Rumor: Leafs significantly expanding their analytics department

[Bluelines]

You can fairly easily between having a large enough staff with salaries, getting software created, paying different teams for their video to use, so on and so forth.

A Python developer is easily in the six figure range for salary, factor on H&B and bonuses, you can easily be in the $200,000 loaded cost for one programmer. You find a full stack developer, quarter mil easy for loaded costs. Factor in travel, training, so and so on and so on..

Yup, it amazing the people who know nothing about running an IT department or nothing about analytics are the most vocal experts against it.

 

[Bluelines]

Coaching.

I'd suggest the answer is much simpler.

McBackup last year won 23 points
Sparks this year won 17 points (with 2 more games played)
6 point difference.

Last year we had 105 points
This year we had 100 points
5 point difference.

Kinda easy to see where the difference was. Consider the team sent Sparks home and told him not to come back.... kinda tells you everything you need to know.

 

[Mess]

The greater investment you make in analytics both money and reliance the less thinking a person needs to do for themselves.

What do the numbers say, dictates the direction and course of action.

If you don't have lot of hockey experience soon you won't need to because the spreadsheet will have all the answers if your not careful.

Buyer beware should be on the warning label of all packaged stats, because how, when and where to apply them to what happens on the ice is where the real skill comes in.

Its not the production of analytics its the application that matters.

 

[Menzinger]

I'd suggest the answer is much simpler.

McBackup last year won 23 points
Sparks this year won 17 points (with 2 more games played)
6 point difference.

Last year we had 105 points
This year we had 100 points
5 point difference.

Kinda easy to see where the difference was. Consider the team sent Sparks home and told him not to come back.... kinda tells you everything you need to know.

I’d suggest it’s actually more complex.

Last years Leafs record was inflated a lot by a large number of shootout wins (glorified coin flip), this year the Leafs have been winning most of their games by multi goals berths during regular time. They’ve barely been to the shootout this year

 

[Menzinger]

The Wild (stupidly) fired their head analytics guy (who founded War on ice).

I wouldn’t be surprised if Dubas tries to scoop him up

 

[666]

The greater investment you make in analytics both money and reliance the less thinking a person needs to do for themselves.

What do the numbers say, dictates the direction and course of action.

If you don't have lot of hockey experience soon you won't need to because the spreadsheet will have all the answers if your not careful.

Buyer beware should be on the warning label of all packaged stats, because how, when and where to apply them to what happens on the ice is where the real skill comes in.

Its not the production of analytics its the application that matters.

Mess, your 30 years of Cobol experience isn't helping you here. We're not talking Corsi. For $50M you get quant type stuff like big data and machine learning. Think Tesla not Pinto.

 

[WillNy29]

From an accounting perspective I'd wager that majority of this is start up cost including the initial hiring costs. Depending on how you apply IFRS rules you can capitalize almost all of it on your balance sheet and amortize it over a prescribed life (ultimately deferring the impact on the bottom line that everyone here is worried about)

You would be able to capitalize R & D costs after a certain number of rules are met as well. The important thing here is that a ton of this stuff can also be claimed back using what is known as an R & D tax credit everytime the expense is actually incurred whether you capitalize it or not.

Long story short...a little bit of creative accounting and tax planning and voila a $50 mill investment no longer sits as a $50 mill cost on a single period income statement anymore and can be capitalized and amortized over a long life.

 

[Mess]

Mess, your 30 years of Cobol experience isn't helping you here. We're not talking Corsi. For $50M you get quant type stuff like big data and machine learning. Think Tesla not Pinto.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is your computer telling the GM what to do.. Think Tesla but with the driver behind the wheel still with their learners drivers license.

Human Intelligence > Artificial Intelligence here. Allowing a computer in a boardroom to try and manipulate data to predict and influence the results on the ice.

MoneyPuck is only going to tell you so much on paper, before a human through the cognitive process of interpretation of that data will need to apply those stats in a meaningful way in the decision making process, understanding how much weight and importance to assign them.

PS. I believe this +$50 mil investment will actually be mainly used to purchase a preexisting Analytics Company and installing it as the teams new Analytics internal division, as opposed to outsourcing and purchasing that data externally like they presently do. This allowing input into the data gathering process and custom designed output. However the greatest competitive advantage gained here might be exclusivity to the data, by preventing access to that same information by the 30 other teams.

Ex.. Leafs could buyout Capfriendly & its current employees etc, and install it internally to help the teams current capologist Brandon Pridham at his job, while removing it from the market for everyone else, however in this case a current data capture and manipulation company designed to feed the GM proprietary data.

