A bit of row erupted in the gamethread comments over at my other place last night over the concept of "clutch scoring". The original source of the dispute was blogmate RO's misconceptions post in which he attacked the oft-cited "bigness" of goals and saves. To wit:
I was asked what the origins of the Pythagorean point expectation was. I believe its origins are in baseball, and as far as I know it's an empirical equation. Basically some sharp guys decided that they ought to take runs scored for and against and try and map it to wins, and the Pythagorean formula fit best.
Alan Ryder of HockeyAnalytics did some research on a more improved model for goals->wins. Some really crazy stuff, you can check it out here under "Probability Models". The point is not the model though, it's the assumption he made: goals are rare, uniformly random and memory-less.
Read that again.
Goals are rare.
Goals are uniformly random.
Goals are memory-less.
This all makes sense to me rationally, but not intuitively. I made the point in the comments of the post that "clutch" as a concept is in fact sensible in that it is a descriptive term; a "narrative node", if you will, that, when describing the events of game, lends meaning to the audience. It gives one the sense of how events of the game unfolded and their relative perceived importance at the time. This issue was raised at Tyler's place recently and it bears repeating that people tend to make sense of things through anecdots: via villains, heros, rising action, climax, etc. And, in many ways, that's the meat of our emotional connection to games and contests such as hockey. It's also the reason that people talking about clutch goals or big saves isn't a real pet peeve of mine: I think it serves a function.
That said, RO's annoyance (and I think Matt Fenwick has written about this as well) is that outside the narrative, the sequence of goals scored is ultimately unimportant to the final outcome. For example, Jordan Eberle (who was the catalyst for the argument last night) scored two goals in the final five minutes of the gold medal WJC hockey game last night, one of which was the game tying marker. Narratively, those are big goals; clutch goals. However, in terms of the outcome, they would have been equally important no matter when they occurred. Had Eberle scored the first two Canadian goals, or one in the first and one in the second, the score is the same but the resulting labeling of his efforts isn't. To make the point again: all goals are big goals.
Here's another example. Robb Kerr has mentioned on local sports radio that Flames coaches have told him that it's more important that the power play "scores when we need it" rather than score a lot. Again, intuitively that seems sensible. Who cares if you're 1-9 on the PP that night as long as the 1 was the GWG, right?
On second thought, that's a ridiculous contention. Because a more efficient power play scores 3 times in 9 opportunities and the game is never in question. And/or the single goal would have been just as important in the first period to the final outcome of a one goal game. Goals are rare. Goals are uniformly random. All goals are big goals. It's absurd to claim that an inefficient but "clutch" power play is as good or better than an efficient one. Narratively, it's more meaningful if you score late in a game to tie or win the contest. In truth, the outcome is the same regardless of when the goal happened.
So:
- Clutch goals or big goals exist insomuch as the events of a game can be described as such. They are narratively meaningful and sensible in this context.
- Outside of the descriptive/narrative domain, talking about big goals is probably meaningless. Humans make sense out of the sequence of events, but the outcome is ultimately blind to it.
Of course, the concept of clutch as an attribute or skill also comes from an honest observation of variance in human abilities. In psychological circles, the interplay of stress, arousal and performance is often discussed and debated. The theory that there are individual zones of optimal performance has credence and intuitive value - afterall, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And, as many have no doubt witnessed in real life, a portion of the population folds under pressure while others blossom. It would naturally be of value to identify the former in hockey, thus the persistent search for the clutch player.
Of course, elite level athletes aren't the general population (I'm guessing the sissies get crowded out of the sample long before they reach the higher levels) and given the rarity of goals and the influence of variance on outcomes, it's more probable that "clutchness" (that is, the perceived, persistent ability to perform better than ones peers in higher stress situations) at high levels is actually more chance than a true talent. Think Fernando Pisani and the 05/06 Play-off run. There are dozens of other examples of blazing 'clutch' hot streaks that never recurred again in the players' career.
Of course, there are some players who are just generally better than others, and as such are persistently put into situations to score the big goal by their coaches (Iginla, for example, plays a lot in the final minute of games and OT. Eric Nystrom does not). In that case, it probably doesn't make much sense to separate clutchness from overall skill - Iginla is clutch because he's good, not the other way around.
Overall, I find the topic actually rather interesting and worthy of discussion. It doesn't greatly annoy me when people talk about big goals or clutchness so I don't have much of emotional involvement in the debate. Any contributions, corrections or disagreements on these points are welcome.
