Hill Murray v. STA (round 2)

[BlueLineSpecial]

People will call me a nut, but as a HM fan I'm not in the least bit upset over this loss. Sometimes a loss is a win. Hill's schedule is always front heavy and its easy to get complacent in the second half. Hopefully this loss will stand as a reminder that there are plenty of teams capable of beating them if they don't bring their A game from start to finish.

Even with that said, I thought Hill played well; shots skewed in favor of HM by a wide margin, I counted three pipes rung (that might be generous) and we missed some gimmies on wide open opportunities. Credit belongs to STA, they are a great team and it's my opinion that this team should be closer to a 5-6 ranking than a 10-11 ranking, even before this tilt. They will be a very tough out.

[stpaul]

People will call me a nut, but as a HM fan I'm not in the least bit upset over this loss. Sometimes a loss is a win. Hill's schedule is always front heavy and its easy to get complacent in the second half. Hopefully this loss will stand as a reminder that there are plenty of teams capable of beating them if they don't bring their A game from start to finish.

Even with that said, I thought Hill played well; shots skewed in favor of HM by a wide margin, I counted three pipes rung (that might be generous) and we missed some gimmies on wide open opportunities. Credit belongs to STA, they are a great team and it's my opinion that this team should be closer to a 5-6 ranking than a 10-11 ranking, even before this tilt. They will be a very tough out.

Agree completely. HM dominated from the mid 1st period through the entire 2nd period. They could have been ahead but had some bad luck and Hallett made some great stops. STA's power play looked great and HM took 3 penalties to STA's 1. STA scored twice on the PP. That was the difference. HM has to do a better job of staying out of the box against teams like Edina, Lakeville North and STA. I agree that it is a valuable lesson to suffer a loss when not playing with top effort. HM came out flat and even though the 3rd period was even, STA was the more physical team.

[Sparlimb]

People will call me a nut, but as a HM fan I'm not in the least bit upset over this loss. Sometimes a loss is a win. Hill's schedule is always front heavy and its easy to get complacent in the second half. Hopefully this loss will stand as a reminder that there are plenty of teams capable of beating them if they don't bring their A game from start to finish.

Even with that said, I thought Hill played well; shots skewed in favor of HM by a wide margin, I counted three pipes rung (that might be generous) and we missed some gimmies on wide open opportunities. Credit belongs to STA, they are a great team and it's my opinion that this team should be closer to a 5-6 ranking than a 10-11 ranking, even before this tilt. They will be a very tough out.

I felt the exact same way. Didn't bother me in the least because I left the building thinking Hill was the better team and would be the favorite if they met at state. Difference in the game was goaltending and special teams. That's what HM needs to clean up before the playoffs gear up.

[slacsap]

Couldn't agree more. Hill controlled most of the first two periods, but ran into a hot goalie and hit two posts and a crossbar. When I watch Hill this year, I get the feeling that their top six forwards are as good as anyone's but their third line, defensemen, their special teams and, especially, their goaltending are not as strong as in recent years.

[HShockeywatcher]

I haven't said anything all season about St Thomas because frankly it's been very nice to not have every other post on the board be about them for the first time in 10 years , but seeing these last few posts is like people saw two totally different games than I did through some very green tinted glasses.

These two have played 102 minutes of hockey this season and Hill has led for a whopping 53 seconds of play. The first game Hill scored at least one of their goals (confirmed by Hill fans and non-St Thomas fans on this forum) as a result of clear offsides not being called.
It is nice to do, but the goal of this game has never been putting shots on net, it has been scoring goals. Any Hill fan should know that, at least in recent years, St Thomas hockey has been about setting up quality chances, not simply putting the puck on net whenever they can. Sometimes it has been their demise, but often it's the reason they score many of the goal they do. They are also a much more defensive team and offensive. Even in some of their best years, like last year, their games with top opponents are all close, win or lose.

Hill scored an earlier goal, got some momentum and took control of the second period for almost the first 16 minutes. The play was rarely in their end, they got a lot of shots, St Thomas' first shot was 12 minutes in and despite all this and much more they scored the same number of goals that period as their opponent.
Hill had a couple pipes and a couple open opportunities that were missed, but so did their opponent. Not to take anything from both teams, but that generally happens against better competition. There were plenty of missed open net chances Hill had, but some of those were the result of good defense and goaltending.

