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Study done on fighting in hockey

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I would argue an enforcer does make the current players more physical. Knowing a teammate will step in for you against anyone will likely have an effect on the physicality of the players. Against Chicago, Commie stepped between E and a Chicago player- he grabbed the Chicago player and dropped a glove (possibly both). E can take on most, but Commie stepping up showed that the team (or at least that pairing) will not back down physically from anyone.

Agreed. See: Ville Leino, Philadelphia, 2010

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No. Teams with an enforcer in the line-up have better games for five minutes 75% of the time following a fight if they were doing poorly before the fights.

Or, for the namby-pamby panty-waists out there: If the Wings ever had a day when they weren't playing well (also called "playing the Islanders"), a fight might help them for 1/12 of the game 3/4 of the time we actually do it, which translates into an average of 2.5 minutes per season as the team stands at this point.

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As always, your sarcastic spot on response wins the thread!

Abdelkader sparked them in that game against Vancouver when they were playing very flat, explain that one...

The team played flat against Chicago and won with our back-up in net with no fights. Explain that one...

Plus I like how the article states that a PK'r is better than an enforcer. So all I learned from this "study" is that fighting is even more useless than previously thought of.

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Agreed. See: Ville Leino, Philadelphia, 2010

Shawn Thornton had a great quote recently. He was asked if Marchand was 'going to get it' one of these days. Thornton simply replied 'not while I'm here'. I'm not condoning dirty plays, but team toughness does increase when a player has that mentality about sticking up for his teammates.

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The team played flat against Chicago and won with our back-up in net with no fights. Explain that one...

Plus I like how the article states that a PK'r is better than an enforcer. So all I learned from this "study" is that fighting is even more useless than previously thought of.

They actually pulled their heads outta their asses and played at the end. That doesnt always happen though and they definitely lucked out, where was that against the isles the next game?

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There's a table which distinguishes home-team v away-team statistics, and there's about a 50% chance of shooting more over the next three minutes compared to the rest of the game after a fight (ie "momentum") for both teams.

I think you're missing the point. The study is just on the effects of "a fight" in the game. A fight invloves both teams. There's no distinction made between who wins the fight or who starts the fight.

According to the data, 39% of the time, either both teams increase, stay flat, or decrease. The net effect gives no (or marginal) advantage to either team. The other 61%, one team increases relative to the other, but it doesn't truly specify which team. This means that while being involved in a fight can sometimes help, it can also hurt you at other times.

The 3rd table suggests that if a team with high momentum is involved in a fight, their momentum tends to decrease, while a team with low momentum tends to increase. So you need to limit your fighting to only those instances where your team has low momentum, and your oppenent is high in order to gain the maximum benefit.

However, that "maximum" according to this study is worth about .2 goals, or 1/30th of a win.

Now let's put that in some perspective. I'll assume we are only interested in instances where this hypothetical fight actually changes the outcome of a game from a loss to a win. I doubt anyone really cares about shifting momentum in a game we would win regardless. So at the basic level, you'd need 30 such situations (games where you are well behind in momentum and will lose the game) to equal one win. (That also means you lose the other 29.)

But that isn't really accurate, because it doesn't take into account the situation in the game already. If you're already down by three goals by the time you realize you need to shift momentum, you'll likely need a lot more than 30 fights to get enough impact to overcome the defecit. To what order of magnitude is a guess, but let's just say double. So maybe a fight can turn a loss into a win 1 in 60.

But even that isn't really accurate. What the study fails to address is the fact that momentum changes over the course of a game regardless of fights. It is very often cyclical, in that teams will have a burst of high momentum, then drop while the other team has its burst. To actually calculate the effect of the fight, you need to compare these results to the expected rate of change if the fight had not occurred. Let's say that cuts the efficacy of the fight in half. Now you're turning a loss into a win 1 in 120. Coincidentally, 120 is the number of regular-season losses the Wings have had total since we won the Cup in 08.

So assuming that in every one of those losses there was some point where we had low momentum and the other team was high, and we were very careful in picking our spots for our fights, we could have one more win over the last 3 1/2 seasons. Wow.

Or to make it all more simple, we'll just stick with the conclusion from the study:

Overall these results suggest that fighting by itself does not significantly help a team score more goals or win more games...
Edited by Buppy

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No, but they do play more inspired. What usually beats teams is not being good enough.

In Detroit's case, the skill is there, but the effort doesn't always manifest itself.

More importantly, it might make the Wings a little less passive, which is usually what is happening when they are getting their arses handed to them.

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I think you're missing the point. The study is just on the effects of "a fight" in the game. A fight invloves both teams. There's no distinction made between who wins the fight or who starts the fight.

According to the data, 39% of the time, either both teams increase, stay flat, or decrease. The net effect gives no (or marginal) advantage to either team. The other 61%, one team increases relative to the other, but it doesn't truly specify which team. This means that while being involved in a fight can sometimes help, it can also hurt you at other times.

The 3rd table suggests that if a team with high momentum is involved in a fight, their momentum tends to decrease, while a team with low momentum tends to increase. So you need to limit your fighting to only those instances where your team has low momentum, and your oppenent is high in order to gain the maximum benefit.

However, that "maximum" according to this study is worth about .2 goals, or 1/30th of a win.

Now let's put that in some perspective. I'll assume we are only interested in instances where this hypothetical fight actually changes the outcome of a game from a loss to a win. I doubt anyone really cares about shifting momentum in a game we would win regardless. So at the basic level, you'd need 30 such situations (games where you are well behind in momentum and will lose the game) to equal one win. (That also means you lose the other 29.)

But that isn't really accurate, because it doesn't take into account the situation in the game already. If you're already down by three goals by the time you realize you need to shift momentum, you'll likely need a lot more than 30 fights to get enough impact to overcome the defecit. To what order of magnitude is a guess, but let's just say double. So maybe a fight can turn a loss into a win 1 in 60.

But even that isn't really accurate. What the study fails to address is the fact that momentum changes over the course of a game regardless of fights. It is very often cyclical, in that teams will have a burst of high momentum, then drop while the other team has its burst. To actually calculate the effect of the fight, you need to compare these results to the expected rate of change if the fight had not occurred. Let's say that cuts the efficacy of the fight in half. Now you're turning a loss into a win 1 in 120. Coincidentally, 120 is the number of regular-season losses the Wings have had total since we won the Cup in 08.

So assuming that in every one of those losses there was some point where we had low momentum and the other team was high, and we were very careful in picking our spots for our fights, we could have one more win over the last 3 1/2 seasons. Wow.

Or to make it all more simple, we'll just stick with the conclusion from the study:

Well done, as usual.

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Im not sure what they got out of this study that we know already? After a fight the energy sparks up for both teams, being the one fighting or not you receive an adrenaline rush wich will slowy wear off after a few minutes....Im concerned about our boys though I wont lie, Stuart, Abby and in my opinion big E is the worst of worst because of the way he's ragdolled a few dudes in the past and now he plays like one big floppy cock.

Its just a tad dissapointing really to see some of our guys (and freakin goalie) get hack and pushed and Dats and Z are the guys pushing back more often then not our "tougher" guys watch or skate to the bench...

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