More Hockey Stats

All these systems have merits, except that 3-1-0 has been argued against in the way I mentioned in my article, and it indeed can create a deep standings disparity over a 82-game season, whereas European soccer leagues last up to 38 rounds only. The other solutions with non-playoff OT scenario leave a perception problem that the win is achieved not in the game of pure hockey, but in some variant. Imagine a chess game (I always drift to examples from chess because I have a rich background there) that is played with 2hrs for each player, ends in a draw, and then the decider for a full point is played in a blitz game (5 min/player) that has completely different texture, and many top players are known to be much worse or better in blitz games than in full time ones. The difference from basketball and baseball is that the OT there is still the same full game, unlike hockey. I know that ties at the end of basketball regulation are very rare compared to hockey, and I don't know how baseball compares.

My biggest objection to the 2-2-1-0 system is not that it creates the 0-0-82 paradox, but because it simply creates a mutual incentive to steer the game into the OT. A wrong incentive (Goodhart). In a 3-2-1-0 system OTW is not the same as W (unlike 2-2-1-0), as soon as you let the linguistic similarity go, it's easier to treat these outcomes differently. Call them "Win, Overtime Advantage, Overtime Disadvantage, Loss".

This "problem" is a matter of definition, actually. The 3-2-1-0 point system states that any game is worth 3 points. After a tied regulation it is ruled that 2 out of the 3 are split, and the OT/SO is just a lesser hockey-like competition for a lesser prize of the remaining 3rd point. If baseball's extra innings would be reduced to: one inning for each side without the outfielders, and then a "shootout" between the pitcher and the batter (one pitch, ball/hit/miss), then, yes, the analogy would be in place, however the baseball's current extra innings resemble playoff OT and not the regular season OT.

