Hockey Stats: The New Wave sucks but they're arrogant...

Defensemen don't impact rebounds.

This sounds ridiculous, right? Well, that is the cold, hard truth claims the numbers guys from this article. And this is why SHOTS statistics are bogus.

Clearly, a defenseman that can clear the front of the net and get to a rebound quickly and effectively helps keep pucks out of the net. In the above article, the numbers are pulled from shots. So two shots that occur within a small time frame (two seconds in the article), the second shot is considered the rebound shot. Am I the only one that sees a problem with that assumption?

There is no statistic in hockey for rebounds. These guys make it up. Just as Corsi makes up puck possession based on shots. It is similar and close but it is not enough. Shots cannot describe a game.

Any statistical analysis that removes rebounding, clearing the net, disrupting shots is not describing hockey. You cannot measure these types of things from shot counts.

Measuring all hockey events based on shots is like measuring atoms with a yardstick.

These numbers guys continually attack "eye-ing" the game. Yet they create all stats out of shots. Shot counts tell you one thing - one team took more shots than the other. Nothing else definitive can come from them. I've seen (using my eyes) the Carolina Hurricanes dominate the shot totals and lose. To this, the numbers guys attribute luck. The fact is that the Canes often take shots instead of making a smarter play - such as a pass to an open man with a better angle. While the other team was getting their shots off of the transition, which if played with skill creates much more dangerous opportunities.

Hockey comes down to this: Put the puck on net where the goalie isn't. Shots do not measure that. Our eyes do see when a defenseman like Duncan Keith continually gets in the way of a clean shot attempt. And we also see when a guy like Patrick Kane roofs the puck from in close. The new wave of statistics glosses over these special skills and it is wrong. But I promise, after reading the above article, you will feel dumb for thinking against the numbers...