A month ago, I had an interesting talk with David Perron about
his new-found role as the primary set-up man on a line, and how that evolution in his game was intertwined with both his career-low individual shot attempt rate and career-long average shot distance. In the meantime, he just set a career-high in assists with 36 in 48 games; his previous high of 35 required 81 contests in 2008-09.
In our last discussion, Perron admitted to having knowledge of his own Corsi -- unlike past seasons, his relative "possession" stats are in the red. Expanding on that theme, this time, we chat about why some players are slow to embrace advanced stats, what newer advanced stat intrigues him, and why players are generally resistant to player tracking.
HockeyBuzz: How do you keep up with advanced stats? Which sites do you use? Or do you pick them up from your agent, Allan Walsh, who's known to be forward-thinking?
David Perron: I like to read on Twitter. It's not even about my personal stats. Just about general stats, which ones mean something. Which ones don't mean anything.
It's still early in the process. We're not fully sure what really means something. You can talk about Corsi for puck possession, but clearly, it's a shot generation thing, which means you have the puck, but doesn't mean you're necessarily possessing the puck as much.
There's a lot of teams that shoot from everywhere -- like [
against the Flyers last game], we shot the puck a lot from the outside, but we didn't generate that much.
I'll like to see the actual possession time. I'm sure it'll happen, there's going to be somebody timing every player that touches the puck. That's going to be the real possession stat; that's my opinion.
HB: Are there any advanced stats that you find particularly useful?
DP: They're all useful in their own ways. But I don't think you can live or die with one. We had a guy in Edmonton,
Tyler Dellow. I follow him still on Twitter. They hired him the summer that I got traded there. I talked with him a bunch about it.
He tweets about advanced stats a lot and I like to look at some of his tweets. I find it interesting. I had a lot of conversation with him, negative or positive, when I was there.
HB: It caught my attention that you were aware of your own Corsi because most players don't seem to be.
DP: I'm not that aware, I'm just aware of what's out there. Just like any other stat that's out there, blocked shots, takeaways, anything like that, it's a useful thing to look at, but at the same time, my eyes, when I look at a player, will tell me more than the stats. But it's something you can lean on and see if you're looking the right way.
HB: There's a perception that players are slow to embrace these kind of stats. But personally, I think these stats can enlarge your own understanding of your game. You seem to share that perspective.
DP: I don't understand why [other players] would think that way. Well, I do understand. They think that way because in their head, it's one or the other. But I think they can go together.
At the end of the day, what you see on the ice is still more important. It doesn't negate the benefit you can get from analytics.
Like you mentioned, being tough to knock off pucks, maybe that won't generate as many shots on net, but it's still tough to play against.
The thing that's tougher for hockey to track is that it's not from a start position every time. Like in baseball, it's easy.
Even football, it's stopped every time. In hockey, you're moving all the time. It's a different situation every single time.
I saw a stat recently that really caught my eye: Shot assists. That was interesting because you brought that up to me -- [a month ago,] my Corsi was a little bit worse than other years, but I'm focusing more on passing this year -- so I was wondering if that had anything to do...but anyway, I'm just kind of reading about it.
HB: There is somebody, Corey Sznajder, who is currently tracking shot assists. He hasn't tracked all of Vegas's games, he's done maybe [a quarter], but you're doing very well in that department. (HockeyBuzz note: Ryan Stimson popularized shot assists.)
DP: Well, it's not even that. I've never seen the stats from our team with that.
But that's the other thing. He needs to be doing every game. At the same time, it has to be consistent over the league.
Even NHL stats, when they do Hits or things like that, it's not consistent from building to building.
HB: So shot assists, even though you're not focused on yourself, you're in the 99th percentile. That makes sense with what we were talking about, in terms of your individual shot attempts falling and trying to get the puck to James Neal as often as possible.
DP: So my question to you then -- in terms of why guys aren't sure about [advanced stats] -- let's say one stat, say Corsi, for this year, my Corsi has been a little worse than other years, but my assists are high. So which one, at the end, do you look at?
HB: It's a good question...
DP: So you can have a writer who's sold on Corsi -- this guy is having a horrible year that way -- but does it mean he's really [been bad]? I'm not sure.
HB: Well, in my job, I'm trying to learn more about the game...
DP: Me too, trust me... (laughs)
HB: Three years ago, I would've been Corsi-focused. This guy's Corsi is bad, he's not a good player. But there are so many useful stats, so many things you can be good at.
Also, there are very few players who really drive play. So on my side, as an analyst, I need to figure out why a player is able to drive play. It's not just, a guy has good Corsi numbers, he's a good player, that's it. A guy like Joe Thornton, his Corsi numbers are always high -- but what does he do demonstrably as a hockey player to achieve these figures? That's the challenge for me.
DP: And let's say on Corsi, someone changes on the backcheck, you get on the ice, [your team receives] three shots against. You're really not in the play. Who gets recorded?
HB: That's recorded on you. Though it's not your fault.
DP: In the long run, how do you judge something like that? You don't know.
HB: That actually leads to my last question. What do you think of player tracking?
DP: For what reason?
HB: To get more accurate data. They can track, for example, you just joined the shift that ended, so it's not your fault that your team took three shot attempts against. But of course, if you're in the middle of the play, then it might make sense to record these shot attempts against you.
DP: Also, to see the speed of a player?
HB: Yeah, yeah.
DP: It'll be interesting to see McDavid's speed.
HB: Yup, yup.
DP: I mean, it's tough for players to be sold on it.
The truth about it is that you have guys who will be worried that the next day, you'll come to practice, and they'll say that you didn't work hard enough in the game because you didn't skate five kilometers today. You skated three, but the next guy skated six.
But you're different players. You impact a game in a different way.
I was just watching the Olympics. You look at biathlon as a sport, it's cardio, cardio, cardio, and yeah, there's skill to hit the target. But if you're feeling horrible that day, I'm guessing it's impossible to win.
Whereas in hockey, if I have a bad night energy-wise, I can impact the game in a different way. I can get to the net more, trying to be more physical. If I don't feel I can make plays as much, I pass the puck.
In other sports, you can't do that.
I'm sure that's part of the reason [for the NHLPA's concerns about tracking].
***
This big news from morning skate is that Tomas Nosek will return to the line-up tonight against Chicago, taking Brendan Leipsic's spot.
Nosek is a key penalty killer, who's worked well with Pierre-Édouard Bellemare to form the basis of the team's 12th-ranked PK. I talked to Nosek, Bellemare, and Gerard Gallant about their chemistry on the kill, which I'll spotlight soon.
Meanwhile, I asked Nosek about the play where he got hurt. If you watch the replay carefully, you'll see the puck blur by the Czech winger for a number of seconds before contact:
"It was a little late," Nosek noted. "The problem too was I didn't touch the puck at all. So it's interference, for sure."
While interference was called on Emelin, the 25-year-old forward also acknowledged, "I didn't notice he was coming, so he hit me from the blindside. I wasn't that ready."
***
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