2024-25 Roster Thread #1: The Beginninging

[Beef Invictus]

I don't know why it's so hard for people to accept that Torts/Briere/Jones are running the show, and not the shadow cabal of Holmgren/Clarke.

Doesn't mean it'll work out, but does mean what the FO did a decade ago is irrelevant.

Nor is there anything that suggests continuity, unless you want to suggest that when Torts points to Carolina as a template, that Brind'Amour is a disciple of Clarke?

Tort's stress on fundamentals etc. sounds exactly like what Cooper and Brind'Amour say all the time.
At least when Sullivan says it, you can point to Tort's influence.

Playing fast, hard, fundamentally sound hockey is a mantra of most successful HCs.
Most successful organizations tend to marinate prospects in the AHL instead of rushing them.
Clearing the porch in the D-zone and crashing the net in the O-zone is a key to success for most teams.
Ice hockey ain't NFL football, it's far more about execution than strategy.

Torts/Briere/Jones between them have far more experience with different HCs/GMs/schemes than Holmgren/Clarke ever did. Doubtful they look to the Flyers' past for inspiration.

Briere got his start because of Holmgren. You simultaneously insist the Shadow Cabal is the root of all the team's ills while pretending they have nothing to do with current management, despite grooming and hiring all current management. The narrative you're trying to maintain is self-defeating.

 

[deadhead]

Let's just say every bit of this is true. This kind of narrow focus in evaluations is the thing I want least in a front office. I don't understand how "they took him because he was a Center" is supposed to be a good thing. Every justification you come up with sounds like undeniably bad process to me. Not even the stuff where I disagree but at least understand. It's just shit.

It's exactly how you draft.

You set up tiers of players. Within a tier, differences should be smaller than "noise."
That is, too small to have confidence they're reliable enough to choose between players.

Within a tier, tiebreakers include organizational holes. If you have a major hole it makes sense to use that as a tie breaker rather than trade to fill it from a position of negotiating weakness. Later in the draft this is less important b/c ETA is more like 4-5 years, but top picks 1-2 years.

In this case, both defense and center were organizational weakness, so that wouldn't have been the tiebreaker unless center was considered a harder position to fill (but that should go into the original valuation, much the way QBs are valued more than RBs).

The next tiebreaker would be organizational fit. In that case, if Buium is redundant, i.e. better but similar to what you have, while Jett is the prototype center that you lack, then Jett wins the tie. Not because Buium is "small." but because the marginal improvement is less than that provided by Jett. Remember, if they're in the same tier the raw talent added is equivalent.

Note also at the time of the draft Buium was considered the NHL ready player, one more year in college then start in the NHL. Jett was considered more of a project. If they wanted a more NHL ready center, they'd have gone with Helenius.

Now if you want to argue they should have been in different tiers, that's an evaluation issue, not a draft strategy issue.

 

[Beef Invictus]

It's exactly how you draft.

You set up tiers of players. Within a tier, differences should be smaller than "noise."
That is, too small to have confidence they're reliable enough to choose between players.

Within a tier, tiebreakers include organizational holes. If you have a major hole it makes sense to use that as a tie breaker rather than trade to fill it from a position of negotiating weakness. Later in the draft this is less important b/c ETA is more like 4-5 years, but top picks 1-2 years.

In this case, both defense and center were organizational weakness, so that wouldn't have been the tiebreaker unless center was considered a harder position to fill (but that should go into the original valuation, much the way QBs are valued more than RBs).

The next tiebreaker would be organizational fit. In that case, if Buium is redundant, i.e. better but similar to what you have, while Jett is the prototype center that you lack, then Jett wins the tie. Not because Buium is "small." but because the marginal improvement is less than that provided by Jett. Remember, if they're in the same tier the raw talent added is equivalent.

Note also at the time of the draft Buium was considered the NHL ready player, one more year in college then start in the NHL. Jett was considered more of a project. If they wanted a more NHL ready center, they'd have gone with Helenius.

Now if you want to argue they should have been in different tiers, that's an evaluation issue, not a draft strategy issue.

Drafting for need (especially immediate need) and setting up tiers based on that is one of the worst ways you can draft. It is not "Exactly how you draft." It's exactly how you keep your team bad forever, though.

 

[ellja3]

Maybe Clarke et al are not running the show on daily basis, but then the only other explanation is that they hire yes men. The ''handwriting'' of this team hasn't changed in a decade, despite change of head coaches and GMs. It's like listening to an alcoholic that says he/she won't drink tomorrow anymore. You nod in hope that tomorrow will be different, but then it's the same old shit, because fundamentally nothing has changed.

 

[kudymen]

It's exactly how you draft.

You set up tiers of players. Within a tier, differences should be smaller than "noise."
That is, too small to have confidence they're reliable enough to choose between players.

Within a tier, tiebreakers include organizational holes. If you have a major hole it makes sense to use that as a tie breaker rather than trade to fill it from a position of negotiating weakness. Later in the draft this is less important b/c ETA is more like 4-5 years, but top picks 1-2 years.

In this case, both defense and center were organizational weakness, so that wouldn't have been the tiebreaker unless center was considered a harder position to fill (but that should go into the original valuation, much the way QBs are valued more than RBs).

The next tiebreaker would be organizational fit. In that case, if Buium is redundant, i.e. better but similar to what you have, while Jett is the prototype center that you lack, then Jett wins the tie. Not because Buium is "small." but because the marginal improvement is less than that provided by Jett. Remember, if they're in the same tier the raw talent added is equivalent.

Note also at the time of the draft Buium was considered the NHL ready player, one more year in college then start in the NHL. Jett was considered more of a project. If they wanted a more NHL ready center, they'd have gone with Helenius.

Now if you want to argue they should have been in different tiers, that's an evaluation issue, not a draft strategy issue.

If you need to type a whole novel to argue in a relatively simple question (drafting a player ahead of another), chances are you are grasping

 

[Magua]

It's also an assessment that Buium brings nothing unique to the table, that is, he's better than the smaller D-men they had, and would be a good player, but not special. If they thought he was 1D material his size wouldn't have mattered.

If they thought Buium was better than what they had — and it was strictly a talent evaluation, not the size+fit (6’ 200lbs!) reason — then why even bring up Drysdale, Andrae, and York? The Flyers could have Quinn, Makar, and Fox and it would have no bearing on BPA. Briere brought them up because it was a major factor and a window into their bad methodology. Do we even know that they didn’t prefer Drysdale to Buium? The easier argument is they did.

Your whole fiction still relies on one key assumption: the Flyers are right on Buium. It’s why you need to bring up that he’s regressing because he’s leading college hockey in defensive scoring, while ominously not being at 2 points/game. Do you think you’re not transparent? In a future where Luchanko is a 40-50 point solid middle 6 center and Buium is a star, will your rationalization be that the Flyers are bad at evaluating? Doubtful. Even if Luchanko and Buium are the same tier, the methodologies they use will cost them some other way.

 

[deadhead]

If you need to type a whole novel to argue in a relatively simple question (drafting a player ahead of another), chances are you are grasping

I haven't written a novel yet, but I'm considering it.
It's anything but a simple question, it's a complicated decision theory problem.

Decision theory - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The starting point is player evaluation.
You use tiers b/c there is too much "noise," i.e. imperfect comparisons, to simply rank players in order.

Tiers separate players who are clearly superior (higher tier), and which players are close enough that ranking them is a purely subjective exercise (there is a methodology based on pairwise comparisons that can do so created by Tom Saaty, whom I had as a professor in graduate school, but a bit sophisticated for hockey organizations).

Thomas L. Saaty - Wikipedia

Once you organize players in tiers, the rest is optimization under constraints.

 

[kudymen]

Nah.


And after all the years of studies I did in multiple countries, your high horse attempts to lecture (with randomly picked names and personalities) are boring and annoying rather than helping.

