Blackhawks' Bolland draws ire of Canucks coach

[Ton]

Believe me Larmer, I was one of the only few that agreed.

 

[R K]

I still disagree, but 2nd in the NHL I don't really give a flying ****.

 

[Variable]

Is the SV% a problem with goaltending or a problem with quality chances given up by his line? All questions to consider.



Where do you grab these stats?

Like Larmer already mentioned, Behind the Net is a pretty good site.Gabriel Desjardins does a pretty damn good job, I'll use his site or usually go off hockey prospectus, the site and the book they release. It's a like a stat bible. A lot of it you can do yourself with just the raw data, you just have to want to crunch the numbers is what it comes down to usually. It's a not as big a mystery as some hockey writers and pundits make it out to be, it's just more work and not entirely "fan friendly", the same problem that baseball faces when looking at their game more in depth and trying to bring it to the masses.



But hockey doesn't seem ready for it yet. When you got the majority of the fans and the hockey dinosaurs and relics like Don Cherry , who for one reason or another, is still highly regarded, knocking and bashing advanced evaluations and stats whenever it's brought up, it's going to be tough to change. It took a long ass time for baseball to finally start catching on. Hockey looks to be still quite a ways behind that kind of progress. Desjardins does work for a few teams in the league, but hardly any of them like to even talk about it. Think the Penguins were the only team that would admit to the horrible "crime" of using advanced stats in their evaluations of players. That's how weird and bizarre the NHL is about this.



As for the save percentages, all the numbers support Bolland's line in playing well, just that the save percentage behind him and his line is so bad that it drags the overall appearance of his play down. It's well below average compared to in the playoffs where it was above average. The Hawks are still outshooting and outchancing the other team this year while Bolland's line is on the ice. That's saying something because he has the highest QualComp on the team, meaning their line was usually possessing the puck more than the other team's best line. The difference being that the Hawks were scoring in over 1 out of every 3 chances in those playoff series with Bolland's line on the ice. That's crazy, a pretty big anomaly, for even the best of lines in the league. Typical scoring rates are more around 1 out of every 7 chances. Hasn't been the case during the regular season so far,t I think Bolland's line has been outscored something like 20-11 compared to the 16-5 advantage they had in the playoffs. Regressing back to the mean. You can't realistically expect it to be like it was in the playoffs. That was a hell of a streak.

 

[supraman]

You just said that Bolland has to cover for his wingers - Frolik being the one that's played most with him....but Frolik is playing good defence? So why is it he has to cover for him?



I think Bolland has put up offensive numbers with Ladd - but is Ladd better offensively than Frolik is? Ladd topped 20 just once (last year). Bolland has shown to put up offensive numbers in 1/2 seasons at times - but is that because of Ladd/Versteeg/Havlat only?

Frolik can't even hold Ladd's jock. Ladd is the perfect 3rd line guy. I would kill to have him back on this club. Also Ladd had 49 points and was a plus 26 with Bolland and Havlat. That's fucking productive for a 3rd line guy, every other game he's going to find the score sheet. The club year he had 38 points without havlat and that is still a point every other game, which again is excellent for a 3rd line guy.

 

[the canadian dream]

Can't compare baseball to hockey Variable as far as using stats. Far too difficult in hockey as its a game based more on team dynamics than individual ones. Still need to actually watch what is happening on the ice to get a better idea of player, lines and team evaluation. Too many players effect the other player in hockey and when you are dealing with 12 guys on the ice at the same time (penalties and o.t. excluded) operating at incredible physical speed it's just far to difficult to break everything down into numbers that tell much of a story .You also don't have the same officiating issues, the time clock issues and a whole lot of other things that skew hockey stats. The only stat in hockey that really matters is wins and loses (goals and assists are fun too but we don't need stats trying to showing why those goals and assists came to be..that's just dumb) . It's part of the reason I love this game. It's the best team sport in the world and heavy indepth individual stats don't belong in heavy team based sports. You really don't see a whole lot of indepth individual stats in team sports like football (unless you are a QB) or basketball. There are reasons for that.



But what is funny is that I do tend to accept some goalie stats as being a decent go to device. That's because unfairly the goalie is treated as an individual player rather than a team player in hockey. And it's just easier to calculate shots against goals allowed. Totally unfair and I try not to go the route but I have been guilty of looking at goalie stats more than any other stat in hockey.



Guys like Don Chery may be outdated in many aspects of the game but they still can be very effective at predicting cause and effect by watching the games and for being around it for as long as they have. There are some basic fundamentals to the game which will never change and there are many huge psychological elements (like any sport but I think hockey is thicker in it than people want to believe) along with the physical elements that stats can NEVER explain or should even try too as it's a waste of time. I tend to look towards those who have played or who have been involved in the game at the highest level to explain those parts of the game. Not stats.