Predicting Dubas long-term vision & goal being to create the NHL version of the NFL's Next Gen Stats model. (Next Gen Stats)

 

[HamiltonNHL]

i hope this fancy analytics department reports to Dubas how he is paying players more than they are worth.

How to phrase it to Dubas ?

You are paying too much money per Corsi For % ?

 

[Leafs87]

I think the team will find success with what was inherited by Dubas but his contribution will be very lackluster to this team overall. I hope he tenure is very short I don’t like his work so far at all. Screwing up on contracts is what kills teams in this day and age. I also hate his overall idea of how to build a team

 

[SprDaVE]

I think the team will find success with what was inherited by Dubas but his contribution will be very lackluster to this team overall. I hope he tenure is very short I don’t like his work so far at all. Screwing up on contracts is what kills teams in this day and age. I also hate his overall idea of how to build a team

You don't like Tavares and Muzzin?

What's wrong with his "idea" of building a team?

 

[Leafs87]

You don't like Tavares and Muzzin?

What's wrong with his "idea" of building a team?

Tavares I think screwed the salary cap up. Muzzin has beeen good at times and bad at others. I don’t think having a team as soft as the leafs will lead to much playoff success. His contract negotiations have really been what I hate about him the most

 

[IBeL34f]

I think the team will find success with what was inherited by Dubas but his contribution will be very lackluster to this team overall. I hope he tenure is very short I don’t like his work so far at all. Screwing up on contracts is what kills teams in this day and age. I also hate his overall idea of how to build a team

Yeah, I'm pretty bummed, too - I mean, signing Tavares? Acquiring Muzzin without taking anything off of our main roster? Brutal.

I sure wish we had someone who was willing to keep JVR for $7M, or Bozak for $5M, or Martin and Komarov for a combined $5.5M - The kind of guy who knows that $6.5M of our cap should be allocated to the 39-year-old Marleau, or that $4.5M is a great deal for an experienced, proven stud like Zaitsev. Instead all we got were these promotions from the Marlies, outproducing last year's counterparts for a fraction of the cost. Baloney!

 

[SprDaVE]

Tavares I think screwed the salary cap up. Muzzin has beeen good at times and bad at others. I don’t think having a team as soft as the leafs will lead to much playoff success. His contract negotiations have really been what I hate about him the most

I'm confused. Are you saying you do not want to have good players on the team?

This is easily the best team/core we've had in pretty much 2 decades. Are you saying you'd prefer to have a Brian Burke led team because they were tougher? Dubas wasn't the GM when the core was amassed, but he was part of the management team that did and a lot of the current players went through his AHL led team to be on the Leafs.

I'd probably give him more than 10 months of being the GM before making a definite "I hate his work".

 

[BertCorbeau]

Tavares I think screwed the salary cap up. Muzzin has beeen good at times and bad at others. I don’t think having a team as soft as the leafs will lead to much playoff success. His contract negotiations have really been what I hate about him the most

Would you rather have Komarov and Martin on the roster, making a combined $5.5 mill?

 

[diceman934]

Maybe some money could be spent on an assistant to the president in change of hockey operations and hire a guy like Ron Francis or Stevie Y.

 

[JT AM da real deal]

I'd suggest the answer is much simpler.

McBackup last year won 23 points
Sparks this year won 17 points (with 2 more games played)
6 point difference.

Last year we had 105 points
This year we had 100 points
5 point difference.

Kinda easy to see where the difference was. Consider the team sent Sparks home and told him not to come back.... kinda tells you everything you need to know.

This is true even when you go back to each game. There were 5 points in standings lost when Leafs were the better team but lost because of Sparky. So essentially we are same team as last year with a worse backup goalie. But even still with additions of Tavares and Muzz we should have been better. I thought 110 points this years was reasonable.

 

[Its not your fault]

A Python developer is easily in the six figure range for salary, factor on H&B and bonuses, you can easily be in the $200,000 loaded cost for one programmer. You find a full stack developer, quarter mil easy for loaded costs. Factor in travel, training, so and so on and so on..

Yup, it amazing the people who know nothing about running an IT department or nothing about analytics are the most vocal experts against it.

I totally get your tag line. Python for the win. Just figured it was your Jr hockey team or somthing.

 

[Notsince67]

The greater investment you make in analytics both money and reliance the less thinking a person needs to do for themselves.

What do the numbers say, dictates the direction and course of action.

If you don't have lot of hockey experience soon you won't need to because the spreadsheet will have all the answers if your not careful.

Buyer beware should be on the warning label of all packaged stats, because how, when and where to apply them to what happens on the ice is where the real skill comes in.

Its not the production of analytics its the application that matters.

One of the first teams to jump on the analytics bandwagon was the Oilers. A cautionary tale for sure.

