Confirmed with Link: The worst day in Sharks history (DeMelo re-signed: 2yr/$900k per)

[TomasHertlsRooster]

My step mom has Alzheimer's and my step sister Googles stuff and uses it to argue with the specialists treating her mother. I think of that most everytime I read the fancy stats-based arguments on this site.

That isn't to say that the casual fan may not occasionally have inights that hockey professionals don't, but let's get real.

This post is pretty terrible. I’m normally one to argue with pretty much anybody about pretty much anything but this doesn’t even deserve a response.

 

[Crazy Joe Divola]

DeBoer chose a known quantity while heading towards and fighting for a PO spot. You don't play a player based on potential in that case. I expect head to get his chance again this year. He's only played 29 games in the NHL (+1 the year before excluded, since it's irrelevant), so I completely understand why DeBoer didn't put his eggs in the Head basket.

I expect Heed to get his chance again this year and hopefully he shines enough to bump DeMelo down to 7.

 

[Beethovens 10th]

Haha, my photoshop is not up to snuff but you get the gist of it.

 

[Mattb124]

Yep. That looks like a real fair comparison.

You folks don't think that, in most cases, people who have played hockey, been coached and have coached others for the majority of their lives don't have a deeper understanding of systems, player evaluation, and the game in general than casual fans who follow the game on TV and the internet? That may ruffle some feathers or cause cognitive dissonance for some, but the notion is worthy of consideration.

If anyone is bored, Google "Dunning-Kruger Effect".

 

[one2gamble]

You folks don't think that, in most cases, people who have played hockey, been coached and have coached others for the majority of their lives don't have a deeper understand of systems, player evaluation, and the game in general than casual fans who follow the game on TV and the internet? That may ruffle some feathers or cause cognitive dissonance for some, but the notion is worthy of consideration.

DW literally had to waive someone to get him off the ice.....

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

You folks don't think that, in most cases, people who have played hockey, been coached and have coached others for the majority of their lives don't have a deeper understanding of systems, player evaluation, and the game in general than casual fans who follow the game on TV and the internet? That may ruffle some feathers or cause cognitive dissonance for some, but the notion is worthy of consideration.

If anyone is bored, Google "Dunning-Kruger Effect".

This is another terrible argument.

Nobody every said that they know more than coaches. But coaches make mistakes. Look at the firings every year in professional sports. Just because they know more about sports does not mean they are infallible or cannot have biases.

 

[do0glas]

Lets not forget that heed can actually put the puck in the net, Boost team goals for when hes on the ice, and run a PP unit.

If tim heed didnt exist, demelo probably would receive more love. When it was demelo vs polak, the choice was clear. Yet deboer stuck with polak when we needed any possible advantage we could add. Polak got creamed in the finals.

Now we have demelo vs heed. Some say the choice isnt that clear. Lets look at some facts.

1. Demelo doesnt get put in tough minute situations. All fine for a third pairing guy. Yet he had 100+less minutes than ryan in one more game.

2. Hes so much better defensively than heed that he played 17 min on the pk in 63 games.

3. He was on pace for 26 points and 0 goals. Heed was on pace for 30 points and 8 goals.

I won't even bring advanced stats into this. But in terms of zone start arguments. You either have to shelter a guy or you put him in the ozone cuz he can do damage. Demelo will never be the latter, heed already is.

The fact that DW chose not to qualify the guy means he is expendable, whether we signed him or not.

I truly hope they give heed a real shot this season. Demelo is probably the most average at everything nhl player ive seen, which when its all said and done isnt horrible for his pay and position in the lineup. But for once we have options.

 

[WTFetus]

You folks don't think that, in most cases, people who have played hockey, been coached and have coached others for the majority of their lives don't have a deeper understanding of systems, player evaluation, and the game in general than casual fans who follow the game on TV and the internet? That may ruffle some feathers or cause cognitive dissonance for some, but the notion is worthy of consideration.

If anyone is bored, Google "Dunning-Kruger Effect".

