During a recent casual conversation with someone who has been intimately involved in the NHL for decades, he jokingly said this: “You ever think that all of these off-ice officials are actually the same people in every arena?”
It was a funny take on this gaggle of people in each city who keep the official stats for the league, sitting up in press boxes all clad in starched white shirts and black blazers with the NHL shield sewn to the breast pocket (and into their hearts). The overwhelming majority of them are retired white men with poorly veiled rooting interests in the home team. I laughed and added that I always thought the guy with the mustache was in charge.
But the real point is that these are the people who are responsible for all the numbers that have such an influence on the perception of the game. A player and a team go into an contract arbitration hearing with reams of data to prove that he is either worth more or less than the money being offered, and all of that data is based on these off-ice officials properly recording a game that is damn near impossible to properly record.
Goals, assists, and even plus-minus rating have been used forever, and are somewhat indisputable. But so much of the “advanced stats” are based on shot attempts, and those can be very difficult to accurately report.
I like the idea of tracking possession, and I find stats like Corsi and Fenwick occasionally useful. But how about a shift when a player’s team has three attempted shots from the blue line that all go wide, and then he loses his man in the defensive zone and gives up a great scoring chance? He finishes that shift plus-2 in Individual Corsi. Was that a productive shift?
But now we’re talking about the value of that specific stat, when the issue here is how the stat is actually kept.
Which is why teams aren’t spending all day on the league’s website pouring over the section of stats they call “enhanced.” Goodness knows how much commissioner Gary Bettman and the owners paid the software company SAP in developing that and now maintaining it.
Because the livelihood of those people who work for teams is based on winning, they track their own stats, keep them private and use them for their own internal evaluations.
Rangers coach Alain Vigneault is open about his team’s tracking of scoring chances, for and against, while a player is on the ice. Surely they value “Grade-A” with more importance — good and bad, as in for and against — than what they would deem “Grade-B” chances. So quickly, how’d Rick Nash play in Thursday’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Islanders? Let’s estimate and say his team had about 10 scoring chances while he was on the ice, maybe five of them “Grade-A,” and about three of them Grade-A with him the shooter. The team probably gave up three or four scoring chances against with him on the ice and even the goal that Mathew Barzal scored while beating Nash to the outside wasn’t exactly a terrific look.
So the Rangers probably have a number value to quantify how well Nash played, which he certainly did. Traditionally, he finished without a point and minus-1. In advanced lingo, he had a relatively ambiguous Corsi-For percentage of 53.85 (meaning that percent of shots with him on the ice went for his team).
So here’s a proposal: How about the league takes minimal effort to find someone who recently worked in a front office and hire them to keep stats the way teams do. This person can oversee the league’s whole statistical universe, which includes monitoring the quality control of the off-ice officials. It is easy to first do away with giveaways and takeaways — the most woefully kept stats in all of sports, with hits being a close second — and bring in scoring chances, and grade them. It won’t create any more work if done right, only different, more intelligent work.
Then the fans and media would have the resource to properly evaluate players and teams, and better understand the decisions made by coaches. Because now, despite the label of “advanced” or “enhanced” stats, we’re all still living in the dark ages with the same people in every arena leading the way.
J.T. Brown’s message
Tampa Bay forward J.T. Brown has been the only NHL player to take part in any anthem protest thus far, raising his fist back on Oct. 7.
He then released a statement on Wednesday explaining why he is no longer doing it, and what he is doing instead. And this surely seems like the appropriate way to utilize this platform — bring attention to yourself by protesting, and then shift the attention to the issues you want addressed. Good for J.T., and good for the Lightning, the NHL and the NHLPA for sticking up for him.
Malicious vs. unfortunate
Here is the line in the sand for the new head of the Department of Player Safety (DPS), George Parros. The hit from Vancouver defenseman Erik Gudbranson on the Bruins forward Frank Vatrano on Thursday is a tough situation, and the major boarding call was the right one.
(And Boston sure has to be happy they put three power-play goals on the board during that five-minute man-advantage.)
But the hit from the Stars’ Martin Hanzal on Nashville’s Yannick Weber from last week was awful, and didn’t draw a suspension at all. In fact, some people are arguing it shouldn’t have been a penalty?!?
Weber put himself in a vulnerable position reaching for the puck, but isn’t it on Hanzal to not bury his shoulder into Weber’s head? If it’s possible for that not to be a penalty according to the rulebook, and to not be a suspension according to DPS, then player safety is a joke.
Stay tuned . . .
. . . to the Devils. Yes, that’s right, the New Jersey Devils. They were supposed to be bad again (don’t know who would’ve thought that), but they’re in first place in the Metropolitan Division at 6-1-0.
The No. 1-overall pick, Nico Hischier, scored his first two NHL goals on Thursday night and rookie defenseman Will Butcher — arguably the most important and overlooked signing of the summer, coming out of University of Denver as the reigning Hobey Baker Award winner — has nine assists in his first six games, the most for a rookie in that span in league history.
Finally, interesting times out at The Rock.
Parting Shot
This just about says it all concerning Connor McDavid: