GDT: Your New Jersey Devils (1-0-1, 3 Pts) vs. Florida Panthers (0-2-0, 0 Pts), 7 PM, MSGSN

[Guadana]

Solid game by Alex.

I am NOT calling him "Holtzy" just like I'm not calling Bratt...."Bratter".

So cringe.

Vaneceky.
Siegenthalery.
Marinoayee.

 

[Billdo]

They weren’t terrible. They didn’t tell me much about the cars though .

Very true. I liked the dopey challenges.

 

[Rhodes 81]

I can't believe people are already complaining about Ruff.

Fans, by their nature of being fanatics, can't just accept that good players make mistakes and variance happens. Every loss needs to be someone's fault and on a team like this where there is supposed to be a talent advantage, that means it's got to be the coach's fault, right? It's just the nature of these things.

There are very few coaches that meaningfully impact the number of games their teams win or lose throughout the year. It is mostly up to the roster. Sometimes even a good roster gets unlucky or just doesn't play very well and that's why nobody wins 70 games.

the Swarm is so difficult because it relies on working quickly. It's like a blitz in football. If you don't get to the QB right away some receiver is more open than he should be. If the second player in the swarm gets bogged down which player disengages first and how long does he give it to work? It requires too much situational awareness in my view. I recall the worst swarm moment for me was against the Calgary power play a couple of seasons ago where all but maybe one of the Devil penalty killers were against the boards and the lone Calgary player managed to shove the puck out of the scrum to a wide open Flames player who had no pressure to just leisurely stroll to the goal to score. The Devils looked like six year olds playing soccer. Something which relies more on mobility and less on timing and decisions would make more sense to me. But to be fair, the players like Lindy and like playing for him so you hope he can work it out.

It's tough to argue too much against a system that limited the opponent's opportunities as well as this one did last year. But you're correct that it's exactly like a blitz in that when it fails, it looks really bad.

Thank you
Do you know which teams are relying heavily on this type of data?
I figure the younger GMs and coaches over the old guard?

All teams have analytics departments these days. If you search for Shayna goldman, she maintains a list for the athletic of who works in each analytics department and tweets it out from time to time. It's reasonable to assume that the teams with the most people working for them probably have the highest investment in analytics, but these are also applied in different ways. Analytics can support decision making on basically any facet of the organization, including in-game playing time decisions, line combos, roles for certain players, scouting and self-analysis, where to prioritize spending your salary cap, etc.

Analytics departments contribute to all of these things, and if you consider a sport like football where there is more structure and decisions by coaches have more impact on the game, many of them now have analytics teams that tell a coach what decisions they should make based on the situation as the game is happening.

 

[My3Sons]

Fans, by their nature of being fanatics, can't just accept that good players make mistakes and variance happens. Every loss needs to be someone's fault and on a team like this where there is supposed to be a talent advantage, that means it's got to be the coach's fault, right? It's just the nature of these things.

There are very few coaches that meaningfully impact the number of games their teams win or lose throughout the year. It is mostly up to the roster. Sometimes even a good roster gets unlucky or just doesn't play very well and that's why nobody wins 70 games.

It's tough to argue too much against a system that limited the opponent's opportunities as well as this one did last year. But you're correct that it's exactly like a blitz in that when it fails, it looks really bad.

All teams have analytics departments these days. If you search for Shayna goldman, she maintains a list for the athletic of who works in each analytics department and tweets it out from time to time. It's reasonable to assume that the teams with the most people working for them probably have the highest investment in analytics, but these are also applied in different ways. Analytics can support decision making on basically any facet of the organization, including in-game playing time decisions, line combos, roles for certain players, scouting and self-analysis, where to prioritize spending your salary cap, etc.

Analytics departments contribute to all of these things, and if you consider a sport like football where there is more structure and decisions by coaches have more impact on the game, many of them now have analytics teams that tell a coach what decisions they should make based on the situation as the game is happening.

I have had a bit of time after last game and now have two thoughts about the swarm

1- it requires precision and cohesion. Both require practice and experience so it’s not surprising the system looks bad initially and slows down players trying to execute it.

2-NFL teams don’t blitz as plan A. Other NHL teams can suppress shots and chances using a more conventional system so it’s not a superior system even if it can work,