Appeal the authority is the worst and weakest argument. It's pretty much admitting that you have no real counter.

That analogy was just so embarrassing too that I almost didn't want to respond to it. But let's talk about your step-mom's Alzheimers. In my training, I liked when patient's used Dr. Google because that usually meant that they actually cared. More importantly, it gave me the chance to teach them why they were wrong. I didn't just tell them "You didn't go to med school, so you're wrong", which is exactly what you're doing with the coaches. One, that would make me look like a douche and an idiot. Two, the family member would stay ignorant.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Tim Heed - Full Stats, Line Combos and Game Logs

DATE	TEAM	OPP	G	A	P	+/-	PIM	S	PPG	PPP	HITS	BLKS	FOW	FO%	PPTOI	%PP	TOI/G	%TOI
Feb 25	S.J	@MIN	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	4	0		00:00	0.0	06:41	10.3
Feb 15	S.J	VAN	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0		01:22	22.8	09:18	15.5
Jan 13	S.J	ARI	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	1	0		00:00	0.0	17:53	28.5
Jan 7	S.J	@WPG	0	0	0	-1	0	3	0	0	0	3	0		01:41	27.1	17:27	29.1
Jan 5	S.J	@OTT	0	1	1	1	0	1	0	1	0	1	0		01:16	30.6	11:51	19.7

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Are you pretending like that decision wasn't already made? Those games are five games over two full months in spots where I'm pretty sure they had to play him due to injuries to other defensemen and they showed, especially in the last two games, that they only had him in there because they had no real alternative. Yeah, it's still an opportunity but that kind of sporadic usage with very little leash is hard to find a rhythm.

 

[The Nemesis]

You folks don't think that, in most cases, people who have played hockey, been coached and have coached others for the majority of their lives don't have a deeper understanding of systems, player evaluation, and the game in general than casual fans who follow the game on TV and the internet? That may ruffle some feathers or cause cognitive dissonance for some, but the notion is worthy of consideration.

If anyone is bored, Google "Dunning-Kruger Effect".

Well, I guess we had better just close up shop on these boards. It's not worth discussing anything given that we can't/shouldn't have any viewpoints that contradict coaching/management. There are no bad decisions, only the fans that fail to understand them.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Well, I guess we had better just close up shop on these boards. It's not worth discussing anything given that we can't/shouldn't have any viewpoints that contradict coaching/management. There are no bad decisions, only the fans that fail to understand them.

Now you're getting it.

 

[The Nemesis]

Also, for what it's worth, that's a terrible application of the Dunning-Kruger effect. That application that you're trying to invoke here posits that people overestimate their own ability, whereas most discussion around hockey decision making is less about people presuming they're far smarter than they believe and more about everyone figuring that hockey professionals are not nearly as intelligent as they're given credit for (Which is more or less accurate, if not quite as pronounced as the anti-establishment side tends to make it out to be)

 

[Kcoyote3]

Nick Saban, probably the greatest college football coach ever, almost lost the last national championship game because he refused to play the better QB, despite EVERYONE knowing he was better. That includes pundits, media, fans, other coaches, his own assistants, players, everyone.

When he finally did play the other guy, Alabama won.

The point is, even the greatest coaches on Earth make mistakes.

 

[LA Shark]

My step mom has Alzheimer's and my step sister Googles stuff and uses it to argue with the specialists treating her mother. I think of that most everytime I read the fancy stats-based arguments on this site.

That isn't to say that the casual fan may not occasionally have inights that hockey professionals don't, but let's get real.

And a lot of people here wanted to draft Barzal while the powers that be passed on him and drafted Meier....huh....how'd that turn out? What's the saying? Even a blind squirrel with Alzheimer's finds a nut?

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

It’s impossible for every coach and GM to do everything perfect because of the very very simple fact that 1 team wins the Stanley Cup every year, and 30 teams did at least one thing wrong.

The Sharks lost in the 2nd round to an expansion team. They obviously did something wrong.