I appreciate the comments about STA's ranking and definitely don't think what you're saying about complacency is wrong, especially with high school male athletes. And not to take anything from Hill as they are a very good team but I've seen both games and "Hill is the better team and should've easily won this game" is far from what I came away with from either game.
I saw two very good games, between two very good teams. Both had some ups and downs. I hope we get to see this match up again before April and I'm sure it'll be just as good.

[East Side Pioneer Guy]

HShockeywatcher is exactly right about shots on goal. It is the most meaningless statistic in hockey, maybe in all of sports. We obsess about it, but it means nothing.

A few years ago someone looked at NHL games, I think it was about 1,000 games, and found absolutely no correlation between S.O.G. and wins. The speculation was that lesser teams just took more shots from farther out, shots that have a lesser chance of going in the net.

[bauerman]

I totally agree with the last 2 posts.It was a good game between 2 quality teams,to say or imply that HM was the superior team in this game is really stretching credibility. HM won the 1st game in OT with some "questionable" calls and STA had a number of regulars injured. This was a good game with STA setting up for more quality shots. This is not a knock on Lechner but it still confusing to me as to why Lechner gets so much credit for his coaching ability___did he maybe get out coached in this game__ STA in my opinion was the much more disciplined,better prepared and better coached team, which is the norm for a Vannelli coached team, no matter who they play

[slacsap]

A couple of points. First, I never said Hill should have won the game. I said they controlled play for most of the first two periods. I stand by that statement. When, as a previous poster correctly pointed out, STA' first shot of the second period came twelve minutes in, that would seem to indicate that Hill was controlling play. I wholeheartedly agree that these are two very good teams and that there is very lttle to choose between them. Second, the first game did not go into OT, Hill won in regulation. My point in my last post was that this Hill team is not as deep as previous Hill teams and they are not as strong in key areas such as goaltending as previous Hill teams. Despite that, they, like STA and several other teams, are a contender to hoist the big trophy in March.

[Sparlimb]

A couple of points. First, I never said Hill should have won the game. I said they controlled play for most of the first two periods. I stand by that statement. When, as a previous poster correctly pointed out, STA' first shot of the second period came twelve minutes in, that would seem to indicate that Hill was controlling play. I wholeheartedly agree that these are two very good teams and that there is very lttle to choose between them. Second, the first game did not go into OT, Hill won in regulation. My point in my last post was that this Hill team is not as deep as previous Hill teams and they are not as strong in key areas such as goaltending as previous Hill teams. Despite that, they, like STA and several other teams, are a contender to hoist the big trophy in March.

And Hill is better.

[Cadets16]

Hill is good. STA is good. Two good teams played each other twice. Two different good teams won. They played good games. It was all good.

Really what it comes down to is this- rankings and stats and records mean nothing when comes down to crunch time. Any team can beat any team on any given night. We saw it happen in soccer with STA, when they were the 1 seed in sections (and a state favorite) and lost in the first round. We saw it in football when STA lost the section title to a Sibley team who previously hadn't scored on STA in over three years.

Really, these regular season games are fun to watch and give a good idea of how much talent and ability a team has, but it all really means nothing when playoffs start.

[bauerman]

SLACAP-- you are correct the 1st HM-STA game was in regulation, i guess it just felt like OT to me

[BlueLineSpecial]

HShockeywatcher is exactly right about shots on goal. It is the most meaningless statistic in hockey, maybe in all of sports. We obsess about it, but it means nothing.

A few years ago someone looked at NHL games, I think it was about 1,000 games, and found absolutely no correlation between S.O.G. and wins. The speculation was that lesser teams just took more shots from farther out, shots that have a lesser chance of going in the net.

Disagree. This is just one of several articles I found. I used this one because of the mathmatical statistics included in generating the conclusion that SOG absolutely correlates to more goals and subsequently more wins.

http://www.examiner.com/article/advance ... production

[green4]

HShockeywatcher is exactly right about shots on goal. It is the most meaningless statistic in hockey, maybe in all of sports. We obsess about it, but it means nothing.

A few years ago someone looked at NHL games, I think it was about 1,000 games, and found absolutely no correlation between S.O.G. and wins. The speculation was that lesser teams just took more shots from farther out, shots that have a lesser chance of going in the net.

