Shot quantity is a highly repeatable and persistent skill, but so is shot location. Well… it is repeatable offensively at a team level; despite natural human intuition saying otherwise, the same cannot be said as confidently for defensive repression.
We decided to look at what shot location since the 2011-12 season says about the Jets and their players. Today we turn to the Jets wingers.
These numbers have some inaccuracies and are estimates, so some caution must be taken when making inferences. Two differing numbers may not actually be significantly different. It would be wise to predominately look at the rough trends. It should also be noted that these numbers are taken without any adjustments for differences in usage.
Tobias Enstrom
| Low Slot | High Slot | Outside | |||||||
| With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | |
| For | 1.06 | 1.03 | 0.03 | 1.03 | 1.03 | 0.00 | 1.11 | 1.02 | 0.09 |
| Against | 1.00 | 1.03 | -0.03 | 0.99 | 1.06 | -0.07 | 1.01 | 1.04 | -0.03 |
| Differential | 0.06 | 0.00 | 0.06 | 0.04 | -0.03 | 0.07 | 0.10 | -0.02 | 0.12 |
Tobias Enstrom may be small, but he is not too small to be effective. In all three regions Jets do better with Enstrom than without. Add these numbers to the pile for Enstrom being underrated in his ability to repress chances against.
Dustin Byfuglien
| Low Slot | High Slot | Outside | |||||||
| With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | |
| For | 1.09 | 0.99 | 0.10 | 1.05 | 1.00 | 0.05 | 1.10 | 1.01 | 0.09 |
| Against | 1.06 | 1.03 | 0.03 | 1.03 | 1.04 | -0.01 | 1.01 | 1.04 | -0.03 |
| Differential | 0.03 | -0.04 | 0.07 | 0.02 | -0.04 | 0.06 | 0.09 | -0.03 | 0.12 |
There are some detractors out there who say that numbers fail to represent Dustin Byfuglien's impact. They often cite his defensive failures as evidence to back their claim and dismiss the numbers. Here we see something that the analytic types have been saying all along: Byfuglien has his defensive flaws but he more than makes up for it elsewhere.
Byfuglien's against numbers in the slot are his weakness and he allows more high danger shots against than the team does without him on the ice. Still, he more than makes up for it in the offensive numbers and he actually improves the Jets in suppression outside of the low slot (which still has value).
Zach Bogosian
| Low Slot | High Slot | Outside | |||||||
| With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | |
| For | 1.04 | 1.03 | 0.01 | 1.00 | 1.03 | -0.03 | 1.09 | 1.03 | 0.06 |
| Against | 1.11 | 1.03 | 0.08 | 1.08 | 1.02 | 0.06 | 0.98 | 1.08 | -0.10 |
| Differential | -0.07 | 0.00 | -0.07 | -0.08 | 0.01 | -0.09 | 0.11 | -0.05 | 0.16 |
This distribution seems highly unexpected. While Zach Bogosian never has been a shot metric superstar, he's always been passable given the difficulty of his zone starts. These numbers indicate that regular shot metrics may be overvaluing Bogosian due to his high probability shot differentials being negative and his low differential shots being positive. How much remains to be seen (teaser to future article).
Jacob Trouba
| Low Slot | High Slot | Outside | |||||||
| With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | |
| For | 0.97 | 1.04 | -0.07 | 1.03 | 0.98 | 0.05 | 1.10 | 1.01 | 0.09 |
| Against | 1.03 | 0.97 | 0.07 | 1.18 | 0.95 | 0.24 | 1.04 | 1.06 | -0.02 |
| Differential | -0.06 | 0.08 | -0.13 | -0.15 | 0.03 | -0.18 | 0.06 | -0.05 | 0.11 |
Jacob Trouba is only twenty, so obviously growing pains and development is expected. Still, all signs point out to Trouba being a potentially very special player. Reminder: Trouba has accumulated these results while almost exclusively playing with Trouba, and often with difficult assignments. We've previously discussed Trouba's recent improvement in shot metrics has pushed the Jets to new highs (prior falling to injury).