 

[The Nemesis]

And a lot of people here wanted to draft Barzal while the powers that be passed on him and drafted Meier....huh....how'd that turn out? What's the saying? Even a blind squirrel with Alzheimer's finds a nut?

This one is a little different because multiple teams passed on Barzal from the point in the draft where his selection became a viable possibility until the point at which he was actually selected. From this we can either presume that like a half-dozen teams teams all made exactly the same mistake in misidentifying Barzal's value/flaws/riskiness, or we can conclude that the evidence of seeing multiple teams that surely have different evaluation processes all come to a similar conclusion of selecting someone else over him has meaning, and that there was more to the decision than simply having 5-6 teams all simultaneously be dumber than the fandom.

Also if we're going to hold up that management and coaches make some dumb, sub-optimal decisions, it's worth noting that the same fans who hold up the failure to select Barzal as some sort of "obvious" error are also the ones who disliked the selections of (among others) Hertl, Couture, Coyle, and Vlasic (preferring players like Teravainen and Etem) and lauded the choice of Petrecki.

While I do believe that arguing the near-infallibility of coaching/management on the basis of superior experience is a flawed argument, so is the presumption that this fandom has collectively shown itself to make broadly better decisions at every or nearly every turn. The fact is that while management is not as smart as they get credit for by some, the fanbase is just as susceptible to that kind of overconfidence.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

It’s impossible for every coach and GM to do everything perfect because of the very very simple fact that 1 team wins the Stanley Cup every year, and 30 teams did at least one thing wrong.

The Sharks lost in the 2nd round to an expansion team. They obviously did something wrong.

And as of yet have not done anything to add to their chances of going further next season.

 

[WTFetus]

While the Petrecki thing is sad, I'm curious what the boards record is after the popularity surge of using advanced statistics. I mean, seems like the popular vote was Ratanen/Barzal over Meier. Fabbri, Pastrnak instead trading down or Ho-Sang. Yamamoto instead of Norris (tbd). A lot of players over Mueller. Even with the discord of Hertl (though some did praise the pick) it's not like Teravainen is terrible either.

 

[LA Shark]

This one is a little different because multiple teams passed on Barzal from the point in the draft where his selection became a viable possibility until the point at which he was actually selected. From this we can either presume that like a half-dozen teams teams all made exactly the same mistake in misidentifying Barzal's value/flaws/riskiness, or we can conclude that the evidence of seeing multiple teams that surely have different evaluation processes all come to a similar conclusion of selecting someone else over him has meaning, and that there was more to the decision than simply having 5-6 teams all simultaneously be dumber than the fandom.

Also if we're going to hold up that management and coaches make some dumb, sub-optimal decisions, it's worth noting that the same fans who hold up the failure to select Barzal as some sort of "obvious" error are also the ones who disliked the selections of (among others) Hertl, Couture, Coyle, and Vlasic (preferring players like Teravainen and Etem) and lauded the choice of Petrecki.

While I do believe that arguing the near-infallibility of coaching/management on the basis of superior experience is a flawed argument, so is the presumption that this fandom has collectively shown itself to make broadly better decisions at every or nearly every turn. The fact is that while management is not as smart as they get credit for by some, the fanbase is just as susceptible to that kind of overconfidence.

No doubt. The people running the Sharks know more about hockey than I ever will. And I dont pretend to personally know even 10% as much about draft eligible prospects as the people making decisions for the Sharks. I know I wanted Merkley this year, simply cause he had the highest upside. I didnt point out the Barzal situation to prove that we are smarter than managment at all. Just to point out that it's possible for the professionals to be wrong.

And yes I know many other organizations passed on Barzal as well(including Boston 3 times...ouch,) I use that as a point when I am regularly defending the Meier pick. Also that most people had Meier as a higher rated prospect entering the draft. Not bashing the pick at all, just showing that managment is not infallible.

