The interesting part of this Devils situation to me is how twitter is doing the whole hockey people vs. analytics people thing again. Well, maybe not interesting but some of it is amusing. It's especially weird seeing Dellow's name brought up. He's such a people person, who makes friends everywhere he goes, so I don't see why there'd be any kind of issue with him.
Nice sarcasm there...
Wyshynski, who's an ardent Devils fan, came out and said that Friedman alleged that the analytics people influenced the Shero firing. Friedman quickly jumped on social media and said no, he didn't say that, he clarified by saying the
mere existence of the analytics team in NJ and Shero's reluctance to incorporate them into his day-to-day operations prompted the change. That's a pretty big difference. Rachel Doerrie, who used to work for the Devils as an analyst, echoed the same speculation in her latest podcast with Ian Tulloch.
I usually like Wysh but that was just blatantly irresponsible and lazy on his part, and it's prompted yet another lame "200 Hockey Men vs. The Computer Boys" debate. Just like what happened in Florida, owners doing dumb things has nothing to do with the validity of either school of thought.
I get that Dellow is not the nicest guy in hockey circles, but that just wasn't necessary.