Mark Stuart
| Low Slot | High Slot | Outside | |||||||
| With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | |
| For | 0.96 | 1.09 | -0.13 | 1.00 | 1.03 | -0.03 | 1.02 | 1.03 | -0.01 |
| Against | 1.07 | 1.02 | 0.05 | 1.14 | 1.01 | 0.13 | 1.03 | 1.02 | -0.01 |
| Differential | -0.11 | 0.07 | -0.18 | -0.14 | 0.02 | -0.16 | -0.01 | 0.01 | -0.02 |
Mark Stuart’s defensive skill pushes most of the shots to the outside slot rather than the inner slot. Unfortunately, Stuart is a negative overall, especially in the prime scoring areas. The Jets inability to create quality scoring chances while Stuart is on the ice has been the largest bane for Stuart. Some may excuse Stuart due to linemates, but the largest percentage of ice time has been with the likes of Evander Kane, Andrew Ladd, Bryan Little, and Blake Wheeler.
Grant Clitsome
| Low Slot | High Slot | Outside | |||||||
| With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | |
| For | 0.92 | 0.95 | -0.02 | 1.02 | 0.94 | 0.08 | 1.02 | 1.01 | 0.01 |
| Against | 0.99 | 1.02 | -0.03 | 0.93 | 1.01 | -0.08 | 1.03 | 1.06 | -0.03 |
| Differential | -0.06 | -0.07 | 0.01 | 0.09 | -0.07 | 0.16 | -0.01 | -0.05 | 0.04 |
The next two defenders bring some very interesting results. In the two prime areas Grant Clitsome performance has improved the Jets shot repression but has hurt shot volume production. This is probably contrary to what most Jet fans were expecting. Perhaps this is why Clitsome performed so admirably when he was with Byfuglien.
Paul Postma
| Low Slot | High Slot | Outside | |||||||
| With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | |
| For | 1.06 | 1.04 | 0.02 | 1.01 | 1.03 | -0.02 | 1.00 | 1.04 | -0.04 |
| Against | 0.94 | 0.98 | -0.04 | 0.92 | 1.09 | -0.17 | 0.96 | 0.99 | -0.04 |
| Differential | 0.13 | 0.06 | 0.06 | 0.09 | -0.06 | 0.15 | 0.04 | 0.05 | 0.00 |
Of all the Jets over the three and a bit seasons combined, Paul Postma's deployment has been the most extreme in terms of offensive zone start push. His low number of defensive zone starts obviously have impacted Postma's numbers. However, if you are going to have a skater playing sheltered minutes, it might as well be someone taking full advantage.
Adam Pardy
| Low Slot | High Slot | Outside | |||||||
| With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | With | Without | Relative | |
| For | 0.99 | 0.95 | 0.04 | 0.99 | 1.04 | -0.05 | 1.00 | 1.06 | -0.06 |
| Against | 0.98 | 0.99 | 0.00 | 0.93 | 1.07 | -0.14 | 0.99 | 1.05 | -0.06 |
| Differential | 0.01 | -0.03 | 0.04 | 0.06 | -0.03 | 0.09 | 0.01 | 0.01 | 0.00 |
Adam Pardy, like Postma, has predominately played extremely sheltered minutes. Pardy has also played well in these minutes but not to the same degree. Pardy is an interesting case to watch as he has obvious talents that show why he consistently beats soft minutes, but has obvious limitations that would become a hindrance if he were to take a larger role on the Jets.
Final Thoughts
The most common arguments against hockey analytics tend to fall into the "building a straw man" category. Predictive modelling is argued against as if they are displaying destinies, not probabilities. Trend analysis is argued against as if individuals and exceptions existing is ignored. Factors that have either a minor impact or unfavourable signal to noise ratio are treated as not existing.
The infamous debate over shot quality commonly falls into this type of debate. Because most (but not all) analysis relies more heavily on shot quantity, detractors of hockey statistics often criticize for viewing all shots as equal. No one believes all shots are equal, and this has been shown statistically. While shot distance and location is a highly repeatable and persistent trait offensively, shooting percentage has a very high amount of noise per signal ratio. Because of this, it makes it difficult to add large amounts of information from shot quality data.
For more thoughts on shot quality -with some links to other articles-, check out Eric Tulsky's article: Shot quality matters, but how much?
