Thanks, Cliff. Quality of shots? That's the Missing Link, the Lost Chord, the Abominable Snowman. I personally don't believe in it. How can you tell when a shot qualifies as "quality"? A shot from far away can be way tough -- it may be screened, or maybe it's unscreened but hard and fast and screaming for the upper corner -- whereas a shot from in close may be way easy, because it's shot right into the goaler's breadbasket. How can you tell what's difficult, except by interviewing the goalie afterward about each shot?
On the other hand, we've seen strong evidence presented on this board that the number of shots *doesn't* really matter all that much -- even, counterintuitively, that save percentages tend to rise when the number of shots rises. That would suggest that perhaps some kind of quality-of-shot rating might be applicable after all. Who knows? But until someone comes up with a dependable, *real* quality-of-shots measurement, I can't see the value of it.
Meanwhile, go crazy with those goalie stats. But remember, though, who compiled 'em: the sainted Edward Yuen of Regina, Sask.
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Replying to:
Jeff and Karl,
Loving the new compendium. I took a whack at quantifying goaltender statistics for a SHIR publication years ago. Now that I've found the compendium I can give up my own futile work.
One question though. When calculating save percent, I always thought the quality of shot (where it came from on the ice) was a missing component in all analysis, even in save percent.
Any way you know around this? Solutions on the horizon?
