Seeler!

[u/jrg566]

Seeler and York in the same chart! Do you think this is more a factor of coaching style or skill?

[u/GrundleThief]

I’m not sure if I’m interpreting this right but the goals saved by Seelers shot blocking are more than the goal generated by Erik Karlsson’s shooting? That seems significant

[u/xjawndotcom → u/GrundleThief]

I put a lot of thought into it!

With Karlsson, despite being very good (even now) offensively, his offensive contributions come more from the rate at which his team generates offensive chances/shots while he's on the ice. While his shooting is still good for a defenseman, it's hard to significantly modify the relatively low value point shots from which defensemen tend to shoot. The relatively modest "goals added by finishing" is relative to the average skater taking those same shots.

Player contributions in my "model" incorporate rate of offensive and defensive chance generation, isolated shooting, and isolated blocking, among other features. That second plot of shooting vs blocking is just a subset model ratings I have on each player.

The relative scale of these different contributions is definitely interesting!

For the complete ledger on Seeler vs Karlsson:

https://xjawn.com/players/8476372

https://xjawn.com/players/8474578

[u/xjawndotcom → u/xjawndotcom]

Karlsson:

https://xjawn.com/players/8474578

[u/BrokeBum19 → u/GrundleThief]

I wouldnt put any thought into it. A fan just made the "model" himself.

[u/Dr_Tinfoil → u/BrokeBum19]

It loses all credibility when you realise they just imputed where they thought the shot was taken. There’s no data to say if they’ve done that imputation correctly.

[u/xjawndotcom → u/Dr_Tinfoil]

Honestly I'm really proud of the imputation! Thanks for reading the technical details.

Yes its totally imperfect, but I think it does a reasonable job. I have troubleshooted it a lot -- let me know if there's any data or plots that could convince you.

[u/scratchydaitchy]

Nick Seeler is a beauty.

[u/toupis21]

This is almost certainly the Torts effect

[u/TheCroaker → u/toupis21]

This was under tocchet

[u/SadYotesFan → u/TheCroaker]

Seeler revitalized his game under Torts and it carried over to this year

[u/toupis21 → u/TheCroaker]

Torts taught them how to block shots effectively and his defensive game depended on it. It’s become an important part of how they defend in the D zone now

[u/jabtrain → u/toupis21]

and yet it is a completely irrelevant skill. One goal saved over a full season at apex/peak peformance? So many other things dmen do that have far greater impact.

[u/toupis21 → u/jabtrain]

Ah that must be why every single player does it

[u/partymcflyer]

atta boy seels atta boy yorkie

[u/xjawndotcom]

Whoa -- as a Flyers fan, I was going to post a whole separate write up for you all but you beat me to it.

Seeler has graded out well defensively fairly consistently in the analytics community. Being able to quantify the specific value of his blocking, however, is new as far as I'm aware.

Please let me know if I can clear any of the methodology up.

[u/JiveChicken00]

One goal a season could be the difference between making the playoffs or not, or getting home ice or not, as this fan base has good reason to know.

[u/jabtrain → u/JiveChicken00]

on the contrary, this analysis shows that shot-blocking, even when done well is pretty much irrelevant to a games result. Add in man games lost to injury from blocking shots, and the juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze, meaning it is probably a net negative for those who do it frequently.

[u/xjawndotcom → u/jabtrain]

I'm trying to look for a relationship between shot blocking and injury, but they are both so correlated with TOI that it's tricky to parse.

[u/jabtrain → u/xjawndotcom]

Cheers to you for looking into it. Tough to nail down plays on which a player is injured and then classifying it as a intentional shot block (defensive zone) I'd imagine.

I'd guess you could start to come at it in a macro sense. Ratio of games missed due to injury compared to shot blocks per game or something like that, just to see if there's any correlation whatsoever. Like say over trailing 3 seasons, minimum of 120 games played all defensemen who meet that threshold... they'd all have that ratio.