Dion Phaneuf

2014-15 Season Preview: The Atlantic Division

Jared NHL League-Wide Analysis Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Image from Sarah Connors via Wikimedia Commons

Finishing last season with an average of 87.6 points per team, the Atlantic/Flortheast Division was the worst in the NHL. I see that gap widening, not narrowing, in 2014-15.

The battle at the top of the division will, in my eyes, come down to two teams: the Boston Bruins and the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Bruins have placed either first or second in their division (the Atlantic or the former Northeast) in each of the past four seasons. The 2nd place Lightning finished a full 16 points behind the Bruins in 2013-14, but a strong off-season combined with a full season of Steven Stamkos and rookie Jonathan Drouin potentially making an impact has them near even money with the Bruins.

Continue reading →

Overemphasizing Context – A mistake just as poor as explaining context in the first place.

garik16 Exploring Context, NHL League-Wide Analysis, Theory Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments
AMac Context

The only context that can explain Andre MacDonald’s performance is if he’s actually wearing these chains under his uniform.

Eric Tulsky frequently points out on twitter that common critiques of analytics people (whether it be hockey or any other sports analytics) tend to act as if those involved with analytics are kind of stupid and have ignored the obvious.  For example, people tend to respond to arguments involving corsi and possession by bringing up the obvious subject of context – “Sure he has a bad corsi, but he gets tough minutes!”  And the general response of course is, yes we have, and we wouldn’t be making these assertions had we not done so.   Hockey Analytics has come up with a multitude of statistics to measure context – Behind The Net alone has 3 metrics for quality of competition and 3 metrics for quality of teammates, plus a measure of zone starts – HA has multiple different measures for the same thing and so does now Extra Skater (with Time on Ice QualComp and QualTeam).

Continue reading →