 

[deadhead]

If they thought Buium was better than what they had — and it was strictly a talent evaluation, not the size+fit (6’ 200lbs!) reason — then why even bring up Drysdale, Andrae, and York? The Flyers could have Quinn, Makar, and Fox and it would have no bearing on BPA. Briere brought them up because it was a major factor and a window into their bad methodology. Why bring them up?

Your whole fiction still relies on one key assumption: the Flyers are right on Buium. It’s why you need to bring up that he’s regressing because he’s leading college hockey in defensive scoring, while ominously not being at 2 points/game. Do you think you’re not transparent? In a future where Luchanko is a 40-50 point solid middle 6 center and Buium is a star, will your rationalization be that the Flyers are bad at evaluating? Doubtful. Even if Luchanko and Buium are the same tier, the methodologies they use will cost them some other way.

Wrong. If they're in the same tier, you have to have a methodology for tie breaking.
And that should be based on the increase in marginal expected value they bring to the organization.

Arguing that Buium should be in a higher tier is a different matter. That's evaluation.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

It's exactly how you draft.

You set up tiers of players. Within a tier, differences should be smaller than "noise."
That is, too small to have confidence they're reliable enough to choose between players.

Within a tier, tiebreakers include organizational holes. If you have a major hole it makes sense to use that as a tie breaker rather than trade to fill it from a position of negotiating weakness. Later in the draft this is less important b/c ETA is more like 4-5 years, but top picks 1-2 years.

In this case, both defense and center were organizational weakness, so that wouldn't have been the tiebreaker unless center was considered a harder position to fill (but that should go into the original valuation, much the way QBs are valued more than RBs).

The next tiebreaker would be organizational fit. In that case, if Buium is redundant, i.e. better but similar to what you have, while Jett is the prototype center that you lack, then Jett wins the tie. Not because Buium is "small." but because the marginal improvement is less than that provided by Jett. Remember, if they're in the same tier the raw talent added is equivalent.

Note also at the time of the draft Buium was considered the NHL ready player, one more year in college then start in the NHL. Jett was considered more of a project. If they wanted a more NHL ready center, they'd have gone with Helenius.

Now if you want to argue they should have been in different tiers, that's an evaluation issue, not a draft strategy issue.

Deady, I don't know what the hell to say to this. That's not what tier lists should be. The whole point of doing it that way is to narrow down discussions.

I don't know what the NHL process is, so I'll just use the NFL ones. You grade everyone into buckets -- Potential Stars, Mid 1sts, Day 1/2, etc. And then you cross-check and sort out the tiers. They're not equivalencies. You can have players where you struggle to pull them apart, but if you have 8 guys on a tier, there's still clear separation between #1 and #8.

And what you absolutely do not do is draft for organizational weakness. You praise Howie for understanding this all the time and look how much closer and cleaner NFL projections are.

 

[Larry44]

If they thought Buium was better than what they had — and it was strictly a talent evaluation, not the size+fit (6’ 200lbs!) reason — then why even bring up Drysdale, Andrae, and York? The Flyers could have Quinn, Makar, and Fox and it would have no bearing on BPA. Briere brought them up because it was a major factor and a window into their bad methodology. Even ignoring that, why bring them up?

Your whole fiction still relies on one key assumption: the Flyers are right on Buium. It’s why you need to bring up that he’s regressing because he’s leading college hockey in defensive scoring, while ominously not being at 2 points/game. Do you think we can’t see through this? In a future where Luchanko is a 40-50 point solid middle 6 center and Buium is a star, will your rationalization be that the Flyers are bad at evaluating? Doubtful.

Briere's 'logic' makes no sense at all.

They got so lucky that Buium fell, I still can't believe they traded it away. All three of the small D they are counting on are hurt! LOL!

 

[Magua]

Wrong. If they're in the same tier, you have to have a methodology for tie breaking.

