnon who’s leading his team in points and +/- by a wide margin.
You didn't address my other point at all, you simply restated a belief that you already had. Tell me, in what world is Kucherov is that much worse at having an offensive impact? People like you argue that the others are all much better at defense, but apparently they are much better at offense too. Here's what the team goaltending looked like through March 31 btw, interesting how this didn't get posted here because it helps Kucherov's case compared to the others. https://twitter.com/JFreshHockey/status/1774463654269796552
I don’t even know what you’re other point was. I was commenting on the fact that you said the lightning sink down to a lottery pick team the first 2/3s of the season with out Kucherov but the first two thirds of the season Kichrrov was like middle of the pack on his team in +/-, for a player that was in on close to 50% of the teams goals he should never be down around 7th on the team in +/- unless he was dreadful in his own end. What’s the point in bringing up team goaltending ? Goaltending means nothing when you’re comparing a guys +/- to his own teammates, are you suggesting that the bad goaltending play only affects Kucherov and not his teammates? Mackinnon is leading his team at all ends of the ice and it shows on the stats, Kucherov is a great offensive talent but in the MVP conversation he doesn’t hold up to the year Mackinnon is having.
What about empty net goals?
I'd like to see their block shots and takeaways as well. Be interesting cause I know Matthews has quite a few of both. But maybe they are considered in their defense Stat?
Kucherov: 33 blocked shots and 56 takeaways McDavid: 38 blocked shots and 66 takeaways MacKinnon: 67 blocked shots and 40 takeaways Matthews: 89 blocked shots and 80 takeaways
JFC Auston 😮💨
They don't specifically affect the WAR, but if they're having a positive impact on the player's ability to suppress scoring chances then the player would have a higher EV defense WAR A player could block a bunch of shots, but if it's because they spend every shift stuck in the D Zone then they'll likely have a poor dWAR
mackinnon, mcdavid, matthews, kucherov
That’s what I gathered from it. The model definitely favors goals and five on five production (which makes complete sense to me).
I like how the stats give no clarity or clear favorite essentially whatsoever
Matthews is closer to them than I thought.
Matthews’ single downside is his assists, simply because he scores all of the goals himself 😆
#34 at 3.4 evofWAR 😎
Is the WAR stat saying that without mcdavid the oilers would have (conceivably) won 6 fewer games this year, and the leafs without Matthew's would have won 10 fewer games? What does the replacement mean;in this stat? If mcdavid is out, draisaitl is the new first line center, but someone like sam gagner is called up to fill the roster slot. So which of them is the "replacement"?
Sam Ganger is the replacement in this scenario, but you helped to explain why the number might seem low. I don't know the exact calculation, but I know EvolvingHockey uses the "average value of each teams 13th forward or 7th defenseman" as their "Replacement Level" Intuitively you might think that McDavid is worth way more than 12 points in the standings, but taking him away means more minutes for other players who will have more opportunities to provide value.
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Agree. The Oilers are not the Oilers when McDavid isn’t scoring and we saw that for ~30 games at the start of the year. Clear cut MVP imo.
The issue I have is why is 5v5 scoring valued so highly in these types of things? I get it for like yeah most of the game is played 5v5 and such but that doesn't matter overall. If a player is scoring 50 more points then their 5v5 play doesn't really matter (other than defensive metrics).
Ultimately it's important because it's a more consistent measure insofar as how effective a player can be. You can't guarantee powerplays, and you're (typically) going to generate chances automatically on the powerplay by virtue of being up a guy Doesn't mean powerplay points are irrelevant but your 5v5 measures are more important because that's what most of your time will be and it's harder to generate chances
Yeah basically it’s just more difficult to score more 5 on 5. So if two players have the exact same point totals, but if player A has 10 more PP goals and 15 more PP assists than player B, I think player B had the better season personally.
I imagine it's because most of the game is played there, and that tends to be where the vast majority of points come from. I also think it's a better measure of actual talent since you don't need a numerical advantage to produce. That isn't to say that 5v5 points are "worth more", but if we're actually trying to measure player talent, then the better player is probably the one who performs the best for the main 80% of the game when the field is level
Teams score over 2.5x more goals/min on the PP than at 5v5. So PP scoring is 'easier'. The ratio of TOI is also ~10x more at 5v5. Models typically 'weigh' stats relative to these factors.
Yeah, this model basically says, “Kucherov is carrying the top PP in the league? No, those goals he produced don’t matter because PP success is less repeatable over large samples”. Which miss the whole point of a WAR model. You’re not projecting future performance, you’re supposed to measure how many additional wins they created. Scoring an extra goal on the power play leads to a win just as much as one at 5 on 5.
You do see there are Power Play stats in the image, right? Also, I'm fairly certain total WAR does factor in special teams, but obviously it's going to count PP production at a lower rate than 5v5 production.
Yes, I see that. You do see that they are clearly weighted very little in the calculation of the WAR number, right?
Kucherov is really going to win the Art Ross and finish behind McDavid, Mackinnon, Matthews and Crosby in Hart voting lol
I mean the difference in point production between the top 3 is empty net points. Not like kucherov is absolutely killing everyone else. Mack and Mcdavid have also been the much better defensive players. I can understand thinking Kucherov should win the hart but imo it’s so close I don’t think it would be a robbery as long as one of those 3 wins it even if I’m not happy with the result personally
> I mean the difference in point production between the top 3 is empty net points. McDavid without ENP: 125pts in 74GP (1.69 P/GP) Kucherov without ENP: 123pts in 76GP (1.62 P/GP) MacKinnon without ENP: 125pts in 78GP (1.60 P/GP)
dang, I didn’t realize that they were being literal when they said that lol
I don’t really care who wins, I’ve already seen my favourite players win every single award except the Selke and Calder, I just think the campaign to discredit what Kucherov has accomplished is getting comical at this point. It’s become less of who should win the Hart and more why Kucherov shouldn’t win the Hart over the last few weeks.
Kucherov is 100% finishing top 3
If any of the other 3 candidates went from 2-9-1 to potentially winning the division they'd be a lock for the hart but there's voter fatigue
Voting for someone to win because their team was once bad is certainly a take
It's a narrative award, it's a good story. better than "oh well he hasn't won one yet"
I guess we'll see when the votes are announced
No shit
I'm going to vote for Matthews because if he wins it and when the leafs inevitably lose in the playoffs it will be salt in the wound.