Original post. There was nothing wrong with ties. The 2-1-0 point system works fine in various sports around the world. It's just ... not fitting into the mind of a North American sports fan. "Who won?" - "It was a tie." - "Who won on a tiebreak?" Basketball and baseball do not have ties, and American Football has them at a rate of 1-2 times per whole season. So more than ten years ago NHL went with the flow and abolished ties, introducing the shootout, and with a twist, where the team making it past the regulation would still get the point, and a 2-2-1-0 point system came to life. Since then the argument rages, whether the ties should come back, or whether the consolation point should be taken away, or whether the much more energetic 3-2-1-0 point system, adopted across the ocean and by the IIHF should make its way into the NHL as well. The feeling that there is something unhealthy when a team loses and still gets something, while the winner is not penalized is nagging. The argument from the NHL leadership claims the system creates denser standings and thus more interest and drama throughout the season is a valid one. However, this system, as we show below, creates a wrong incentive. The standings in the NHL are defined by a points total, and the seeding in the playoffs are first and foremost the divisional standings. The relative standings across conferences have a rather minor effect of the potential home advantage in the Stanley Cup Finals, the same standings within the same conference but across divisions have an impact on the seedings in the whole playoffs, but also to a limited effect. Therefore, at least with the exception of intradivisional games, but possibly including these games too (especially against the competition that has fallen out of the playoff picture), the only thing that matters are the points accrued by the team itself, and not the points the opposition gathers. Let's wield the statistic that says that 25% of the games go to the overtime and the So what are the point expectations in a 2-2-1-0 system? Let's compare a few situations when teams A and B play. Team A has 75% chance of winning the game (that's a huge, possibly maximum imaginable favorite odds) Team A has 67% chance of winning. Team A has 60% chance of winning. Team A has 50% chance of winning. Let's wield the statistic that says that 25% of all games go to the overtime and the shootout occurs in 40% of these games. Let's also assume that the 3-vs-3 overtime is more random and reduces by half the advantage of the better team (i.e. 75-25 becomes 62.5-37.5), and that the shootout is completely random, so the chances of winning it are 50/50. Then, the probabilities of the outcome become: Chance PwReg PwOT PwSO xPoints Team A 75% 0.5625 0.09375 0.05 1.51875 Team B 25% 0.1875 0.05625 0.05 0.73125 Team A 67% 0.5025 0.08775 0.05 1.39275 Team B 33% 0.2475 0.06225 0.05 0.85725 Team A 60% 0.45 0.0825 0.05 1.2825 Team B 40% 0.3 0.0675 0.05 0.9675 Team A 50% 0.375 0.075 0.05 1.125 Team B 50% 0.375 0.075 0.05 1.125 Now let's consider than the stronger team A plays intentionally for overtime and manages to force it in 75% of the cases. Chance PwReg PwOT PwSO xPoints Team A 75% 0.1875 0.28125 0.15 1.55625 Team B 25% 0.0625 0.16875 0.15 1.19375 Team A 67% 0.1675 0.26325 0.15 1.49825 Team B 33% 0.0825 0.18675 0.15 1.25175 Team A 60% 0.15 0.2475 0.15 1.4475 Team B 40% 0.1 0.2025 0.15 1.3025 Team A 50% 0.125 0.225 0.15 1.375 Team B 50% 0.125 0.225 0.15 1.375 In ALL cases it's worth for both teams to steer the game into OT. For the even odds case, the expectation gain is a whopping 0.25 points! Even in the case of super, uber favorite, it's still worth for that team to head to overtime, as it projects a gain of 0.04 points. And the gains for the underdogs are so big that there is no reason for the underdog to disturb the force of the overtime, so they will happily comply! Meaning: we'll see more fun overtime, we'll see more dumb shootouts, but more importantly the 60 minutes of hockey will lose a lot of their significance. The only quantitative incentive to finish the game in regulation becomes denying extra points for your opponents - hardly a significant matter in what, fifty out of the eighty-two season games! Now, let's repeat these calculations with 3-2-1-0 point system and combine them into another table: 2-2-1-0 3-2-1-0 Chance Exp25%OT Exp75%OT Δexp Exp25%OT Exp75%OT Δexp Team A 75% 1.51875 1.55625 +0.0375 2.08125 1.74375 -0.3375 Team B 25% 0.73125 1.19375 +0.4625 0.91875 1.25625 +0.3375 Team A 67% 1.39275 1.49825 +0.1055 1.89525 1.66575 -0.2295 Team B 33% 0.85725 1.25175 +0.3945 1.10475 1.33425 +0.2295 Team A 60% 1.2825 1.4475 +0.165 1.7325 1.5975 -0.135 Team B 40% 0.9675 1.3025 +0.335 1.2675 1.4025 +0.135 Team A 50% 1.125 1.375 +0.25 1.5 1.5 0 Team B 50% 1.125 1.375 +0.25 1.5 1.5 0 Now there is no incentive for the stronger team to push for overtime, and even the gain for the weaker team decreased. 3-2-1-0 definitely encourages a regulation decision! Reasons where brought up against the 3-2-1-0 system. One states that the spread over the standings will be too thin, and more teams will be eliminated from the playoff race early. This argument has had no statistical support, and the element of drama when a team pulls a goalie in a tied score trying to force a 3-0 point win may actually more than make up for it. Another argument refers to soccer studies that claim the 3-1-0 point system there encourages teams to sit on their early leads trying to stifle the game, which decreases the attractiveness of the game. This argument is more valid, although it's notably harder to preserve a lead in hockey than in soccer. But beyond that this argument prompts for another, a truly revolutionary suggestion...

Here I tried to account for the talent available to the different teams - it's up to the reader to make the conclusions regarding talent development of this or that org.

Welcome, first comment! Larionov (and others, I think, too) used to tell how Tarasov was encouraging his players to engage in chess. Although that was easier for him, since chess was almost as much a part of the Soviet culture as hockey was.

