Phil Housley discussion thread

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

Housley could be decent with a bit more passion and risk-taking, but.. no. Was hoping he’d mentor the D well, but it’s beyond indefensible that Scandella has cratered yet keeps playing.

 

[Sabre the Win]

Dan Bylsma was a vestige from the previous era of NHL hockey, and he could not adjust. In fact, he refused to try to adjust. Housley, whatever his faults, does not have that problem.

Please show me some examples of Housley adjustments and the comparison how he is doing it better than Byslma because Byslma didn't have near the talent Housley has with a breakout Jack and Rocket chasing Skinner, not to mention the D depth.

Housley's adjustments are high school defining, nothing more.

 

[debaser66]

Housley could be decent with a bit more passion and risk-taking, but.. no. Was hoping he’d mentor the D well, but it’s beyond indefensible that Scandella has cratered yet keeps playing.

Vet entitlement creates a bad culture

 

[Member 308457]

Let's not forget the masterful job he did with Ted Black, Pat Lafontaine, Ron Rolston, Ted Nolan and Russ Brandon. He fires more people than the posters here fire into the sun. Actually it would be typical of Pegula to fire Housley now without having any plan moving forward. That's why his teams have to hire coaches and gm's that were passed over. He'd probably time it just right so Skinner would want to wait until free agency opens to decide if he wants to re-sign.

Out of all of Pegula's follies, and there have been many, hiring a first-time NHL head coach along with a first-time NHL GM together after ALL THESE YEARS of bitter, horrible and unprecedented failure, is really the height of stupidity for me. It's been so frustrating for me as a fan to endure all these decades of complete and utter mismanagement at the top.

 

[Myllz]

Not even a month ago plenty of people were still ready to fire Phil. The team has been on an insane streak, but that's not going to all of a sudden convince me that Phil is the answer, and there are still some elements of the way the team plays that I hate. Let's see how they're doing at the mid-point of the season and at the end of the regular season. If they're still playing well, then no need to make a change.

^ November 27th when this thread was all about how great Phil is. Hmm...

 

[OkimLom]

Out of all of Pegula's follies, and there have been many, hiring a first-time NHL head coach along with a first-time NHL GM together after ALL THESE YEARS of bitter, horrible and unprecedented failure, is really the height of stupidity for me. It's been so frustrating for me as a fan to endure all these decades of complete and utter mismanagement at the top.

Hired two GMs that their first NHL GM job was with Buffalo, Back to back.

 

[OkimLom]

Please show me some examples of Housley adjustments and the comparison how he is doing it better than Byslma because Byslma didn't have near the talent Housley has with a breakout Jack and Rocket chasing Skinner, not to mention the D depth.

Housley's adjustments are high school defining, nothing more.

The one adjustment that glaring to me is him just rolling the lines instead of utilizing a line/center for defensive matchups. But that may be because we don’t have the personnel to do so, which begs the question if we did, would he stay with that roster deployment strategy?

 

[Chainshot]

The one adjustment that glaring to me is him just rolling the lines instead of utilizing a line/center for defensive matchups. But that may be because we don’t have the personnel to do so, which begs the question if we did, would he stay with that roster deployment strategy?

One caveat to that would be Johan’s line, which is still getting a high incidence of defense of zone starts.

 

[Aladyyn]

One caveat to that would be Johan’s line, which is still getting a high incidence of defense of zone starts.

Letting our only good defensive forwards handle the defensive load seems like a sound decision tbh.

 

[OkimLom]

One caveat to that would be Johan’s line, which is still getting a high incidence of defense of zone starts.

Would like to see how the other lines stack up with their time spent in their own end.

But, yes he’s done it, but not at the rate ROR was used, and it’s quite interesting that Housley uses Sobotka as the “extra centerman” at the end of the game when defending a lead, something we saw with ROR last year as well.

 

[Buffaloed]

^ November 27th when this thread was all about how great Phil is. Hmm...

Apparently some folks have this really twisted idea that they should praise people when they're succeeding.

 

[joshjull]

One caveat to that would be Johan’s line, which is still getting a high incidence of defense of zone starts.

