Even Strength? More Like Even Weakness. Scoring Chances - Oct. 29 Islanders-Sharks

That means over 60% of the chances in the game went to the Isles.

Cause that title was a burn.

if they’ll try Rolston on one of the first two lines. Is he playing like shit cuz he’s annoyed or upset that he’s not getting the top 6 treatment, and, if so, perhaps he’ll play “up to his top 6 ceiling” if given the opportunity…just a crazy theory anyways. I wouldn’t mind seeing PAP or Okposo with Bailey and Comeau and let this $5M premadonna show us how “top 6” he is. Perhaps the Nielsen or Tavares line can handle his uninspired play without too much of a hitch while Bailey gets a motivated RW and finds chemistry. Basically trying to isolate the variables here.

Slowly it is coming together. We need to remember this is a young team that put a lot of pressure on itself. The odds on them picking up where they left off were slim. So while everyone is probably disappointed, it was a tough month opponent-wise and we did get points in 5 of 9 games.

As always, great work and thanks.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very grateful for what you’re doing here. It’s tremendously difficult to be accurate and very time consuming. I would not want to do it every game, so, again, great effort. However, I have some experience from a similar, maybe more educated project in European soccer and just want to share some thoughts.

I think in order to get a true surplus value over Corsi the definition of what actually counts as a scoring chance would need to be worked out a little more clearly. I feel only plays presenting highest danger should be counted as a scoring chance, and there consequently it shouldn’t matter at all, whether that shot is blocked, missed, hitting the goal post or not taken at all. Right now, we seem to miss some plays of highest danger, but on the other hand include too many half-decent shots and thereby dilute the results. At the end, what we have is something similar to Corsi, with the disadvantage of a smaller sample size and greater effect of scorer bias (not meaning biased towards one team, but just being a tad inaccurate due to the vague definition, more inaccurate however than the official Corsi data).

Obviously, that applies for everyone, for the whole project, not just your numbers here. But I guess someone new to this might be inclinced to overcount scoring chances a little. Also because there seems to be some kind of expectation among people for scoring chances to substitute Corsi. That’s the wrong idea in my opinion. Scoring chances can’t substitute Corsi – and don’t need to. But can give very valueable additional information, if collated accordingly.

Now, just to make it a little less philosphical here are some thoughts about certain plays you counted as scoring chances in this game:

15:55 Rolston. For me that’s a classic Corsi event. They’re doing well in the neutral zone to keep pressure on, direct the play towards the opposing net quickly again and Rolston is getting a shot off indeed. But he’s not really in a good scoring position and it’s an easy stop for the goalie, actually should never have created that much of a rebound, and the outcome of the play (rebound) should not be the focus anyway. For me, whenever it takes a huge mistake by the goalie for the puck to go in, it’s not a scoring chance.

9:40 Okposo, 9:37 MacDonald: I don’t like this being counted twice. As long as nothing’s defined as for how to go about rebound chances it’s ok to count it of course. But I feel Okposo’s shot is only very narrowly presenting high danger in itself, just looks really dangerous due to the rebound and MacDonald obviously is getting the chance only thanks to the rebound. It just feels strange because without the rebound we’d have barely enough there to be counted once.

3:05 Eaton: Not really highest danger for me. Again, more of a classic Corsi event – Sharks have the puck, but can’t get it up the ice because Eaton intercepts it, Comeau recovers it nicely, Nielsen brings it in and Eaton gets a shot off at the end, but from a rather bad angle after the Sharks made sure to keep the Isles to the outside which could be credited with by not awarding the Isles a scoring chance there. (Maybe Comeau’s shot a few seconds later was a better scoring chance).

14:01 (2nd) Rolston: Again, nice backcheck by the Isles in the neutral zone, recovering the puck, getting it up the ice quickly again and getting a shot off. But the angle is horrible, the outcome is not bad with the huge rebound in front, but that doesn’t really matter in my opinion and Rolston just can’t score from there.

6:03 Nielsen: If that’s the play happening about 10 seconds earlier, then well, I don’t know. Looks kind of dangerous at the end with the puck bouncing towards the corner, but it’s not like the Isles got them into a very good scoring position there.

5:43 Jurcina: Looks dangerous initially with Jurcina being open, but at the end he’s forced to take a shot from way outside with two Sharks applying pressure and the goalie being almost unbeatable from that angle.

19:30 (3rd) Moulson: Another rebound I’d rather not count as a scoring chance. Moulson is quite a bit away from getting a clear shot off, again controlled very well by the defense.

11:21 Grabner: Shark defense again not giving him anything, Grabner’s forced to take a shot from way out.

Some might be debateable and it’s natural everyone sees it a little differently. By the way, I only went through the Isles’ chances, so I’m not implying here you’re counting everything for the Isles, but nothing for the Sharks.

And again, don’t get me wrong, I highly appreciate the effort. Just count it as you see it – as long as it’s consistent it’s valueable stuff. And be sure I won’t start debating in these threads now whether this or that should be counted as a scoring chance. It’s just something I thought would mabye help you in the process.

Keep it up!

NYIslanders NYIslanders
#Isles practice at Iceworks today. Nino Niederreiter skating with Moulson and Parenteau. Tavares not on the ice.