David Johnson (who shall arrive in the comments any moment) will ahve something to say on this.

I believe Tyler has done some work in this area as well. Eric's own look at the effect of linematesa has implications here as well.

How did you guess that I'd arrive so quickly. To me the evidence is clear that players can drive shooting percentages (and probably suppress opposition shooting percentages but far more difficult to show/prove) but I am tired of the debate (and to be honest, somewhat dismayed that there is still a debate going on).

"Perhaps more importantly, I think that this kind of grouping of like players could be a useful tool for research going forward."

I will say this though since the subject of "grouping" came up. Over the past 5 seasons there have been 189 forwards with 2000 5v5close zone start adjusted minutes. The top 10 in on-ice shooting percentage are:

Alex Tanguay Jonathon Toews Henrik Sedin Sidney Crosby Pavel Datsyuk Steven Stamkos Nathan Horton Andrei Kostitsyn Marian Gaborik Alex Ovechkin

The bottom 10 are:

Daniel Winnik Samuel Pahlsson Travis Moen Jerred Smithson Martin Hanzal Tom Kostopoulos Marty Reasoner Gregory Campbell Sean Bergenheim Vernon Fiddler

All of the top 10 have 5 year 5v5close zone start adjusted save percentages of 11.26% or better and the bottom 10 are 7.07% or worse. Top 10 are considered very good or elite offensive players while the bottom 10 are primarily defensive third line players. To me the only question is how much of shooting percentage is talent and how much is playing style.

I think the debate is only now getting interesting.

Sadly, that's because only now are people actually becoming open to the idea. For me the debate is over. The evidence has been around for a couple years, and not just from me. Two years ago Tom Awad concluded (http://www.puckprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=625) the following:

"The unmistakable conclusions from this table? Outshooting, out-qualitying and out-finishing all contribute to why Good Players dominate their opponents. Shot Quality only represents a small fraction of this advantage; outshooting and outfinishing are the largest contributors to good players' +/-. This means that judging players uniquely by Corsi or Delta will be flawed: some good players are good puck controllers but poor finishers (Ryan Clowe, Scott Gomez), while others are good finishers but poor puck controllers (Ilya Kovalchuk, Nathan Horton). Needless to say, some will excel at both (Alexander Ovechkin, Daniel Sedin, Corey Perry)."

(Shot quality=shot location, out-finishing=shooting percentage)

Sadly, that's because only now are people actually becoming open to the idea [that players can drive shooting percentage].

I think you misrepresent things here.

Hawerchuk laid out the argument against focusing on shooting percentages a year ago (http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2011/10/27/2517739/with-apologies-to-the-weakerthans-i-hate-shot-quality )

Now I'm not rejecting finishing and defensive/goaltending talent - they all exist. But I'd like to move past shot quality as such a frequent focus of analysis because I don't think it's going to return much for all of the effort. [...] If the Edmonton Oilers called you up and offered you their general manager job, what would be your first piece of advice? Would you tell them to chase after players who've had high on-ice shooting percentages over the last few years or who've exceeded their expected shooting percentages given their shot locations? I think you know the answer. Even though we're nowhere near the level of confidence that baseball analysts have come to, hockey analysis has turned up value in a number of places. There are dozens of things an NHL team should chase before they start looking for finishing talent.

He's not saying players can't drive shooting percentages; he's saying it's not the majority of what drives team outcomes and not the place to look if you're trying to find value.

Yes, there may be more to learn about shot quality but in my mind the debate regarding whether it exists (it does) and whether it is significant enough to want/need to consider in player evaluation (it is) is over.

Frazer McLaren was a WHL supergoon.

Never thought he'd turn into the PDO record-holder.

If shot quality is real but takes some time to manifest, it still has value to analysis.

First, using available data for past seasons, we can estimate the distribution of shot quality talent - both for established NHL players and among players trying to break into the NHL. Second, available statistics and scouting could be used to estimate where a given player's true talent lies within that distribution. This would move beyond a simple shot-based analysis where all players are assumed to have equal shot quality talent.

We outsiders could use information like the amount of power play time a player receives to inform estimate of his shot quality talent. For insiders and decision makers for whom power play time is not exogenous, they would presumably have more scouting-based information to inform the estimate.

The downside of failing to consider shot quality talent when "trying to find value" is that you will be more likely to acquire players with below-average shot quality talent. This follows if other teams rate players on a combination of outshooting ability and shot quality ability and you select only for outshooting ability.