Do we overstate the impact of coaching?

[Fatty McLardy]

Coaching is huge, no one knows that better than Pens fans.

Going from Mike Johnston to Mike Sullivan was the biggest reason for their consecutive cups.

 

[Critical13]

That a domain were confirmation bias, small sample size, etc... will really alter our result, many team will have a new coach one season, one of them will improve, 3 will not and we will still remember the one that improved and the importance of coaching.

It is apparently quite hard math/stat wise to see an significant coaching impact in basketball (outside Popovich) and hockey team result:

Do NBA Coaches Actually Make an Impact?
Do NBA Coaches Matter?

How Much Difference Do NHL Coaches Make? - NHL Numbers
All told, there were 41 total coaching transitions in the six seasons covered by my analysis. Five teams experienced no coaching turnover in this analysis, while fourteen had two or more coaching changes that met the criteria above.
In aggregate, the change in coaches had no clear impact on teams’ performance.


The Data Science of Firing Your Hockey Coach
Show a significant while not crazy impact on winning rate if you change coach mid season, but previous NHL success and experience has no positive impact on it (even better not to have experience or previously won a cup)

It is a bit hard because you never have the chance to compare the same team coached by different coach and that even thought terrible coaching would probably have terrible result versus good coaching, how many bad coach would you have in the best paid league in the world with only 31 teams.

Has an Habs fan, we had really good season with some of the worst coach ever like Carbonneau, it was not easy to see where Therrien success come from either and Julien had a much worst season.

Great post!

 

[MadLuke]

I always laugh when Tampa fans hate on Jon Cooper for example. Here's a guy who brings structure to a team, plays kids when they deserve it, has a clear vision, and IMO it's no coincidence that goalies always overperform for him

Tampa save% versus league average:
13-14: .916 vs .914
14-15: .913 vs .915
15-16: .923 vs .915
16-17: .914 vs .913
17-18: .915 vs .912

In the 12-13 (without taking time to remove empty goals, maybe introducing some error):
before Cooper arrival: .897
16 last game with Cooper coaching: .894

Only once a Cooper team had a significant difference with the league average goaltending wise, at least save percentage wise.

Penguins offense under Johntston versus Bylsma or Sullivan and going from .589 to .657 and winning the cup is certainly one compelling example.

Bad coaching do seem certainly really bad for a team and can exist, how much better than median coaching can you have with some elite coach is a more difficult question.

 

[Kale Hulls]

Coaching is the most important position in hockey.