That methodology is not: “Look, we have a current AHL defender, a possible bust who we value too highly, and a top 4 defender who doesn’t play on the PP, who also play defense and are sub-6 foot, so……”

There’s no such thing as a tie in scouting either. You have a preference; you always do. And never ever should close calls be decided by current roster players. You also might be putting the cart before the horse (or I guess the horse before the cart for them?) in saying they genuinely arrived at a near tie — not that they moved Luchanko up a tier because of position. Fit seems to be a starting point for these guys. For all we know, they had other players between Buium and Luchanko too. We don’t know their draft board.

 

[Beef Invictus]

If they thought Buium was better than what they had — and it was strictly a talent evaluation, not the size+fit (6’ 200lbs!) reason — then why even bring up Drysdale, Andrae, and York? The Flyers could have Quinn, Makar, and Fox and it would have no bearing on BPA. Briere brought them up because it was a major factor and a window into their bad methodology. Do we even know that they didn’t prefer Drysdale to Buium? The easier argument is they did.

Your whole fiction still relies on one key assumption: the Flyers are right on Buium. It’s why you need to bring up that he’s regressing because he’s leading college hockey in defensive scoring, while ominously not being at 2 points/game. Do you think you’re not transparent? In a future where Luchanko is a 40-50 point solid middle 6 center and Buium is a star, will your rationalization be that the Flyers are bad at evaluating? Doubtful. Even if Luchanko and Buium are the same tier, the methodologies they use will cost them some other way.

And this is the big thing. Even if they do occasionally luck into something despite all of their processes, that good luck is going to be cancelled out by everything else. No moving forward.

This also comes back to the thing that several people choose not to understand: It's never about any one player. It's about the processes surrounding them. Always. For years on end now.

 

[deadhead]

Deady, I don't know what the hell to say to this. That's not what tier lists should be. The whole point of doing it that way is to narrow down discussions.

I don't know what the NHL process is, so I'll just use the NFL ones. You grade everyone into buckets -- Potential Stars, Mid 1sts, Day 1/2, etc. And then you cross-check and sort out the tiers. They're not equivalencies. You can have players where you struggle to pull them apart, but if you have 8 guys on a tier, there's still clear separation between #1 and #8.

And what you absolutely do not do is draft for organizational weakness. You praise Howie for understanding this all the time and look how much closer and cleaner NFL projections are.

You don't reach for organizational weaknesses, that is, take a player from a lower tier.
But you use it as a tiebreaker within a tier.

If there are clear differences within a tier, you should have two tiers.
The whole point of a tier is to group players with similar value.

And it should be done before the draft so you don't let the heat of the moment draw you into bad decisions. Nor do you want to parse the difference in value for trade purposes between your 12th and 15th ranked player with the clock ticking.

The reason Howie is a good draft day trader is he trusts his tiers, and is willing to trade down if he knows he'll get one of his players in a tier, or trades up when a player in a higher tier is still on the board. But I don't think it was an accident that his two top picks were also the Eagles' biggest weaknesses.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

You don't reach for organizational weaknesses, that is, take a player from a lower tier.
But you use it as a tiebreaker within a tier.

If there are clear differences within a tier, you should have two tiers.
The whole point of a tier is to group players with similar value.

And it should be done before the draft so you don't let the heat of the moment draw you into bad decisions. Nor do you want to parse the difference in value for trade purposes between your 12th and 15th ranked player with the clock ticking.

The reason Howie is a good draft day trader is he trusts his tiers, and is willing to trade down if he knows he'll get one of his players in a tier, or trades up when a player in a higher tier is still on the board. But I don't think it was an accident that his two top picks were also the Eagles' biggest weaknesses.

Tiers are not ties. What the hell do you think they do in scouting meetings?!

Trading down gets you additional assets. Trading down rather than just taking Luchanko was at least good. But this bleeping team traded a year back AND GOT NOTHING. NOT ONE THING. Being agile is not exactly a strength.

 

[kudymen]

There are several excerpts here that put the infamous Bruins drafting room video right to the front of my eyes.

Tiers are not ties. What the hell do you think they do in scouting meetings?!

Trading down gets you additional assets. This bleeping team traded a year back AND GOT NOTHING. NOT ONE THING.