 

[TomasHertlsRooster]

No doubt. The people running the Sharks know more about hockey than I ever will. And I dont pretend to personally know even 10% as much about draft eligible prospects as the people making decisions for the Sharks. I know I wanted Merkley this year, simply cause he had the highest upside. I didnt point out the Barzal situation to prove that we are smarter than managment at all. Just to point out that it's possible for the professionals to be wrong.

And yes I know many other organizations passed on Barzal as well(including Boston 3 times...ouch,) I use that as a point when I am regularly defending the Meier pick. Also that most people had Meier as a higher rated prospect entering the draft. Not bashing the pick at all, just showing that managment is not infallible.

This board and specifically Juxtaposer have been absolutely crushing every single draft selection since around 2013 and they have significantly out-performed San Jose’s scouts. If Juxtaposer had been making every single pick for the Sharks since 2013, they would be the best team in the NHL right now. That’s absolutely disgusting and hilarious but it is the truth. The fact that this is true just goes to show you that blind appeals to authority are and always will be a major L.

 

[The Nemesis]

No doubt. The people running the Sharks know more about hockey than I ever will. And I dont pretend to personally know even 10% as much about draft eligible prospects as the people making decisions for the Sharks. I know I wanted Merkley this year, simply cause he had the highest upside. I didnt point out the Barzal situation to prove that we are smarter than managment at all. Just to point out that it's possible for the professionals to be wrong.

And yes I know many other organizations passed on Barzal as well(including Boston 3 times...ouch,) I use that as a point when I am regularly defending the Meier pick. Also that most people had Meier as a higher rated prospect entering the draft. Not bashing the pick at all, just showing that managment is not infallible.

All fair and valid. I just felt it necessary/important to differentiate between "reasonable" fallibility (teams making bad decisions because the system for decision making is broken or distorted or incomplete, or where the issue exists in the realm of subjectivity where a bad decision may have turned out to be ultimately incorrect, but that doesn't necessarily make it "wrong" at the time of deciding) and incompetent fallibility (teams making bad decisions because they are using valid information incorrectly, or because their decision process itself is built upon flawed or faulty logic)

However, I would not argue that most people had Meier as the higher rated prospect entering the draft. Instead I would argue that there was not unanimity in placing Barzal ahead of Meier, and that in many cases there was no clear-cut winner in the pre-draft rankings and instead the players were all slotted reasonably close together to the point that it can excuse differentiation in selection order between them largely on the basis of personal preference and the minutiae of the person's evaluation model (FWIW, Final CSB rankings had Meier ahead of Barzal, Bob McKenzie had him within 3 spots of Barzal, and that both publications along with ISS had Lawson ****ing Crouse ahead of both of them (sometimes as much as 5 spots ahead of the next closest player to him). This level of divided opinion does not support the supposition that it was blatantly, flagrantly obvious that Barzal was the far superior prospect to Meier. Instead it seems to paint that he was ahead by some standards, not ahead by others, and that it likely came down to which player more closely aligned with what the team at a given pick was looking for. It can be argued that Boston screwed up by not using one of their 3 picks on Barzal even if they viewed him as incredibly risky (unless they viewed him as more radioactive than Merkely was on draft night '18). It's somewhat more tenuous to say that the Sharks, Avs, Stars, and Panthers all screwed up just as badly for choosing not to gamble their one first rounder on someone that they appeared to have serious reservations about.

For the others that might say that this is just as much of an appeal to authority as suggesting that management and coaches are infallible because they're management and coaches, the key difference is that the appeal to authority defence pre-supposes that the decision maker is right, where I'm simply claiming that they are not wrong by necessity. It's kind of like hte difference between declaring someone 'innocent' vs declaring them 'not guilty.' The former says they definitely didn't do it, the latter simply says we can't prove that they did. I contend that we're judging these actions with imperfect information and that while it's reckless to presume that they are faultless for ultimately poor decisions, it's just as reckless to presume that they must be at fault for those decisions. We have to accept that sometimes the best we can do from our perch is say that while we may lean one way or the other, sometimes it's for the best that we acknowledge that we lack the perspective for absolute judgement.