There is more than one caveat. Both the Sobotka and Larsson lines get defensively skewed usage. Housley has stuck to his two offensive line/2 defensive line deployment strategy all season.

Rough breakdown of their respective usage, how the matchups are going based on GF% ** and listing them by 5v5 mins/game.

Jack --> 76% OZS/GF% 57%
Sobotka -> 38% OZS/GF% 36%
Larsson -> 20% OZS/GF% 47%
Mitts ----> 80% OZS/GF% 47%

There is clear delineation of how the lines are used with 2 lines getting offensively skewed usage and 2 lines getting defensively skewed usage.

A couple things jump out of this setup. Sobotka's line is getting buried and Mitts line is unable to win their matchup. Those things have been fairly consistent all season with mild fluctuations. To state the obvious that wasn't going to be a sustainable model once the top line stopped being red hot.

Sobotka's line needs to get up at least into the mid 40s in GF%. They can lose the matchup but can't get buried like they are. Mitts line needs to win its matchup. Can't have a line with such a heavily offensive usage unable to do so. They don't even have to dominate it, just mid 50s in GF%. Those two things would be more than enough to get us back on a winning path.

One bright spot, other than the top line, is Larsson's line holding its own with the usage they've been tasked with.

** I used the numbers for the centers on those lines, or in Sobotka's case the most frequent member, to give a rough picture of how the matchups have gone. Not perfect but accurate enough to get a feel for how things have gone.

 

[Woodhouse]

Apparently some folks have this really twisted idea that they should praise people when they're succeeding.

Were they succeeding or were hopeful fans getting blinded by results? Statistical outliers were huge factors in their win streak, like an 18.18 SCSH%, 22.22 HDSH%, 14.29 MDSH%, .935 SV%, .887 SCSV%, .847 HDSV%, .929 MDSV%, etc., while their CF%, FF%, SF%, SCF%, SCSF%, HDCF%, HDSF%, MDSF% were all below their bottom-dweller '17-18 rates. The PP wasn't better then than '17-18 either, but the PK certainly was. Heck, their "since the streak" pace is 25-43-14, or 64 points, despite improvements upon '17-18 in all those categories. The regression of outlier categories was quite impactful on results.

Their increased 5v5 GF and GF% isn't limited to just the streak though. That aspect of their game has progressed, which is keeping them in more games, earning them more points in games where they convert their chances or get luck. They still remain one of the worst teams in regards to both attacking the net and defending the slot.

 

[sabremike]

If you were building a building who would you hire: an architect who has successfully designed and completed numerous buildings or a guy who has a couple of years as an assistant to an architect and has never designed or oversaw construction of a building in his life? We keep going with option 2 and are shocked when the result is neverending failure.

 

[Woodhouse]

They still remain one of the worst teams in regards to both attacking the net and defending the slot.

Just to add further to this point, go to BUF's HockeyViz team page and the first two heatmaps you'll find are "shots taken 5v5" and "shots allowed 5v5". Next, go to Teams in their navigation bar and select any of the teams they're chasing... BOS is a completely average threat in 5v5 shots taken, but excellent at shots allowed; CBJ, MTL excel in 5v5 shots taken and are above average in shots allowed; NYI are average in both; PIT, TOR excel in 5v5 shots taken and are below average in shots allowed... guess where BUF is trending?

 

[Buffaloed]

Were they succeeding or were hopeful fans getting blinded by results? Statistical outliers were huge factors in their win streak, like an 18.18 SCSH%, 22.22 HDSH%, 14.29 MDSH%, .935 SV%, .887 SCSV%, .847 HDSV%, .929 MDSV%, etc., while their CF%, FF%, SF%, SCF%, SCSF%, HDCF%, HDSF%, MDSF% were all below their bottom-dweller '17-18 rates. The PP wasn't better then than '17-18 either, but the PK certainly was. Heck, their "since the streak" pace is 25-43-14, or 64 points, despite improvements upon '17-18 in all those categories. The regression of outlier categories was quite impactful on results.

Their increased 5v5 GF and GF% isn't limited to just the streak though. That aspect of their game has progressed, which is keeping them in more games, earning them more points in games where they convert their chances or get luck. They still remain one of the worst teams in regards to both attacking the net and defending the slot.

