As I have stated elswhere and before, I find that there's a big problem with the name Defensive Rating.
It's just a simple name for it, which people can easily grasp, but I think it misleads as to how it works. It makes you think a player gets it for being "good on defense." But the number itself appears to be generated, obviously, as a large reflection of team effect. I believe what it actually functions as is a Dominance Rating.
Furthermore, I have to put a spin on the past few seasons of D ratings. As lounpink once pointed out to me, the database has to reflect how these players and teams perform in Sim Matchup. Personally I never use the damn thing, but Sim Matchup is what WIS got the most publicity for, it's what they made their name on.
The database is all based on numbers. Stats. Things you can't change. 212 points. .938 save percentage. 92 goals, or 44 in 20 games. Some of the numbers are estimates, but they are estimates to fit into real categories... like the shooting percentage of old time players.
The one completely made up number is the D Rating.
Now, the last few years I've been hearing a lot of customers complaining about how the old time players play in the sim. No way Joe Malone was ever that good, what about training, ice time, nutrition BLAH BLAH BLAH. There's nothing anyone can do to fix that. If Joe Malone was 21 years old today, he'd have nutrition and training too. And he'd play in 40 second shifts. But one thing no one can ever dispute is that Joe Malone scored 44 goals in 20 games.
So how do you make players from today, who will never score huge points, who play in an era where each team scores basically the same amount of goals and gives up the same amount of goals and with the exception of a handful of truly excellent players, are ALL BASICALLY THE SAME GUY... how do you give those players ANY ability to compete statistically across eras?
D Rating.
4/13/2011 12:26 PM (edited)