 

[AreBe]

That number seems very high at first glance, though I guess the future is ambiguous wording.

It does make sense that they would look to expand with the avalanche of tracking data that they'll have access to soon.

Oh the tears! Oh the crying! Leafs Nation hates this! Logic, wisdom and reason? Away with ye!

Wrong, wrong wrong! Leafs need to get get a penalty box sitting coach! Someone to teach the players to chirp a the ref so that the ref knows who to give more penalties to, learn the proper way to thrash about in the box to show emotion, and teach young kids that skill , speed, skating, puck possession is one way of looking at the game, but on the other hand, teach young kids what good Canadian hockey is all about! Show that other team that we can give them the strategic advantage! We want hockey! We want goon!

We are Leafs Nation and we don't like analytics- all eye test, all looking at past performance. All toughness. All designing the team for yesterday's hockey. We can stand up to Bettman and say,"You're wrong! Watch us fight our way and be tough! Dare you to call penalties on us, dare you! Just try to bring in a Post Concussion Syndrome aware style of hockey! " We will show Bettman, you will see!

All this math? Educated in Ontario! We at Leafs Nation just don;t see how professionalism that statistics brings to management could in any way be a boon.

 

[Bluelines]

This is true even when you go back to each game. There were 5 points in standings lost when Leafs were the better team but lost because of Sparky. So essentially we are same team as last year with a worse backup goalie. But even still with additions of Tavares and Muzz we should have been better. I thought 110 points this years was reasonable.

105 is a pretty incredible year, I was saying (on this forum) before this season began we would not hit 105, even with the additions of Tavares, Kappy, Johnsson. 100 points is nothing to sneeze at either. Keep in mind this team believe it or not is not a completed product, we sill have to add another 2 good dmen and 2 good power forwards (wingers) with top 9 skill.

The reality of it is we won 105 and 100 on the back of Andersen. If you think about it we have one really good line with Tavares-Mitch, one line with an elite center with AHL wingers (Matthews) Matthews deserves much better linemates, he deserves a guy who can drive the play like Mitch, one line with aging and less effective players ( Kadri's) and then a dogs breakfast for a 4th line.

We have a defence that is suspect, one guy who is an all star in Rielly and then everyone else, Jake is good and bad, never consistent, Hainsey who has father time chasing him, Muzzin who seems to struggle in our system, Z who is better suited for a 5 or 6 role with PK, Dermott who skates like Jake, does not make mistakes like Jake but also does not drive play like Jake.

 

[4thline]

One of the first teams to jump on the analytics bandwagon was the Oilers. A cautionary tale for sure.

Yup. But is it the one you're implying?

 

[Albi34]

Tavares I think screwed the salary cap up. Muzzin has beeen good at times and bad at others. I don’t think having a team as soft as the leafs will lead to much playoff success. His contract negotiations have really been what I hate about him the most

I would love to hear how the Leafs cap would have been better spent than on Tavares. By all means prove me wrong.

 

[BertCorbeau]

105 is a pretty incredible year, I was saying (on this forum) before this season began we would not hit 105, even with the additions of Tavares, Kappy, Johnsson. 100 points is nothing to sneeze at either. Keep in mind this team believe it or not is not a completed product, we sill have to had another 2 good dmen and 2 good power forwards (wingers) with top 9 skill.

The reality of it is we won 105 and 100 on the back of Andersen. If you think about it we have one really good line with Tavares-Mitch, one line with an elite center with AHL wingers (Matthews) Matthews deserves much better linemates, he deserves a guy who can drive the play like Mitch, one line with aging and less effective players ( Kadri's) and then a dogs breakfast for a 4th line.

We have a defence that is suspect, one guy who is an all star in Rielly and then everyone else, Jake is good and bad, never consistent, Hainsey who has father time chasing him, Muzzin who seems to struggle in our system, Z who is better suited for a 5 or 6 role with PK, Dermott who skates like Jake, does not make mistakes like Jake but also does not drive play like Jake.

Worth noting the Caps had 105 points last year and won the cup. The year prior they had 120 and 118 respectively.

Dominating the regular season is nice but it's really how they come together the playoffs that matter.

 

[stopclickbait]

Were there a lot of people against computers back in the day to?

Always stay ahead of the curve when it comes to analytics and technology if not you see your team making the same mistakes over and over again in overrating narratives.

Just look at Montreal they thought they signed a great vet getting Alzner. Everyone but one donkey “Mike Kelly” knew how awful he was.

Or

How about the Oilers who had one of the worst Corsi when Dallas Eakins coached so they try to dismiss it and end up with Larsson instead of Hall