What a great week for hockey, I cant wait to see the team that deserves to win the game actually win the game this weekend like it definitely always happens!
Friday, December 8th Michigan Tech 4 – Waste Management 2
So like I said the best team always wins which is why *checks notes* the team with less xG on friday lost. Yeah that makes sense because uh Blake Pietila? Yeah we’ll go with that. It’s definitely not because over a small sample size the difference between 3.1 and 3.6 xG is basically non existent.
I don’t know what else to say about this one other than “dang that was a close one.”
Dang that was a close one. Chase Pietila lots of minutes. Raiman, Kukkonen, Gordon, and Works are good at playing hockey. Not sure what else to say, Mosely had a bit of an off night but the amount the amount I am worried about him playing well in the future is literally a negative percentage.
Saturday, December 9th Michigan Tech 1 – Waste Management 3
I want to say nice things about how the Huskies dominated in the xG battle, but unfortunately this is time for a lesson in Score EffectsTM. Alright tl;dr time, score effects the math stuff that happens when a team is getting their butt kicked and the team that is doing the butt kicking decides to play defensively. This results in the team that is getting beat putting up a lot of shots later in the game that they are getting beaten in. Basically Northern got up two goals and played defensively which is why in the third period Tech was able to generate so many opportunities and look good in the xG category. If you want learn more about score effects read my linked article . If you REALLY want learn more about score effects, read these articles. If you STILL want to learn more about score effect, I would suggest talking to a licensed therapist, but in a pinch leave a comment or send me a message on discord.
No no no the gif isn’t supposed to make me look more favorably on the game, we lost and it was just score effects that made it look good right?? aaaahhHGGHGHGgfg fine. Tech outplayed Northern on Saturday, it wasn’t just score effects. The Huskies had more chances from in close, they had more shots from the slot, the only thing the Wildcats had more of was shots from the point from outside the hashmarks (which they did have a lot of). If you show me this shot map I pick the Huskies to win every time. I would probably only be right about 65% of the time, but its still statistically the right pick which is what you are presumably all here for.
Chase Pietila lots of minutes. Raiman, Kukkonen, Gordon, and Works are good at playing hockey. Maybe while I have a bit more free time during the bye weeks I’ll see if I can do some fancy math to see if Raiman and Works are benefiting from playing less minutes against easier competition or if the numbers think they would be able to continue playing this well in tougher minutes. That is something I definitely want to do eventually .That being said 1, its difficult fancy math and I’m just one idiot with ADHD, and 2 the new Pokémon DLC comes out next week so I will likely lose most of the free time I think that I have to that.
No thoughts, just vibes
Closing Time
I hope you enjoyed taking a look at some nice charts and graphs with me. If you have any questions about the charts, my analysis, or just want to say hello, please leave a comment or reach out to me on the THG discord server (@Augie) and I’d be happy to try and answer your questions.
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