On the Forecheck
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Block heads
by Forechecker on 12/01/08 at 07:53 AM ET
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At From the Rink, James Mirtle digs inside the numbers to see if shot-blocking is actually a winning NHL strategy:
It seems to me we’ve heard more and more about blocking shots the past few years, and the stat is often attributed to the best defensive players — and teams — when it comes to evaluating their play in their own end.
Looking at the stats, however, it’s not hard to see that a team like Detroit, for example, is consistently near the bottom of the NHL in shot blocks, and is this season right in dead last. The Islanders, meanwhile, lead with 17.7 blocks per game, almost exactly double the Red Wings, and are (needless to say) trailing them in the standings.
What follows is a nice correlation matrix of various factors (like Goals Per Game) with a team’s winning percentage. There’s even a helpful comment from a statistics teacher about the danger of mistaking correlation for causation. All the same, it’s always interesting to look under the hood and see how different aspects of the NHL game are interrelated.
Filed in: NHL Statistical Analysis | On the Forecheck | Permalink
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About On the Forecheck
Dirk Hoag is the Forechecker, churner of NHL stats and analysis. Having started over 10 years ago writing for websites like In the Crease and e-Sports, Dirk launched On The Forecheck in 2005 to cover the Nashville Predators as well as apply statistical analysis to NHL hockey.
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