These show offensive stats and not what a liability a player is, no
No, this number measures what percentage of ALL goals are scored by your team when you are on the ice at 5v5, and would be a % anywhere between 0-100, an average player would expect to be 50%, great players are in the 60% range. If a great offensive player is in the 40% range (and not better than their teammates) then you know they are leaking goals defensively. ETA: To put it simply, if your team scores 40 goals with you on the ice, and gives up 60, you will have a 40% goals for %, and you’re doing something wrong on defense.
Something to note, in general - defensive play is a bit harder to measure directly, a great offensive player can dominate possession so thoroughly, that even mediocre defensive play wouldn’t bring their goals for % to bad territory - aka the best defense is great offense”. The opposite is also true, great defensive players that are a black hole on offense will look bad overall with these stats.
What about defensive zone shift %? That is way more important to know if a player is a liability. Again, you are only looking at half the picture.
That is also important, I didn’t mean to negate that. If you have 2 players with similar goals/assists, but one has more dzone face offs and fewer ozone face offs, then you know the coach trusts him defensively and that he is a better contributor to the team overall. The other player needs to get sheltered to limit his liability.
What about something like shift % on powerplay for/against?
You wouldn’t lump power play and PK together as they have different strategies and personnel. For power play - if a player is contributing nicely on the PP, it shouldn’t be discounted (it often is completely ignored) even if the player isn’t great at 5v5. You need players that come up big with the man advantage. PP points and PP TOI (compared to team) are both good indicators of how much they contribute on the PP.
On the PK - great offensive players do not play the PK unless they are really good on defense. These are the guys that chip in all over the ice in all situations and have the most positive impact on a team. For the Rangers this is Fox and Zibanejad. For the Blackhawks of yore this was Toews and Keith. Often you have Norris candidates with no PK time, when voters see that they count it as a big red flag. on the PK side it’s far easier to measure with the eye test, it’s hard to measure statistically as they are playing down a man and much of the impact comes from the strategy side. However a good PKer will be trusted by the coach eating a lot of minutes on the PK.
What site are you using for these stats?
There are a number of sites that either provide these stats or create analysis of teams and players using these stats for context. That includes NHL.com, moneypuck, the Athletic, hockeyreference, natural stat trick, etc. I usually don’t go to these sites directly, rather I follow Reddit /r/hockey and /r/rangers and many posts link to analysis on other sites. Just one thing I’d say - advanced stats in hockey will never be as simple as the low event, predictable outcome of a baseball at bat. Hockey is fluid, with both offense and defense happening simultaneously and switching on a dime, the puck caroms and bounces often in unpredictable ways, and often good/bad teammates can hide the impact of the individual.
The best writers don’t just rely on a single metric to tell a story, they watch the games intensely, use stats with the context of other stats, and also use advanced stats to point out something that can be easy to miss even when watching closely. It can be something as small as successful defensive zone exits, whether it was by skating it out or an outlet pass - great defensive players are confident with the puck to skate it out, and do it successfully at a high clip - and the same for offensive zone entries.
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