(If you thought I was writing about U2, sorry to disappoint. I did listen to The Joshua Tree while writing this, though.)
My favorite fancy stat is With Or Without You, a.k.a. WOWY. WOWY measures how well pairs of players perform together and apart. Like any stat, it has its limitations, but typically good players help others perform better. WOWY also lets you know if a player is dragging down his teammates, that is, if they perform worse when playing with him.
One of my favorite illustrations of WOWY is this analysis of the Umberger for Hartnell trade, written in June 2014. It's a quick read. The bottom line is that, statistically, Hartnell ranked with such elites as Jonathan Toews, Patrice Bergeron, and Anze Kopitar in improving his teammates' performance on the ice. On the other hand, Umberger's teammates consistently performed worse when paired with him.
Wonder if anyone at the Flyers organization looked at those stats before the trade.
That aside, I find WOWY fascinating because it distills a two-person relationship down to hard percentages. Wouldn't it be nice to have a stat like in life?
Instead of complaining to your boss about a lazy co-worker, you could just show her the data proving that he reduces your productivity. Want to break up with your spouse? Now you have the numbers to prove that she's literally bringing you down.
I'm joking, of course. Relationships are defined by intangibles, they are impossible to quantify. Numbers can help, but if you ask any two people - whether teammates, friends, co-workers - what gives them a spark when they're together, what gets them in sync, what makes them click...
The answer isn't going to be a fancy stat. Rather, it's the elusive concept of chemistry, and when a team finds it, underdogs become champions.
The Flyers need that synergy to succeed. I can't get a handle on Hakstol's coaching, to be honest, but given the importance of chemistry, how about less practices where the players attack each other and more focus on cohesiveness?
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