You cant spell "tier" without "tie", see? Check-mate

 

[Beef Invictus]

I like that we are having the exact same discussions about the same issues now that we were having in 2013, and yet we are meant to believe things are different now.

 

[BillDineen]

These threads are getting confusing having blocked, you know who, for 5 years. He hijacks every single thread. Is it possible to consolidate all his senseless ramblings into 1 thread so it too can be ignored?

 

[Flyerfan4life]

Your point completely falls apart at Number 1, because Briere has already made decisions based on prioritizing size as the major guiding consideration. He spent the last couple years insisting Deslauriers is necessary for size reasons. He just blew a draft pick thanks to size based reasoning.

they literaly just told MM that shittruck was his new best friend... thy wouldnt say that if trading him was in the pipeline.

 

[kudymen]

These threads are getting confusing having blocked, you know who, for 5 years. He hijacks every single thread. Is it possible to consolidate all his senseless ramblings into 1 thread so it too can be ignored?

Certain other ahole made me wish a while ago the ignore list would work in a way that also replies to the blocked poster would not get displayed. Would be a neat feature

 

[deadhead]

That methodology is not: “Look, we have a current AHL defender, a possible bust who we value too highly, and a top 4 defender who doesn’t play on the PP, who also play defense and are sub-6 foot, so……”

There’s no such thing as a tie in scouting either. You have a preference; you always do. And never ever should close calls be decided by current roster players. You also might be putting the cart before the horse in saying they genuinely arrived at a near tie — not that they moved Luchanko up a tier because of position. Fit seems to be a starting point for these guys. For all we know, they had other players between Buium and Luchanko too. We don’t know their draft board.

Position value (not team fit) is part of player evaluation.

Positions/players who are scarce have more value b/c they're harder to find (supply and demand).

Which is why big, mobile highly skilled D-men go in the top 5, they're really rare.
True centers are much harder to find than wings, so they have higher value.

Then you have goalies, who are in their own category, because they're both the most valuable players on a team, and the hardest to evaluate/predict - a lot of top goalies were mid-round picks for that reason.

As far as ties in scouting, each scout has their preferences, which is why they cross scout and then have group evaluation. Unless you have a super scout who is right at a far higher percentage than the norm (do they exist?), the literature suggests a group prediction is more likely to be correct. But that also means the consensus will consolidate around a small range for some players, and a wider one for others. When there is a lot of noise, close calls are meaningless, the difference is swamped by the variance (i.e. the difference in valuation is statistically insignificant in terms of predictive validity).

 

[Magua]

Tiers are not ties. What the hell do you think they do in scouting meetings?!

 

[deadhead]

Tiers are not ties. What the hell do you think they do in scouting meetings?!

Trading down gets you additional assets. Trading down rather than just taking Luchanko was at least good. But this bleeping team traded a year back AND GOT NOTHING. NOT ONE THING. Being agile is not exactly a strength.

They had a known quantity at #32 (since they knew who was on the board) v a chance at a much higher pick. How much is that chance worth?

Given Briere has a low discount rate right now it makes sense to take that gamble.

The trading team is giving up a 2025 first that is likely to be significantly better than the #32 pick. So they're not going to want to add additional value to the deal.

Briere may come out smelling like roses, given Edmonton's goalie situation.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

They had a known quantity at #32 (since they knew who was on the board) v a chance at a much higher pick. How much is that chance worth?

Given Briere has a low discount rate right now it makes sense to take that gamble.

The trading team is giving up a 2025 first that is likely to be significantly better than the #32 pick. So they're not going to want to add additional value to the deal.

Briere may come out smelling like roses, given Edmonton's goalie situation.

No. It's the single best example of a trade we know is wrong since Rask for Nino. THEY GOT NOTHING EXCEPT A CHANCE IT'S BETTER AND PAID BY DELAYING IT BY A YEAR. Anyone who defends that trade has left reality behind. I don't care if they pick 1st overall, even though that's not possible.

They just had to get something. A pick swap. Literally anything. Then it's at least debatable and I'm not nearly this bothered.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Deep breaths, everyone.