Disagree. This is just one of several articles I found. I used this one because of the mathmatical statistics included in generating the conclusion that SOG absolutely correlates to more goals and subsequently more wins.

http://www.examiner.com/article/advance ... production

Just look at the NHL teams for shots a game
wild 27th yet tied for 10th in points
Montreal 24th in shots yet 12th in points

then you have teams like Ottawa at 3rd in shots and 22nd in points
Winnipeg is 10th in shots and are 24th in points.

[BlueLineSpecial]

HShockeywatcher is exactly right about shots on goal. It is the most meaningless statistic in hockey, maybe in all of sports. We obsess about it, but it means nothing.

A few years ago someone looked at NHL games, I think it was about 1,000 games, and found absolutely no correlation between S.O.G. and wins. The speculation was that lesser teams just took more shots from farther out, shots that have a lesser chance of going in the net.

Disagree. This is just one of several articles I found. I used this one because of the mathmatical statistics included in generating the conclusion that SOG absolutely correlates to more goals and subsequently more wins.

http://www.examiner.com/article/advance ... production

Just look at the NHL teams for shots a game
wild 27th yet tied for 10th in points
Montreal 24th in shots yet 12th in points

then you have teams like Ottawa at 3rd in shots and 22nd in points
Winnipeg is 10th in shots and are 24th in points.

There will always be statistical outliers or specific examples that appear to disprove a mathmatically proven formula. Your sample set of 4 teams for less than a year is not very convincing. Anyway I don't want to get too far off the subject so I'll just say this: I watched this game and Hill's shots were an indicator of controlling a lot of the play. People can say whatever they want, but in high school hockey the more shots on goal, probably the more scoring chances and the more goals most of the time.

Just for fun, then I'll shut up so Karl doesn't tell me to stay on topic and that this isn't an NHL forum :
Current NHL Season
Top 5 NHL teams (based on total points) average 32.1 shots per game
Bottom 5 NHL teams (based on total points) average 27.98 shots per game
Top 5 NHL teams average 3.286 goals per game
Bottom 5 NHL teams average 2.30 goals per game

[green4]

Disagree. This is just one of several articles I found. I used this one because of the mathmatical statistics included in generating the conclusion that SOG absolutely correlates to more goals and subsequently more wins.

http://www.examiner.com/article/advance ... production

Just look at the NHL teams for shots a game
wild 27th yet tied for 10th in points
Montreal 24th in shots yet 12th in points

then you have teams like Ottawa at 3rd in shots and 22nd in points
Winnipeg is 10th in shots and are 24th in points.

There will always be statistical outliers or specific examples that appear to disprove a mathmatically proven formula. Your sample set of 4 teams for less than a year is not very convincing. Anyway I don't want to get too far off the subject so I'll just say this: I watched this game and Hill's shots were an indicator of controlling a lot of the play. People can say whatever they want, but in high school hockey the more shots on goal, probably the more scoring chances and the more goals most of the time.

I thought 4 would give you a good idea. Apparently thats not good enough for 50 games so I can continue
New Jersey 30th in shots yet 2 points away from 2nd in their division
Rangers 4th in shots yet 14th in points
Dallas is 6th yet tied for 20th in points
toronto is 25th in shots but tied at 12th
Pittsburg is 13th yet 3rd in the league
Washington is 14th yet 23rd in the league
Tampa Bay is 18th yet is tied for 7th
St. Louis is 19th yet is 4th
Colorado is 20th for shots yet is 6th
Islanders are 15th yet last in their division and only 4 teams worse than them

So with the previous 4 and this 10 you have about half the league disagreeing with your "advance statistics"

In the end it really dosen't matter how many shots your getting because in any league you can face a shut down defense forcing shots from the outside or a goaltender who is on fire and when you play those kind of teams shots won't translate to wins a lot of the time.

And since you want to stay on topic with high school hockey, I would look at what Wayzata has done this year and last year. When they play high end teams they usually get outshot but they still win a lot of those games because that is the way they play. Like when they played... Hill Murray, They only lost by 1 goal but got doubled in shots almost
Or look at a team like Benilde who usually will outshoot there opponent. But if you look at there 2 ties and 5 losses, out of those 7 they have outshot the opponent 5 times one of those games was against.... Hill Murray. Benilde lost that game 7-3 but they also had 38 shots.
Yes Benilde gets wins but I would say they're a very inconsistent team with losses to Holy family, Minnetonka and ties to Jefferson. Those are games where they took a lot of shots and did not register a win and that they probably should be getting wins against.

