Into The Weeds: A sprawling deep dive into these undefeated Stars, and what we're learning so far

Thanks to Corey Sznajder's tracking data and some film room analysis, we now have some idea.

Stating the patently obvious, but part of the problem with analyzing a team so early into the season is that you have a small sample size. One of the reasons why expected goal models have an accuracy of 76 to 79 percent is because they’ve pooled eight to ten years of shot data. Needless to say, to assess or predict more, you need more to analyze.

For example, as a shot quality team, Dallas is just kind of there through the first four games, ranking 20th in expected goals percentage, only four percentage points above a Detroit team still trying to figure out what exactly an Yzerplan even is. Does that mean anything? No. It’s only been four games. But what if we had a sample of events larger than simply shots and goals, but puck movement through all three zones?

That’s what we’re gonna do today. Thanks to the Stars Stack paid subscribers, I was able to hire Corey Sznajder to manually track Dallas Stars games. What I’ll be doing is reviewing his team level microdata from each game (ex: which team shot more off the rush), and then the microstat game score leaders from each game (to give us a better picture of performance rather than mere impact). Sprinkled in will be some video. Sure enough, some revealing facts are starting to emerge about an elite team who hasn’t put in elite work.

But first, a quick word of thanks: the Stars Stack just reached 1K subscribers! This may be just a small outfit of victory green sickos like me, but that’s a milestone I take great pride in accomplishing, and I owe you, the reader, for that. As always, you keep reading. I’ll keep writing. And of course, major thanks to Corey for the insane level of work he puts into allowing fans to learn more.

Now let’s level it up.