Panda Bear
Registered User
- Apr 2, 2010
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Just dropping in to say that Corsi and Fenwick shouldn't be considered advanced stats.
The Edmonton Oilers employ one person for analytics, Justin Mahe. Mahe deals with customs issues too, so he can't even focus 100% on analytics. Chiarelli turfed basically the whole department and Holland has shown no interest in building it back up.Good scouting is much more important than good analytics. Analytics can be a good complement to scouting but it should never vice versa, i.e. that analytics takes precedent over scouting / is weighted more heavily. That's how you end up with analytics darlings that are actually not very good hockey players. I think this organization's issue has been the scouting, not that they're behind in analytics.
Here's an old (2019) list of analytics staff across teh league.
After Tyler Dellow its amazing the Oilers would have anybody doing analytics. He's the exact kind of "expert" that causes the same to be subsequently avoided. This guy was a walking migraine.
Also, Tyler seems most tied to the acquisition of Sekera, a subsequent buyout. The list of hits from this guy is slim to none. But hey, he watched Moneyball.
I'm challenged by the chaos reality of hockey vs. baseball and feel the hobbiest nature of many hockey analysts versus hard core math trained quants often leads to wrong or distorted conclusions of data but there is really no reason all professional sports team, most especially smaller market "Oakland A's" types shouldn't be pursuing the best hockey brains and trained math/quant personnel to pursue competitive advantage. Weeding through an arrogance phase (on both sides) is a vital step.
The chaos argument definitely works for blogger analytics, but actual NHL analytics are basically there to quantify the chaos.
If Holland asks his analytics guy if Caleb Jones is a good puck-mover, he isn't going to get something like "yeah, he has a 3.6 offensive GWAR" back. It's going to be a report with stuff like, "he attempted 12.4 exits/60, was successful on 74% of them, he attempted 68% of his pairing's exits, he saw a 16% drop in success rate when under pressure, etc.".
The Oilers could definitely use more guys on the analytics side, but I think the worry by some is overblown. Pretty much any layman in the organization can understand this stuff, so only having one "analytics guy" doesn't mean he's the only one working with them.
Analytics isn't why these teams are successful. They're successful because they use analytics as a tool ALONG with watching the players play the sport. How will looking at spreadsheets of numbers tell you how skilled the player is? Was Pouliot as good as his analytics? Fayne?
Yes, I agree. Regarding the Vegas hockey ops model, I highlighted among Donskov's responsibilities it includes "vetting outside analytics firms" which caught my eye that big data is obviously being crunched by experts and marketed as a service to NHL teams. @Fourier mentioned HockeyTech in Kitchener Waterloo which sounds like an interesting high growth big data firm that's actually located on the U. Waterloo campus and also trial and testing hardware applications like MLB Trackman. Talk of wearable technology and in puck data collection seems future bets as well. This sophistication both in talent (real quants vs. first wave hobbyists) and tools to analyze big data is fascinating where it can go. Early HockeyTech article here: Hockey analytics firm coming to Waterloo
Regarding the Vegas Hockey Ops model, I was just curious to skim how they are structured, the people and experience, and to some degree the belief system defining what has been an out of the box success. What I see (superficially) are deeply experienced hockey people with keen intelligence, growth mindset to pursue innovation and unafraid of change not limited by status quo thinking in a pretty traditional, low risk industry. This belief begins at the top with a bit of a maverick owner - it is a core cultural belief that reverberates throughout the organization. But of course I'll also 'out' my personal bias for championing the Western Canadian roots of many of them (didn't mention Murray Craven too). Another powerful tool in the toolkit.
I'm curious about the cultural change aspect and where teams are in the spectrum of this significant disruption to how things were always done and the embrace of new tools and approaches to guide decision making.
Pouliot had a couple of good years then fell off a cliff. Surprised the “predictive value” of analytics didn’t pick that up.Pouliot was a fine player here, injuries stopped him from back-to-back 20 goal years and even when he couldn't produce anymore, he was a valuable PKer.
I have seen you post the same reply four times and all you keep saying is Mark Fayne as your example.
Many analytic writers at the time outside of Edmonton understood what the Oil were thinking, but also pointed out that Andy Greene was propping up his numbers. Andy Greene, of course, is still playing in the NHL today.
You're never going to bat 100%, but to disregard analytics because of Mark Fayne is odd. Bit of a cherry pick.
You could go the other direction and say Florida is an example of why analytics are the only thing you could use because Carter Verhaeghe profiled strong in his analytics in TBL and look at him now.
I totally agree that you should be looking at the analytics, then watching the player to see how he reaches those stats. Is he a driver? Is he complimentary? Is someone else the reason why he looks good? Is someone holding him back? Analytics can provide a context for what we may not notice on the ice or see on the ice and can't explain. I don't think anyone's eyes can understand the entire game and every player at once. A good organization understands context and has a team to help line everything up.
The Oilers have one guy doing "a report" - it's hard for me to believe in their process right now.
On how the Oilers use analytics to make decisions: “We don’t make any decisions without them. Justin Mahe and his brother Shaun Mahe do analytics for us. From a coaching perspective, there’s an analytical report that gets emailed to Dave Tippett in advance of every game that we play. There’s a postgame analytic report from a coaching perspective.
“Last year, (director of amateur scouting) Tyler Wright and (chief amateur scout) Bob Green spent a lot of time with Justin Mahe doing analytics on the draft, leading into the draft. (Holland said that’ll happen before the 2021 draft, too.)
“We’re going to our pro meetings. I’ve asked Justin Mahe to have an analytical report on the players that we’re talking about from an unrestricted (free agent) perspective.
“It’s a tool. It’s part of the process. It’s not the chief decision-maker by any stretch of the imagination. Our sport, it’s not a stationary sport. It’s a fluid sport where there’s a lot of people moving in a whole bunch of different directions. There’s a whole bunch of different ways to analyze.
“In talking with Dave Tippett, he’s got his own things that he analyzes — who’s on the ice for chances for, chances against. He’s been doing that for 20 years as a coach.”
“Is analytics a part of our decision-making process? Yes. In every decision that we make from an amateur standpoint, from a trade standpoint, from a pro-evaluation UFA standpoint, from a coaching standpoint — there’s an analytical dive, and there’s an analytical report. That is a piece of the puzzle.”
His overarching view on analytics: “All you’ve got to do is look at the goal differential at five-on-five for the real legit teams. That’s the analytics that I look at. Everybody in this league looks at analytics. I looked at analytics 25 years ago when I became a general manager. … It was rudimentary analytics, but I’ve always run a team on analytics. It’s more involved analytics now. But it’s a part of the process.”
On whether he’d want to grow the analytics team in Edmonton: “You can hire 15 people, but at the end of the day, you’re going to present an analytical report. Players have good years and bad years. It’s a piece of the decision-making process whether you’ve got 12 people hired in your analytics department or you’ve got two people hired.”
"All you’ve got to do is look at the goal differential at five-on-five for the real legit teams. That’s the analytics that I look at."
Well he did a shitty job at putting together the bottom six then.
To be fair, players that produce at 5v5 usually cost more than league minimum. Let’s see how it goes with some cap that can be spent on actual 3rd liners like a 3C to anchor the line now that there is some available cap
Analytics isn't why these teams are successful. They're successful because they use analytics as a tool ALONG with watching the players play the sport. How will looking at spreadsheets of numbers tell you how skilled the player is? Was Pouliot as good as his analytics? Fayne?
Production isn't really the issue. Getting murdered defensively is where most of the bottom six come up short in goal differential.