Original post On Talent In General When you want to do some useful work, you need a skill to do that work. Naturally, one doesn't need a skill to tweet, but that's not a useful work to start with. But to do stuff that actually profits you a certain level of skill is absolutely necessary. In order to have the skill, you need to learn it, and then to improve it. And there are only two basic factors that define how well you learn and improve in the skill - the talent and the effort. The bigger is your talent, the bonus from the nature, whether it's thanks to inborn memory, flexibility, or a quick eye, the less effort you need to achieve the given level of skill. And the trade-off is not even linear, there are areas, mostly creative ones, such as music or painting where no amount effort, grit and determination can bring you to a certain level of skill. On the other hand, the bigger the talent, the less necessary the effort becomes, and at the extreme level of talent, also known as ... genius the person sometimes doesn't need practically any effort to improve at an incredible pace. This phenomena, already extremely rare, is mostly restricted to mind activities, bound by the necessity in constant exercise to maintain a high level of skill in a physical activity. Names of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in composing, Jose Raul Capablanca in chess or Robertino Loreti in music come to mind when we talk about such geniuses. Mozart was composing himself already at age five, Capablanca learned the game of chess from observation only, but won the Cuban Championship when he was twelve, and Loreti became a European super-star shortly after he was noticed singing folk tunes on the streets of Rome. Talent And Skill In Hockey Hockey is also a work that requires skill. It's a complex skill that consists of many abilities: skating, observation, agility, strength, endurance, wit an others. Since it's a team game, the team consists of players that excel at these abilities on a different level, and a "complete hockey player" would actually be someone who can skate like Mike Gartner, is observant like Wayne Gretzky, can shoot like Mike Bossy, has the strength of Eric Lindros, endurance of Nicklas Lidstrom, and, actually, can easily take a hit from Cam Neely (and hit like Neely, too) and hold his ground in a fight against Tie Domi, and such a "complete hockey player" would exist mostly in the computer games. Nevertheless, of course the hockey players have different levels of ability in these dimensions of the hockey skill, and, unfortunately, today, mostly the ability to stickhandle is exclusively classified as 'skill'. No, the hockey skill is composite, and the wonderful dekes are just one aspect of it. Naturally, the most appealing, and probably the most important dimensions (we're not talking about goaltending here, but the reader can make similar projections to that position, too) are the ones directly relating to the goal scoring, and the players who excel at them are generally valued higher. However, in the way the hockey is defined by the NHL rules and and the NHL tradition, other qualities of the skill - hitting, blocking shots, fighting are required to make the complete hockey team. In a different league, such as the USSR league was, with very limited hitting and explicitly prohibited fighting, the sportsmen would develop more into the goal-scoring oriented hockey players. Where The Talent Comes From Well, from mothers' wombs. But then, the players usually begin to learn the skill of hockey from a very young age, and by the age of the NHL draft eligibility, their talent is well-evaluated and the positions in the draft order give a good approximation of the order of the talent of the available players. There are few exceptions, and these mostly are the European players, especially the Eastern-European ones who do not take part in the draft, but continue to develop in their leagues, such as the KHL. But the rule that the biggest chunk of the hockey talent is available at the annual draft, and that the talent is sorted according to the actual draft picks pretty much holds. Therefore, the teams that feature the higher draft picks in their roster are on average definitely more talented ones than the ones with the lower picks. Are they most skillful? Not necessarily. Remember, that in the first part of this essay we stated that to develop a skill, both talent and effort are required. Some players, for whatever reason, fail to put the necessary amount of effort to achieve the skill level expected for their talent, and became disappointments, or even draft busts. Some, on the other hand, put a great effort and determination, and leap beyond such expectations. The latter ones, unfortunately, are bound by that aforementioned ceiling that sometimes lack of talent produces. A team whose top draft picks underperform on a regular basis must recognize it has a culture problem. When time after time, players, who are supposed to be easy learners and advance rapidly, stall or degenerate it means that the organization, and, pardon the pun, it's farm, has a soil problem, that even the best seeds planted in it fail to yield the desired fruit.