Most of you reading this know 100% more about Hockey than me. I do work to make up some of that gap by studying the Important/predictive stats.
Speaking of predictive, I can't understand the slavish devotion to SHOTS as stat to be use above all. I still use shots as a stat, I mention it, and have it in my ratings. I just don't Hold it up as THE END ALL AND BE ALL stat.
I playfully label this a WAR between Shots Guys and Sht% Guys.
Last year we Finally won a tiny Battle, the Sht% guys had a Couple of SMALL Victories:
The Capitals Win over Isles (Caps, 20th in shots but 4th in sht% beat the Isles, 1st in shots yet 16th in shot%)
The Flames make the Playoffs and Win a series (28th in shots and w/ poor possession #s but 2nd in sht%)
Lets look at some Shots against #'s from last year:
BOS, MTL, & CHI were all good defensive teams that had poor Shots against #s.
Imagine that. The Habs had poor Shot against stats, ranked 21st surrendering 30.1 shots per game. At the same time though, they were 1st in GA, 1st in Shot% Against and 1st in 5v5 GA.
Similarly Chicago was 2nd In all 3 of those stats while being 22nd in shots against
Boston was ranked 8th, 6th, and 8th respectively but was 18th in Shots against.
Again, its a war of opinion and each side continues to make their case. I hope to bring a few of you on to my side.
In fairness, the shot/possession #s have their validity and place.
My main struggle is trying to get the shot guys to say the thing about shot %