Report: Oilers fire stats blogger Tyler Dellow?

[Shorthander]

Could be useful for working with the coach on effective deployment strategies, etc..

Maybe, but the rest of the coaches around the league can make these decisions without help. No need to hire a statistician to help a subpar coach do his job.

 

[Tekneek]

Making your young guys work hard and be fundamentally sound is excellent. Arbitrarily not using a method of quantifying how well they are doing under your coaching is idiotic, regardless of if your team is in 1st or 30th.

Maybe Mellow just wasn't adding any particular value. Anybody can go look at the analytics without having anybody on payroll. He wasn't making the team any better up to this point, presumably, so what were they paying him for? I expect this hiring was for Eakins and now he is gone.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Honest question, what information could the guy provide that isn't known to any hockey team?

 

[eyetest is useless]

Maybe if the oilers signed one of the 500 available nhl centers this offseason, or didn't play schultz all the time, or did any of the other things dellow always complained about...things might be better

 

[Tekneek]

Honest question, what information could the guy provide that isn't known to any hockey team?

Good question. I'm guessing not enough that actually amounts to wins in the standings, at least not for the Oilers.

 

[Dolemite]

I blame Spector for the Oilers woes.

 

[Tekneek]

Maybe if the oilers signed one of the 500 available nhl centers this offseason, or didn't play schultz all the time, or did any of the other things dellow always complained about...things might be better

If he had any meaningful say in the personnel decisions that were made up to the firing of Eakins, then he was wrong about them. The best moves have happened since that time.

 

[eyetest is useless]

If he had any meaningful say in the personnel decisions that were made up to the firing of Eakins, then he was wrong about them. The best moves have happened since that time.

He was hired in mid to late August when personell was basically decided upon, and going by the opinions he had in his blog... those weren't realised either (he hated schultz anand Ference and Nikitin and basically everyone but Petry ). He didn't seem to have much of a say so how can you blame him.

 

[Blues88]

Making your young guys work hard and be fundamentally sound is excellent. Arbitrarily not using a method of quantifying how well they are doing under your coaching is idiotic, regardless of if your team is in 1st or 30th.

100% agree. Utilize every resource regardless of your current situation.

If he had any meaningful say in the personnel decisions that were made up to the firing of Eakins, then he was wrong about them. The best moves have happened since that time.

What moves are you referring to specifically? I'm unaware of them doing anything of particular note save trading Perron and Arcobello.

 

[Voight]

Stats Guys haven't made their teams too much better.

Dellow - Oilers still suck and are a joke

Dubas (they hired another blogger, forget his name) - Leafs are only in a Wild Card spot and have struggled more than few times.

Mehta - Devils also suck (not as bad as the Oilers tho)

Eric Tulsky was hired by an anonymous team, never found out who.

 

[Sleepy]

I don't understand why he'd be working for the coach. A "stats guru" is best suited as an assistant to the GM to provide extra information when making personnel decisions.

Lineup decisions can also benefit from advanced stats. What to practice can benefit. Matchup decisions can benefit.

I am not saying Eakins was always right, but if I was coach of the Oilers and wanted to win I probably wouldn't want to rely on Lowe or MacT's "statistics" for help.

 

[Tekneek]

I forgot when he was hired.

I'll take that back. At best, this was mutual consent. At worst, he was shown the door when Dallas Eakins was canned because he was hired at the request of Eakins.

I'll just say that, when the whole world knows you're losing because your fundamentals are poor and the team isn't working for a full 60 minutes, you don't need somebody crunching advanced stats to tell you what the problem or the solution is.

Advanced stats are interesting, but I don't know if they tell the story some people think they do. More so than a sport like Baseball, these stats still have more to do with your 5-man units than the individual.

 

[Never]

So much for Mr. Advanced Stats. Maybe he can complain about how the NHL has it in for the Oilers again.

 

[AINEC*]

Management probably thinks it's his fault the stats were ****.

 

[HarrySPlinkett]

If you're visually assessing the performance and perception of work ethic, I doubt you are particularly concerned with statistics. If you're not pouring over statistical data, why pay somebody to work on it? I am saying that the Oilers are not good enough for it to matter. They will get more out of making those guys bust their ass for 60 minutes than the minutiae of stats at this point.

