Patrick Roy Disbelieves Advanced Statistics

“At the end of the night, if you put the goddamn puck behind the goal line, there’s a good chance you’re going to win that hockey game.” – Patrick Roy

Colorado Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy and GM

Joe Sakic

got labeled as “old guard” over the summer because of their resistance to advanced analytics and hockey. For some reason, these two hockey legends, who have six Stanley Cups and legions of other hardware (including coach of the year last season) are considered to not understand hockey as well as “stat nerds.”

In the midst of the Great Recession — the Avs’, I mean — coach Roy is not changing his stance.

During his weekly chat on The Fan Morning Show, Roy shared some of his ideas about the limitation of fancy stats.

Roy does acknowledge that puck possession is important. However, he doesn’t see it as “automatic success.” He points to the game against the New York Rangers during which the Avalanche outshot the Rangers 31 to 29:

"“There was a night that we had the puck more against the Rangers, and we lost 6-3.”"

Even more significantly, the Avalanche outshot the Los Angeles Kings an impressive 43 to 26 yet lost 4 to 1. A hot goalie can make a difference:

"“The position of goal tender can totally change those statistics.”"

Roy should know — heaven knows he stole games for the Avs when he was still playing. As for the Kings, LA goalie Jonathan Quick was hot that night.

In fact, that night against the Kings helped seal the deal for Roy:

"“Look at the game we played against LA. We got 43 shots, we dominated them, and then you finish the night you’re down 4-1. I don’t know how you feel about statistics, but I put them in the garbage can after that.”"

Advanced stats paint a picture — but it’s just part of the picture. As objective as analytics try to be, a team game like hockey cannot be pared down to individual player statistics. As Roy points out, so much of the advanced stats depend on who a player’s linemates are and against whom he’s matched. He points out the fallacy of tallying such individual statistics:

"“You can have a guy playing in the third [defensive] pairing, and you can look at the statistics and think ‘Wow, this guy’s a stud. Then all of a sudden you put him against top lines, and boom it’s always the opposite.”"

Coach Roy used an even more detailed example:

"“If you’re playing with Jaromir Jagr, and he’s having the puck in the O-zone, and then you’re a linemate with him, you’re going to be seen as a guy that has offensive zone puck possession. That doesn’t mean much. Jagr’s the one that does all the work.”"

Personally I’m trying to figure out the point of advanced statistics. They can explain some of the games, though not all as we see above. Are analytics going to be used to select players or construct lines? Can a player take his advanced statistics into contract negotiations? Conversely, might a team use fancy stats against a player?

More importantly, is there a way to use the stats during a game to change the tide? I can’t imagine.

So… what’s the point? Players know what they have to do. The Avalanche had good success with a set of objectives that included the concrete goal of recording at least 30 shots a game. It didn’t win all the time, as the Kings game shows, but it gave them a chance every night.

And then… they didn’t play a good game against the Tampa Bay Lighting. One player got hot, though — center Nathan MacKinnon. He earned his first NHL hat trick, and the Avs won.

They then played the same game against the Nashville Predators and were not so lucky. They lost 5-2. Looking at stats from both games, they’re fairly similar. The Predators had 41 shots on goal to the Avalanche’s 20. The Lightning had 32 shots on goal to the Avalanche’s 18.

Yet the Avs won one of those games and lost the other. And then we return to the Kings debacle. So, it looks like fancy stats can’t be used to change a game in progress and can barely be used to explain games after the fact.

Basically, Patrick Roy summed it up best:

"“At the end of the night, if you put the goddamn puck behind the goal line, there’s a good chance you’re going to win that hockey game.”"

And that’s ultimately the only statistic that matters — who has the most goals at the end of the game.

Next: Confusing Win vs Stars

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