We do not care

On Ben Chiarot's extension and the discourse surrounding it

If you’ve been paying attention to the hockey world within the last few hours, you’ve probably seen two things. One: Ben Chiarot signed a three-year extension with the Detroit Red Wings. Two: non-Red Wings fans are having nuclear meltdowns over it.

When I’m in a hyperbole competition and my opponent is an analytics bro

I’ve been noticing this trend a lot lately. A team announces an extension of a favorite player and fans are excited. Within minutes, advanced analytic evangelists show up to rain on the parade. They’ll post charts without context and make sweeping assumptions about the players mentioned. These, more often than not, age quite poorly. One of my personal favorite poorly-aged tweets comes from Patrick Bacon of TopDownHockey:

Now, before I start sounding like Old Man Yells At Cloud, I need to make something abundantly clear: advanced analytics are, on their own, not a bad thing. In fact, they’re used by every single organization in the NHL to better evaluate players. I use advanced analytics when I do player evaluations! This is not an anti-analytics piece. Analytics are not bad. What is a bad thing, however, are sweeping generalizations and premature conclusions (especially when they’re delivered smugly).

If you don’t like the Chiarot signing, fine. But I’m here to tell you right now: we don’t care.

Analytics bros do a lot of talking but don’t have much to say

Let’s get this out of the way

I realize the irony in writing an entire article to let people know you don’t care. But I think it’s important to call out these things when you see them. People online often pose themselves as experts despite not watching the actual games. It’s like pointing at Marco Kasper’s goals and assists and calling him a bad player. While, yes, he’s having an abysmal sophomore slump, he also has six points in his last six games and has doubled his points this season in that timeframe.

Think of player evaluation like painting a picture. Advanced analytics are your light and shadow. They help to define space and parameters from which you can work. These sorts of graphs should be used as a jumping off point, not an open-and-shut evaluation. Without additional context (and, yes, the eye test), they’re useless. If we relied solely on advanced analytics to determine the success of a player, Oliver Ekman-Larsson (one of the top trade candidates this season) would’ve been an afterthought.

OEL isn’t the only example. Take a look at Sam Bennett, who was viewed by many as an afterthought. JFresh (known arch enemy of Red Wings Twitter) concluded that he was a “fourth line forward” after his trade to the Florida Panthers. Bennett is now a second-line center with a Conn Smythe trophy under his belt as a playoff MVP.

So why am I bringing up all of this, anyway? What’s the point?

The point is that you can formulate your own opinion. It is vital that you do not take an advanced analytics card as the objective truth about a player. After all, one of the top analytics models in the NHL world just got replaced by a new one. It’s hard to take analytics evangelists seriously if the model they described as an “objective truth” for years has been so easily replaced.

The point is that hockey’s just as much a numbers game as it is a vibes game.

Why vibes are the best stat

It might seem amorphous. After all, you can’t quantify vibes. You can, however, see their impact in real time. Take the Toronto Maple Leafs, for example. The Athletic’s advanced analytics model projected the Leafs to finish with 102 points at 7th in NHL standings.

The Leafs currently sport a 24-20-9 record. They’re 7th in the division and 21st in the league. Why that is amounts to a few things: injuries, of course, play a major role. Auston Matthews looked like a shell of his former self up until recently. The biggest reason why they’re floundering, however, has to do with vibes.

Watch this interview with Matthews after a brutal 7-4 shellacking from the Buffalo Sabres:

What stood out to you? Does Matthews look engaged? Let’s put this one side-by-side with Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon after a brutal loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in the playoffs:

You know what happened the season after this one? MacKinnon won the Stanley Cup. Vibes are integral to a team’s success. Without them, you’re as good as gone. Unfortunately, you can’t really quantify vibes. They’re amorphous and, more often than not, are directly impacted by what happens off the ice.

What does this have to do with Ben Chiarot?

I’m not going to act like Ben Chiarot is the savior of Hockeytown. He’s a third-pairing defenseman asked to play second-pairing minutes. Chiarot has been asked to punch well above his weight throughout his entire time with Detroit. In that time, he’s been solid at best and scary at worst.

But he brings the vibes.

Watch this fight with Morgan Geekie of the Boston Bruins:

The fans are energized. The players are engaged. Guys like Chiarot are essential to the modern game of hockey. They’re your energy guys. The ones that keep the team locked in. Chiarot’s got hundreds of games under his belt and almost a full regular season’s worth in playoff games (including a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals). He’s never going to be your best guy on the ice. In fact, I wouldn’t even say he’s going to be a top-three guy on the ice.

But he’s going to bring the energy. He’s going to give the team the good vibes it sorely needs. A $3.85M/year contract to play a bottom-pairing role on the defense is, at best, negligible. It becomes even more of an afterthought once you realize how much the salary cap is set to rise over the coming seasons.

Chiarot brings, for lack of a better term, intangibles essential to a successful locker room. To not understand that is to not understand the NHL at a fundamental level.

Plus he hits really hard and he is quite handsome. What more could you want?

Is there a…Mrs. Chiarot?