Edmonton Oilers: Valentin Zykov is Why Advanced Stats Are Complete Garbage

In this piece, the narrative regarding advanced stats will be examined by profiling former Edmonton Oilers player Valentin Zykov.

Edmonton Oilers: I had some inspiration for this article when I read this piece of bird droppings from Bruce McCurdy in the Journal a few days ago:  click here

The reason his article is complete trash?  The entire time Zykov was here not only did he not get a single point, but he also didn’t even get a shot on goal.

Let me repeat this for effect:  he didn’t even get a shot on goal!

Now we are talking about the big leagues here, but even failures like Nail Yakupov could get a shot on goal most games.  They may not have gone in, but at least he could still get shots on goal.

And yet McCurdy is lamenting his loss because he had a 64.4% Corsi and supposedly didn’t even get much of a chance with the team.

Yeah, he didn’t get much of a shot with the team because why would you play a guy in the top 6 who wasn’t even getting a shot off on goal, much less helping someone else score or scoring a goal yourself?  The top 6 are reserved for your best scorers – or at the very least an experiment in trying to create some chemistry amongst players such as Zack Kassian is getting now when the team is struggling.

A guy who can’t even get a shot on net isn’t going to play there unless the coach wants to commit career suicide.

These media types just don’t get it sometimes:  you need to earn your way into the top 6, rarely are spots ever gifted to you.

The Decade of Darkness Oilers is exhibit #1 as to why you don’t do that.  Ultimately that was the 1st rebuild this team has ever committed itself to, let’s hope they learned their lessons for the future.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know, Corsi is defined as a formula of CF/CF + CA – that being two subcategories of Corsi For – which is Shots For + Blocks + Misses at even strength, while Corsi Against is Shots Against + Blocks + Misses.

While you work out the formula for calculating that, it’s important to note that once you get the final %, then anything above 50% means the team was controlling the puck more often than not with the player on the ice in this situation — thanks to Hockey-Reference for providing the explanation for us.

See how useless this number becomes when you can evaluate him strictly based on his points (0) and shots on goal (0), which is also an [expletive] of a lot easier to understand?

Yeah, me too.  This right here is exactly why I very rarely use advanced stats in my analysis – by and large, they are harder to understand and mostly useless when traditional stats will usually tell you all you need to know.

Valentin Zykov will not be missed from the Oiler’s roster.  He may have been the #1 scorer in the AHL last year, but that offense has yet to translate to the NHL with a whopping 11 points (only four goals) in 30 NHL games.

Does Zykov have a future in the NHL?  

It’s tough to say – at this point it doesn’t look like it as Zykov hasn’t played a game for Vegas since being picked up on waivers Dec. 29, and since I can’t find information that says he’s been assigned to their farm team that means that he’s a healthy scratch until they can find a roster spot for him.

Vegas right now is on a four-game winning streak, and you don’t mess with a successful roster, so it’s no wonder he hasn’t played for them yet.

But, come a loss or injury, then likely into the lineup he goes, unless they have a hotshot prospect who deserves a shot first.

Zykov is only 23, so there’s still time for him – and he may be a late bloomer, after all, 30 games isn’t a huge sample size.

But that being said, he hasn’t exactly given teams reason to play him at the NHL level.

It’s just as likely he could be one of those players who can score in the AHL but not at the NHL.  He wasn’t the 1st of that ilk, and he won’t be the last if that’s what he turns out to be.

If he doesn’t pan out with Vegas, expect them to get rid of him in 1 form or another as he still has a contract for next season, too.  But, if he doesn’t make any impression during that time, expect him to play in the KHL 2 seasons from now where he can make more money there than being a career AHLer.