League Stats - Why Blocked Shots?

[Jouko-Pouko]

Anyone know any providers that offer takeaways and giveaways as stat categories? I'd be interested in adding them in my league.

I do believe Fantrax offers them and a million other stats as well. They usually have whatever you can think of.

[kovalchuk17]

interesting perspective on blocked shots.

what id want to know next is how many of the 'attempted' blocked shots resulted in goals anyway. for example, what would've been a routine save for the goalie ends up going in because the dman got a piece of the shot with his stick or shin pad and goes in. how about if it was a routine save that ends up on the stick of the opposing team for a tap-in. dman would collect the block but still give up the goal. how about the shot was going wide and the 'block' sent it back towards the goalie.

in the grand scheme of things these situations maybe not be statistically significant. im sure theres a net positive effect for always attempting to block shots even with the injury risk but something to think about.

[chuckcouples]

Great discussion everyone and some very good points are made especially in regards to the quantity of blocked shots as well as the tracking ability of them. These are both valid points as to why leagues use them.

Great post Pengwin but I will disagree with your math. The reason I disagree is that you assume that a blocked shot was going to hit the net. This is not true since any shot that hits a defender before reaching the net is considered a block shot regardless of whether it was going to hit the net. By my assumption, about 30% of all shot attempts do not become shots on goal. This reduces the value of blocked shots. The other thing is that a blocked shot results in a 50/50 battle for the puck so half the time the blocked shot just delays another shot attempt. A takeaway results in the defending team having possession of the puck 100% of the time. To me, that is way more valuable.

[butch]

If I organized a h2h roto cats league I'd probably want to weigh the stat categories so that the fringe ones are given less value .

i.e , you win the goals cat for the week you get +2 , blocks cat you get .5 etc..

I played in an espn roto h2h league one year and they used dman points as a cat - I thought that was a unique spin

[Referee3083]

2. It adds value to D-men. I find most leagues that have added Bks have done it with a specific intention to add value to D-men and specifically a certain type of D-man ("gritty and defensive focused")

This is exactly why our league added blocked shots. In certain league formats, It's hard to find ways to increase just the value defensemen bring to the table. Blocked shots is one of the few stats that heavily skews its volume towards defenseman.

[Pengwin7]

The reason I disagree is that you assume that a blocked shot was going to hit the net.

I do, yes.
And, logically, it's a very fair considration.

How often do you think a player blocking a shot is taking away non-net area?

It is true that not all shots taken are on net... players like to pick corners when they have a shooting lane on the goalie.
And sometimes they miss the entire net, also true.

But the benefit of blocking a shot is keeping it from getting... on net.
So a very large majority of blocked shots are when a shot-blocking player is trying to take away angle... on net.
It's very similar to being a preliminary goalie. Goalies aren't trying to take away non-net area... neither are blocking defenders.
(and yes, goalies sometimes make "saves" that are off-net, in the same possible proportion that block shots may be slightly off-net.)

It's very, very, very rare that a blocking player is "off the line of net" AND the shooting player takes a shot that is in this same "off the line of net".
I mean, think about that. That would be very silly thing to do for BOTH players.
If both players are professionals (and this is a professional league) then blocked shots should only really occur when both players are doing as they should.

[als_revenge]

Great discussion everyone and some very good points are made especially in regards to the quantity of blocked shots as well as the tracking ability of them. These are both valid points as to why leagues use them.

Great post Pengwin but I will disagree with your math. The reason I disagree is that you assume that a blocked shot was going to hit the net. This is not true since any shot that hits a defender before reaching the net is considered a block shot regardless of whether it was going to hit the net. By my assumption, about 30% of all shot attempts do not become shots on goal. This reduces the value of blocked shots. The other thing is that a blocked shot results in a 50/50 battle for the puck so half the time the blocked shot just delays another shot attempt. A takeaway results in the defending team having possession of the puck 100% of the time. To me, that is way more valuable.

I (think?) your argument is that a take away is more valuable in real hockey, whereas most are arguing that bs have more value in fantasy setups. Two different things, really.

[plug]

I'd like takeaways as a stat if... they were only given for what I consider one. I.e Karlsson flying back taking it away and then there is no shot or scoring chance.. lidstrom was also very adept at it. I used to hate hits, but they are much more uniform now.

[Wotan]

Just one minor thought besides all the great reasoning in this thread:

I like blocked shots as a cat, even if one might argue that a blocked shot by itself doesn't help a team all that much. But if we assume that players would not be willing to block shots, this would mean that there were way more open shot lanes. So all in all blocked shots have a big influence on the game because attacking players have to consider that some guys are ready to sacrifice their bodies, so attacking teams have to draw up their plays accordingly.

Short: if nobody blocked shots, it would be a completely different game, so why not give blocked shots some weight in fanatsy hockey?