This is such a weird comment... Regardless of your stance on advance stats, 'If you're not poring over the data, why pay someone to work on it?'. What? If something NEEDS to be done, like exploring the validity of new statistics, you should probably pay someone to deal with it. Even if 'you aren't poring over the data'.

The coach doesn't need to to worry about Fenwick in the middle of the game. But the rest of the front office might like more indicators on player performance than +/-, points, and the Eye Test.

 

[Seedling]

The perception is the Dellow was an Eakins hire, or requested by Eakins, and it was accommodated. Now that Eakins is gone, so is Dellow. Coaching for Corsi didn't work. Sorry to break it to Dellow fans.

He can go back to his basement and criticize us from there....when his contract is up.

 

[tempest2i]

So... I guess the lady that lives with Tyler isn't a good enough source to dispute that he's been fired?

Rightieo then.

 

[Seedling]

Stats Guys haven't made their teams too much better.

Dellow - Oilers still suck and are a joke

Dubas (they hired another blogger, forget his name) - Leafs are only in a Wild Card spot and have struggled more than few times.

Mehta - Devils also suck (not as bad as the Oilers tho)

Eric Tulsky was hired by an anonymous team, never found out who.

None of this should be shocking, especially on bad teams and so early into a season. Having said that, I'll trust a pro-scout 9 times out of 10 for opinions on a player.

I think the stats are good in that they may lead you to where you should be looking, in person you know, at how to improve your team or observe if the stats are really showing something or not. Maybe it lets you coach a guy to do a few things differently.

They have a lot of value but they are simply another tool in the toolbox. Who is using the tools and how they use them is up for debate.

 

[Aaaaaaaaaaaaa]

It reminds me so much of the great baseball story, "Moneyball", except for the winning and success and stuff.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Honest question, what information could the guy provide that isn't known to any hockey team?

You'd be surprised what you can find if you look for it.

However, the information is useless if management won't use it.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

None of this should be shocking, especially on bad teams and so early into a season. Having said that, I'll trust a pro-scout 9 times out of 10 for opinions on a player.

Of course, this isn't an "either/or" question. The correct answer is both scouts and analytics.

 

[GKJ]

Still rebuilding the rebuild

 

[Seedling]

Of course, this isn't an "either/or" question. The correct answer is both scouts and analytics.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I said in my post just after. The stats or analytics point you in a direction to go and investigate IMHO. Whether or not a team chooses to do that is really how useful the analytics are. I'd suggest the Oilers are terrible at scouting but stubborn in their attitudes and Dellow has a reputation for being less than diplomatic.

I never saw how it would work to be honest (Dellow in Edmonton).

All the same, good stats and analytics should improve the efficiency of your scouting to a degree and also some of your coaching but it's just another tool in the NHL arms race these days. I think if you're not using them, you are not being wise, but if you are, hire a guy that you know you can believe in for a long time. The Oilers didn't do that. I'm not shedding any tears that Dellow is gone, but the idea of having an analytics guy I like.

 

[Hivemind]

I don't understand why he'd be working for the coach. A "stats guru" is best suited as an assistant to the GM to provide extra information when making personnel decisions.

There's a lot more than analytics can provide than roster decisions. There's a ton of information about deployment, faceoffs, coaching strategies, line combinations, etc.

Stats Guys haven't made their teams too much better.

Dellow - Oilers still suck and are a joke

Dubas (they hired another blogger, forget his name) - Leafs are only in a Wild Card spot and have struggled more than few times.

Mehta - Devils also suck (not as bad as the Oilers tho)

Eric Tulsky was hired by an anonymous team, never found out who.

Chicago has long been a proponent of advanced stats in hockey, seems to work out pretty well for them. These guys were all just hired this off-season, mostly for cruddy teams. Can't expect results overnight.

Also, Tulsky hasn't been hired full time by any NHL team. He just consults part-time with a team (or teams). His main gig is in nanoscience.
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/eric-tulsky/9/268/740

In terms of other high profile hockey analytics bloggers being hired, you missed Vic Ferrari being hired by the Capitals.

 

[Seedling]

I think an analytics guru is simply an extension of your scouting department. To expect it to pay off in half a season is not realistic. Scouts go years before knowing (in many cases) if their picks turned out to be beneficial. Getting a good analytics person likely has the same timeline but is more mercurial in that they would be a tertiary extension to scouting.