Just my opinion.

 

[MassHavoc]

Thats what sitting and writing an 11 page and 10 page bullshit mindless essays will do to a human brain. Hahahahah, DO YOU HERE ME!!!!

I wasn't going to say anything but you did it twice and it made me chuckle. We all do it but that was just too much for me not to poke at you with a stick a bit. You can keep your papers by the way.

 

[Variable]

Can't compare baseball to hockey Variable as far as using stats. Far too difficult in hockey as its a game based more on team dynamics than individual ones. Still need to actually watch what is happening on the ice to get a better idea of player, lines and team evaluation. Too many players effect the other player in hockey and when you are dealing with 12 guys on the ice at the same time (penalties and o.t. excluded) operating at incredible physical speed it's just far to difficult to break everything down into numbers that tell much of a story .You also don't have the same officiating issues, the time clock issues and a whole lot of other things that skew hockey stats. The only stat in hockey that really matters is wins and loses (goals and assists are fun too but we don't need stats trying to showing why those goals and assists came to be..that's just dumb) . It's part of the reason I love this game. It's the best team sport in the world and heavy indepth individual stats don't belong in heavy team based sports. You really don't see a whole lot of indepth individual stats in team sports like football (unless you are a QB) or basketball. There are reasons for that.



But what is funny is that I do tend to accept some goalie stats as being a decent go to device. That's because unfairly the goalie is treated as an individual player rather than a team player in hockey. And it's just easier to calculate shots against goals allowed. Totally unfair and I try not to go the route but I have been guilty of looking at goalie stats more than any other stat in hockey.



Guys like Don Chery may be outdated in many aspects of the game but they still can be very effective at predicting cause and effect by watching the games and for being around it for as long as they have. There are some basic fundamentals to the game which will never change and there are many huge psychological elements (like any sport but I think hockey is thicker in it than people want to believe) along with the physical elements that stats can NEVER explain or should even try too as it's a waste of time. I tend to look towards those who have played or who have been involved in the game at the highest level to explain those parts of the game. Not stats.



Just my opinion.

I know hockey and baseball are different, I was just mentioning that like every other sport, it took a while for those more advanced stats to be accepted into the game. There is something to it when the trends go along with those stats, that the patterns follow it. Yeah nothing will ever be as good as watching it and really understanding what you are watching in any sport, but to totally disregard other options that help explain it is dumb. Like I said, right now we have explanations like "Well the Myth of Dave Bolland is that while he's not a star player, he plays very well in the playoffs. He's really gritty, he's a grinder, he'll do this, he'll do that,etc,etc..." Okay well saying that is fine, but why has that more often than not shown up in the playoffs in recent years rather than say right now? Oh because of A and B and C and D. Stuff you NEVER hear about in a play by play broadcast. You'll always get the adjective filled explanations rather than things that actually go to explaining what is happening. Is it more work? Yes. But I believe it pays off in better understanding the game. The potential has certainly shown to be there, you just have to stop giving so much credibilty to people who won't even compromise about it. That will continually trash it and even insult the people who are behind it. That's ridiculous.



That's the problem people have.They think that all the people who use those stats believe that they tell the entire story. And they never do. They just give you a better idea of what's going on, and in a lot of cases, may cause you think twice about something you thought was set in stone. And some teams are starting to catch on to it's uses, same as in the NBA. I don't really follow football as closely as I do other sports, but I know there are plenty of individual advanced metrics in basketball. Hell, in basketball, more than any of the other big 4 sports, you can have one player have a HUGE impact on a team. It is a lot more focused on an individual than any of the other sports.

 

[Ashor-redtribe]

http://youtu.be/qswNe097mGU guys i had to share this video...I found it extremely funny. when the song changes during the stair down

 

[MassHavoc]

What an awkward reaction. Just seemed like the fan wanted to reach out and touch him and knocked him helmet off and it looked like Lou wanted to throw down? Was this after a win?

 

[jaxhawksfan]

I mean how fucking stupid is Vigneault? What coach stoops down to the level of the players EVER, and IQ is NOT measured in the size of an object, it is based on numbers. The word he was looking for was brain, Bolland's "brain" is the size of bird seed, god damn moron.



Btw guys, my penis is 163....

Grams? Years old? Micrometers?

 

[Samurai]

For no reason, other than it made me loff.

 

[Ton]

LOL!!!! Classic

 

[R K]

Had two goals last night if not for Furlatt.

 

[MassHavoc]

For no reason, other than it made me loff.

holy shit that is awesome, tell me its real somehow