Tweets of the Week: Is Blake Wheeler the Best Edition (Coyotes)

Coyotes

Tweets of the Week: Is Blake Wheeler the Best Edition

By James Tanner

Dec 19, 2016 • 2:15 pm

0comment-bubble

Before you hurt yourself attacking your keyboard after you read the following Tweets, keep in mind that we're all here for fun. That nothing you'll read is a 'fact' just some of the conclusions people come to when they ignore reputation and focus on stats alone.

Try to remain dignified when you find out who I think should win the Norris, and for the love of god, put Gradma and the Kids in the other room before you read this.

I'm just kidding. Remember, nothing is a fact, but data is important. I believe when data shows you something that 'seems' ridiculous, it should make you question what you previously believed. Some people think that is somehow a radical philosophy. But they must have their reasons. Not everyone can even agree that Brian Wilson was a genius, so let's not have too high of hopes for hockey stats. Let's just enjoy that being able to come here and argue means your life is better than most (statistics again!!) Thanks

I was really rooting for them too. And I am, I mean, hockey wise, If I hated a team by the basis of their owner, who is there really left to cheer for? Still, this is a crazy story.

This chart shows the expected winning percentage of a team vs a league-average team. Based on this, we can infer that - at least according to this model, by DTMaboutheart, the Leafs are the best team in the NHL. Or one of them, at least.

This one shows the odds of a team winning the President's Trophy. Only ten teams have a statistically realistic possibility of finishing first in the standings. The Leafs are the tenth team.

A similar chart also shows the Leafs to have a 64% chance of making the Playoffs, the Coyotes to have a 1.2% chance, the Blue Jackets to have a 97.8 chance (pretty much the same chance the Huffington Post gave Hillary Clinton, anything can happen). Interestingly, the Oilers are at 80% and Philly 32.8 despite their recent ten game winning streak.

This one shows that so far this year, Auston Matthews has been the best goal scorer in the NHL. Obviously taking into account total play and not just the results.

For information on how all these charts were assembled and links to write-ups explaining them, follow him on Twitter and see his bio for a great blog. He's the best stats guy to follow, in my opinion, because he always explains how he got his answers and will answer questions.

And yet, Tippett played him the second least on the team (after Dvorak) and no power-play time.

It's like how people laughed when I said Jake Gardiner should get the Norris if the season ended today. But then this chart came out that says that - at the very least - he should be a candidate:

Notice the overall impact puts him as the fifth most important player in the NHL this year so far.

A couple other interesting things: Ekman-Larsson is the top defenseman in the league and a great example of how viewing the games can be misleading. Only a week or so ago I wrote that I didn't think OEL had been himself this year. Obviously I was letting a few memorable errors and a terrible record contribute to my view of the player. In reality, he reamains one of the players with the highest game-to-game impact. Just another example of how a bad team can hide a great player in this sport.

(To think, if you had the NBA equivalent of OEL you would be a championship calibre team automatically).

Another cool thing about this chart is that analytics are actually showing Shea Weber to be awesome and that despite the recent narrative that his leading the league in blocked shots shows Erik Karlsson is finally learning to play defense, his defensive impact is still negative.

Finally, Blake Wheller. Who knew?

Show Comments
Loading...
Loading...
0
Show comments for this article