The Maple Leafs are boring and I have analytics to prove it #MyColumn

Most people look back as the Carlylera (that’s “Carlyle era” conveniently shortened to make it more efficient) as a negative. “The team played in an unsustainable way”, people say. And sure, that’s probably true (although we’ll never know, as Carlyle’s time was unfortunately cut short). But there is something the Carlylera was good for: entertainment. The same can’t be said for the Mikera (short for “Mike Babcock era”) thus far. 

And this isn’t just my opinion. There is data to back it up. 

What data you say? A new analytic I am unveiling today that I call Boresi. It’s a way of calculating which teams are the most fun to watch, and which ones will bore you out of your mind. Being bored watching a hockey game is bad, as it is meant to entertain you.

How is it calculated you ask? As we know, the only exciting thing about hockey is the goals – that’s why the league is trying so hard to increase scoring. So I took that into consideration when developing Boresi. To get a team’s Boresi rating, you add a team’s goals against and goals for together, and divide by two. Let’s take a look at the current Boresi ratings for the entire league as of December 2, 2015:

Two notes here: first, I sorted from worst Boresi to best to make the point more obvious that the Leafs are boring. Second, I didn’t include last night’s loss to Winnipeg because I felt it would skew the numbers too much from a one game sample. 

As you can see, the Leafs are the 8th most boring team in the league. I instantly knew my formula was correct because this confirmed my eye-test, and that’s how you know your analytic is good. The other thing that confirmed that Boresi is a legitimately good stat is that Dallas has the best Boresi score in the league. They are by far the most fun team to watch. Here are the numbers again, in a much easier to digest format:

Look at this chart. Just pathetic. It’s clear that the Leafs are playing very boring hockey under Mike Babcock. Now how about the team under Randy Carlyle? I went back and calculated the Boresi scores for the NHL on the same date last year. Here is what I found:

Please note: this time I ordered from highest-to-lowest Boresi rating, to drive home the point that the Leafs were way more exciting to watch last year. Their excitement-level was tied for third in the league with Edmonton, only behind Dallas and Tampa Bay.  It’s plainly obvious in this chart that confirms my thinking. I wouldn’t believe it otherwise, but I trust the formula and the way it comes to its conclusions. 

The Carlylera may not have been the most “sustainable” (what does that even mean, really?), but I’ll be damned if the hockey wasn’t the most fun. 

If you want, you can disagree. But the numbers don’t lie.