Problem is, of course, that the internet traffics in absolutes more than your average Sith Lord. It's standard operating procedure to draw a line in the sand, stand your ground, and not flinch in the face of your opposition instead of considering the path of entertaining a thought without accepting it.

 

[The Nemesis]

Additional follow-up disclaimer that while I'm just as guilty as everyone else of feeding the unending lotus-eater machine hellscape that is the Barzal/Meier debate, this thread is and always has been about DeMelo re-signing.

If we can wrap up this tangent and get back to the matter at hand with minimal bloodshed, it'd really be appreciated.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

All fair and valid. I just felt it necessary/important to differentiate between "reasonable" fallibility (teams making bad decisions because the system for decision making is broken or distorted or incomplete, or where the issue exists in the realm of subjectivity where a bad decision may have turned out to be ultimately incorrect, but that doesn't necessarily make it "wrong" at the time of deciding) and incompetent fallibility (teams making bad decisions because they are using valid information incorrectly, or because their decision process itself is built upon flawed or faulty logic)

However, I would not argue that most people had Meier as the higher rated prospect entering the draft. Instead I would argue that there was not unanimity in placing Barzal ahead of Meier, and that in many cases there was no clear-cut winner in the pre-draft rankings and instead the players were all slotted reasonably close together to the point that it can excuse differentiation in selection order between them largely on the basis of personal preference and the minutiae of the person's evaluation model (FWIW, Final CSB rankings had Meier ahead of Barzal, Bob McKenzie had him within 3 spots of Barzal, and that both publications along with ISS had Lawson ****ing Crouse ahead of both of them (sometimes as much as 5 spots ahead of the next closest player to him). This level of divided opinion does not support the supposition that it was blatantly, flagrantly obvious that Barzal was the far superior prospect to Meier. Instead it seems to paint that he was ahead by some standards, not ahead by others, and that it likely came down to which player more closely aligned with what the team at a given pick was looking for. It can be argued that Boston screwed up by not using one of their 3 picks on Barzal even if they viewed him as incredibly risky (unless they viewed him as more radioactive than Merkely was on draft night '18). It's somewhat more tenuous to say that the Sharks, Avs, Stars, and Panthers all screwed up just as badly for choosing not to gamble their one first rounder on someone that they appeared to have serious reservations about.

For the others that might say that this is just as much of an appeal to authority as suggesting that management and coaches are infallible because they're management and coaches, the key difference is that the appeal to authority defence pre-supposes that the decision maker is right, where I'm simply claiming that they are not wrong by necessity. It's kind of like hte difference between declaring someone 'innocent' vs declaring them 'not guilty.' The former says they definitely didn't do it, the latter simply says we can't prove that they did. I contend that we're judging these actions with imperfect information and that while it's reckless to presume that they are faultless for ultimately poor decisions, it's just as reckless to presume that they must be at fault for those decisions. We have to accept that sometimes the best we can do from our perch is say that while we may lean one way or the other, sometimes it's for the best that we acknowledge that we lack the perspective for absolute judgement.

Problem is, of course, that the internet traffics in absolutes more than your average Sith Lord. It's standard operating procedure to draw a line in the sand, stand your ground, and not flinch in the face of your opposition instead of considering the path of entertaining a thought without accepting it.

 

[The Nemesis]

 

[KirbyDots]

Additional follow-up disclaimer that while I'm just as guilty as everyone else of feeding the unending lotus-eater machine hellscape that is the Barzal/Meier debate, this thread is and always has been about DeMelo re-signing.

If we can wrap up this tangent and get back to the matter at hand with minimal bloodshed, it'd really be appreciated.

I'll try to steer this ship of hockey damned back toward the Isle of the Saint of Pylons.

Nem, when it first came out that we weren't giving DeMelo a qualifying offer the first thought that crossed my mind was a cleansing salve of relief that there would be no more laughing DeBoer memes to haunt my dreams. Now there's not a hope in Hades.