[Sparlimb]

You might be on to something. STA outshot Breck but lost by a field goal this afternoon...

[BlueLineSpecial]

Just look at the NHL teams for shots a game
wild 27th yet tied for 10th in points
Montreal 24th in shots yet 12th in points

then you have teams like Ottawa at 3rd in shots and 22nd in points
Winnipeg is 10th in shots and are 24th in points.

There will always be statistical outliers or specific examples that appear to disprove a mathmatically proven formula. Your sample set of 4 teams for less than a year is not very convincing. Anyway I don't want to get too far off the subject so I'll just say this: I watched this game and Hill's shots were an indicator of controlling a lot of the play. People can say whatever they want, but in high school hockey the more shots on goal, probably the more scoring chances and the more goals most of the time.

I thought 4 would give you a good idea. Apparently thats not good enough for 50 games so I can continue
New Jersey 30th in shots yet 2 points away from 2nd in their division
Rangers 4th in shots yet 14th in points
Dallas is 6th yet tied for 20th in points
toronto is 25th in shots but tied at 12th
Pittsburg is 13th yet 3rd in the league
Washington is 14th yet 23rd in the league
Tampa Bay is 18th yet is tied for 7th
St. Louis is 19th yet is 4th
Colorado is 20th for shots yet is 6th
Islanders are 15th yet last in their division and only 4 teams worse than them

So with the previous 4 and this 10 you have about half the league disagreeing with your "advance statistics"

In the end it really dosen't matter how many shots your getting because in any league you can face a shut down defense forcing shots from the outside or a goaltender who is on fire and when you play those kind of teams shots won't translate to wins a lot of the time.

And since you want to stay on topic with high school hockey, I would look at what Wayzata has done this year and last year. When they play high end teams they usually get outshot but they still win a lot of those games because that is the way they play. Like when they played... Hill Murray, They only lost by 1 goal but got doubled in shots almost
Or look at a team like Benilde who usually will outshoot there opponent. But if you look at there 2 ties and 5 losses, out of those 7 they have outshot the opponent 5 times one of those games was against.... Hill Murray. Benilde lost that game 7-3 but they also had 38 shots.
Yes Benilde gets wins but I would say they're a very inconsistent team with losses to Holy family, Minnetonka and ties to Jefferson. Those are games where they took a lot of shots and did not register a win and that they probably should be getting wins against.

They aren't "my" advanced statistics. SOG have an effect on goals per game. Of course low quality shots will have an effect on that correlation. I would rather have my team getting 45 shots on goal and controlling play vs picking your spots and hoping your goalie can stand on his head. I would think that more often than not, the team getting significantly more shots on goal is going to win that game more times than they'll lose that game.

BTW, Wayzata has outshot their opponents 547 to 391 this year. They outshot their opponents last year too.

[BlueLineSpecial]

You might be on to something. STA outshot Breck but lost by a field goal this afternoon...

Right?! Thanks a lot STA for just ruining my argument

[HShockeywatcher]

HShockeywatcher is exactly right about shots on goal. It is the most meaningless statistic in hockey, maybe in all of sports. We obsess about it, but it means nothing.

A few years ago someone looked at NHL games, I think it was about 1,000 games, and found absolutely no correlation between S.O.G. and wins. The speculation was that lesser teams just took more shots from farther out, shots that have a lesser chance of going in the net.

Disagree. This is just one of several articles I found. I used this one because of the mathmatical statistics included in generating the conclusion that SOG absolutely correlates to more goals and subsequently more wins.

http://www.examiner.com/article/advance ... production

Maybe you can explain to me that I'm reading the article wrong, but what I got from it is that a team who shoots more is going to win more [over the course of a season, NOT that shots on goal show anything (from controlling the game to quality of play) about one particular game.

[bauerman]

it probably really depends on the philosophy and stlye of play of the teams invovled. The Russians in the 70's and 80's would be outshot by the USA National teams all the time but still beat the USA by 10 goals (except once)