Results are the only thing that matters.

 

[dotcommunism]

Results are the only thing that matters.

At the end of the season maybe, but after 25 games? Not even remotely. At that point results only tell you what happened and nothing else. Statistical analysis does a much better job of telling you what is likely to happen in the future and that's pretty damn important when you're less than halfway through the season.

 

[Sabresfansince1980]

I don't feel like I'm a Housley defender, I just like to wait and see what happens with a bad roster as well as a good/better roster, which hasn't taken effect yet. Remember that last season they were -81 in goals scored. They were losing games by the 1st intermission, and had opponents just letting off the gas and wasting time for half a game. No HC can have a (totally) fair evaluation with a roster like last season.

This season there have been some obvious roster upgrades at W, D, and G, and a big downgrade at C. So even though the team is now (since the streak) back to a pts% similar to last season, they are still in most every game and a -4 in goals scored so far...or roughly a -8 for a full season. They're looking at a decent 20+ jump in pts, and a massive 70+ jump in goal differential. The goal improvement just isn't going to translate that well to pts though due to just how terrible the team was last season.

Those results matter too. W/L doesn't tell the whole story. Young players need to show improvement, at least as far as playing within the system, fundamentals, making the right reads and plays. After all, Housley can't control whether guys like Mittelstadt, Thompson, and Pilut are truly capable of becoming effective top-six or top-four players. It's on them to become their best if they have it in them. Housley also should be making better in-game adjustments, but a lot of what he gets criticized for now is a result of having a bunch of poor options on the bench, or trying not to overload young players in role or ice time.

With dead weights like Pominville, Okposo, Sobotka, Scandella, Beaulieu, Hunwick, and even Bogosian still considering his cap hit, there is an awful lot of room for this roster to improve just to playoff contention level. Barring a straight drop over a cliff from now to April, I'd rather give Housley next season after at least 3-4 of those dead weights are replaced with young talent.

 

[Member 308457]

If you were building a building who would you hire: an architect who has successfully designed and completed numerous buildings or a guy who has a couple of years as an assistant to an architect and has never designed or oversaw construction of a building in his life? We keep going with option 2 and are shocked when the result is neverending failure.

Thank you.

 

[hizzoner]

To all you Housley haters-and I am still on the fence--Babcock could be available soon. The suits and band wagoners are getting real testy...

 

[is the answer jesus]

To all you Housley haters-and I am still on the fence--Babcock could be available soon. The suits and band wagoners are getting real testy...

He had his chance to come here. Instead he used us to drive his price up with the Leafs. f*** Babcock

 

[nickdawg95]

He had his chance to come here. Instead he used us to drive his price up with the Leafs. **** Babcock

knowing babcock he'd probably stick elle with eichel because of his hustle #HustleGang

 

[is the answer jesus]

In all honesty if Botterill gets that massive head of his out of his ass and fires Housley, Keefe would be the guy from the Leafs organization that I'd want. Him or if your nervous about hiring an inexperienced guy get Quenneville. I think it would be a huge shot in the arm for this team.

 

[Buffaloed]

At the end of the season maybe, but after 25 games? Not even remotely. At that point results only tell you what happened and nothing else. Statistical analysis does a much better job of telling you what is likely to happen in the future and that's pretty damn important when you're less than halfway through the season.

Results are all that matters when you have the results, whether it's after 25 games, or at the end of the season. The results are facts. Analytics have a place, but if a coach has a 10 game unbeaten streak I don't have any problem patting him on the back and saying good job. If he loses the next 10, I don't have any problem saying he's doing a lousy job. If Housley gets fired it will because of an unsatisfactory won-loss record. Those are results.

 

[Snippit]

At the end of the season maybe, but after 25 games? Not even remotely. At that point results only tell you what happened and nothing else. Statistical analysis does a much better job of telling you what is likely to happen in the future and that's pretty damn important when you're less than halfway through the season.

What have the numbers been like post streak?

It feels like Buffalo has been getting pretty unlucky of late. They really deserved wins against Tampa Bay/Vancouver. They didn't play great against Carolina but they scored several goals in their own net. They were fortunate to get 2 points against the Flames though.