Cornwall Ontario – I still marvel, over twenty years since I created some of the first stat systems used by a NHL team at how complicated some people turn stats. It’s probably for some of the same reasons I created some of my systems.
Hockey is still pretty much an old boys club even though we are seeing some new faces in management and teams embracing some new stats even if they are utterly flawed.
I still like to tinker and have this little stat toy I call win efficiency. It’s essentially a tool to see which teams get the most bang for their scoring value.
So I sat down tonight and did some crunching and without further adieu here’s the TOP EIGHT list for October 26, 2018!
Nashville 9.6
Colorado 7.2
Tampa Bay 6.75
Boston 6
Pittsburgh 5.62
Toronto 4.2
NJ 3.99
SJ 3.3
Mtl 2.75
and the worst 8
Phi -3.6
LA -3.6
Detroit -2.9
NY Rangers -2.7
Vancouver -2.16
Edmonton -2.0
Vegas -1.75
Columbus -1.65
I’ve always felt that for a stat to be productive the general rule is that given over a large body of data a positive result would be better than a negative one. A team’s goal differential is a very important number. Puck luck is always a factor, but the larger the body of data the less puck luck should impact a result.
Yes, you can use fancy graphs and charts that look really cool if you’ve had more than two mushrooms, but at the end of the day there’s always something that could be said for simplicity.
What also was really interesting was the over all divisional numbers.
Central 20.66
Atlantic 14.91
Metropolitan 3.28
Pacific -9.07
With only one team under .500 so far this season the Central is where it’s at for winning hockey.
You can have the greatest goalie get a shutout, but in Hockey you still need to score at least one goal more than the other team to win. Goal differential is an undervalued team stat, and in many cases misunderstood.
What do you think dear CFN viewers? You can post your comments below.