The Shot Quality Argument: Why You Should Stop Using It

Right off the bat, I'm gonna say that yes, I do like stats. I'm one of those people. I'm the annoying guy who tells you that David Clarkson's bodychecking doesn't help the Leafs win. I'm the one you want to tell to shut up and have some faith in the team, and that the coach & GM are there for a reason (nepotism and exploiting an insular industry that's resistant to change, but that's a completely different article.) I reference zone starts alongside goal counts, and you don't get why I'm so hung up on neutral zone ice time.  I'm the one who slowly shakes his head when you say that it's the quality of shots that matters and not the number. Shot quality is a thing that really gets my goat sometimes, because unlike most fancy stats that are argued against as being too hard to tabulate in a fast game like hockey, shot quality actually is too hard to calculate. When you examine how goals go in the net, there's actually a shit ton of variables.

It should be established that I'm arguing about quality of shots in the same sense I would about any other metric: as a trend of results and not singular instances. A breakaway generally scores more often than an unscreened point shot. Yes you generally get better shots on a power play. Yes, you generally expect a shot from the red line to not go in. However, the word "generally" doesn't cover instances like Toskala watching a puck slide under him from 200 feet away or Lidstrom beating Cloutier from centre ice. Until Bettman decides that goals get double or triple value for style, Crosby top shelfing a breakaway and Mike Smith's pants lead to the same result.

Who's shooting has as much of an influence as how or where. To go back to breakaways, you can believe it's a quality chance until you realize that it's Tomas Plekanec who has missed on almost every breakaway. Now imagine that he actually scores, but wait! Was the goalie Kari Lehtonen or Devan Dubnyk? If a player who can't score breakaways gets one past a sub-.900 goalie, did the player have a really good shot or did the goalie blow an easy stop? Either way, the result is the same.

The potential results of a shot can be summed up as a binary: goal/no goal. Thanks to the law of averages, given enough time, any stupid possibility can happen. Sometimes, they can happen right next to each other, like in the Canada v. Finland semifinal at the World Juniors. If shot quality dictated the goals, Zach Fucale would have gotten scored on when he left the net wide open, but he gloved the puck in amazing fashion... right before he let the very next shot go over his shoulder short side. If Finland didn't keep its cycle going, the second chance never would have happened. The other factor is Canada falling back into the box instead of attacking the puckholder. This is a demonstration of how high percentage doesn't equal 100%, and low percentage doesn't mean 0%.

The counterpoint to this position could be something along the lines of why would you just focus on taking shots willy nilly which could lead to giving up a big chance, and then you get scored on after just one shot. The important thing to consider here, though, is that shots are an end, not the means. Even if I did subscribe to the idea of varying qualities of shots, the quality of those you can get off is directly reliant on the skill of the players and their ability to execute set plays. It also doesn't change the fact that if you maintain pressure in the offensive zone for long enough, one of those golden chances will come around to put in (in the case of the Habs, they get four or five and whiff on every one). Once again, law of averages.

Habs need to GET MAD and PUNCH FACES to win games! Also, I am a huge idiot.

So I missed the third period of Game 3, what happened? Oh...OH! That many penalties? PK fought...what do you mean ground and pound?! Bork did what? No disciplinary hearing?! Hooooo boy. Wait, what did you just say? They needed to do that to win the series? By blowing a game?! How stupid are you?

Okay, so I saw people demanding that the Canadiens get mad and start coming at the Sens with their shoulders and fists after what happened between Gryba and Eller. The most interesting reason I ran into was, "that's what we did in Bantam!"I always shy away from the "I PLAYED hockey" line of reasoning, because just because you played a sport, doesn't mean you have valuable insight on it (I'm looking at you PJ Stock and Glenn Healy.) There's also the fact that in anything below AA Midget, kids basically wailed on each other to get noticed, because any scout definitely wasn't evaluating your "skill."

So let's go back to the good hockey mans that are expected to score points for money. Your really good centre gets carried off on a stretcher because of a nasty hit. What do you do? Aforementioned solution you say? Before you continue this line of thinking, complete the following questionnaire:

Is your hockey team the MONTREAL CANADIENS?

A. Yes
B. No, I follow the Boston Bruins/Toronto Maple Leafs/Philadelphia Flyers/LA Kings

If you answered B, great job! Go hog wild! Otherwise, hold on a sec. Forget the bullshit about Montreal being better than that, and playing with class, whatever. Montreal shouldn't send a message by fighting, because they are BAD at fighting. Call Prust an enforcer all you want, but the only thing he can enforce is that his face is really good at getting punched. White's best asset is psychosis, and Armstrong got signed because Travis Moen needed a playmate.

Now, think about all the times this season when the Habs got punchy. What do they have in common? If you said they gave up at least five goals and lost in an embarrassing manner, then you're absolutely right! Sure, you could look at the winning streak right after the Feb. 9 loss, but more recently, it caused a downturn that almost ended up with a series to make CBC executives piss themselves (in an alternate universe, I am celebrating an impending sweep of the Leafs.)

If they go into game 4 looking for a fight, the series is over.

Dear fans, you haven't lost jack in this lockout.

This is what I'm talking about. Quit it.

I would like to watch hockey again. I want to bicker with my friends whether Alex Galchenyuk is NHL ready as a rookie or not. However, it's getting more obvious that it's not happening this year. There will be no hockey past November, and the Winter Classic is next on the chopping block. The lack of a season however, doesn't faze me, and it shouldn't. There's plenty of things to fill my life with non-hockey related. Which brings me to what I want to say to a lot of you in a similar situation as me. To all of you saying that players are a bunch of greedy millionaires, that the fans are the real losers in this lockout, that this lockout is a strike, shut the hell up.

The whole bunch of you railing at the players for not taking whatever terrible offer the Board of Governors throws at them would be doing the same if you were in their shoes. How many of you would honestly say to your boss, "Good job on making the company worth more. Please take more of my money as a reward?"And before you start going into how you only make five figures and they won't miss the money being so rich, here's another reason why your argument is dumb: not every contract in professional hockey makes Crosby money. For a lot of these players, they only have a three to five year window to make as much money as they possibly can. You're quite familiar with the best case scenario, so I won't reiterate it. However, for every all star, there are 50-100 players, after their window for major earnings passes, are stuck making $50,000 a year in the AHL, or $500 a week in the ECHL. It's almost as if they're working stiffs or something!

With that in mind, look back on all the times in the last few months you said, "It's the fans that lose the most out of this." You're not losing income or livelihood over this, so what's the real cost? All you've lost is three hours of entertainment on Friday and Saturday nights. That's the same as one and a half movies on Netflix. It's not hard to kill that much time. You could...

• Read a book
• Learn a language
• Learn to skate
• Spend time with your family
• Start a creative project
• Move the bodies out of your baseme...forget I said that.

In fact, if you regularly go to games, think of the money you're saving from tickets. You could pay your debts faster, or take someone out for a nice meal.

Last, but not least, a lockout is not a strike. Pay attention, because I'm only doing this once.

strike/strīk/

Noun:

A refusal to work organized by a body of employees as a form of protest, typically in an attempt to gain a concession or concessions...: "local workers went on strike"

lock·out/ˈläkˌout/

Noun:

The exclusion of employees by their employer from their place of work until certain terms are agreed to. There hasn't been a players' strike in pro sports since 1994. Quit calling it that!