Confirmed with Link: Oilers sign Connor Brown to 1-year incentive laden deal ($775K caphit, potentially $3.25M in bonuses)
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Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
Hmmm. Would be interesting though to go indepth though in consideration of existing contracts that Chia signed and the dollar saved value in those vs what Holland has put up. Those two McDrai contracts are among the best deals in the entire league, and its a good point for @duul to bring up as much as I despised Chiarelli, those are solid contracts, and really without equal. They are the two best superstar value contracts in the league arguably.
So one could argue that the lasting remnants of the Chia GM contracts probably need to be weighed out with the contractual gifts he did bestow in our two most significant contracts. Overall I would say theres net benefit that accrued in whats remaining. The reality is that in 2023 Hollands contractual dilemma is mostly of his doing. I gave Holland a long leash of years before stating this sort of thing. It was reasonable to give Holland several years to see a different path. But we're still in a cap mess.
Also, we have stronger topsix under Holland, much stronger. But our D is fairly equivalent to what Chia had or brought in and the goaltending under Talbot was better. One thing I could feel good about last season was the bottomsix was much better, but I don't know that continues this season.
duul
Registered User
- Jun 21, 2010
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Yea I took a look earlier, it seems that the problem contracts from Chia were Lucic and Koskinen, however they pale in comparison to the troubled contracts Holland has given us, even the ones like Pulju and Yamo would've been incomprehensible for Chia -- again we were a mostly rebuilding team so perhaps that has to be taken into account. The fact of the matter is despite our troubles with Chia, the contracts he gave to McDrai have been the saving grace for this franchise. To give us an actual chance.
As for the 1.9 million in dead cap with Neal, I feel like that's a drop in the bucket and not a real fault at this point in time. That whole situation was hilarious, and 1.9 seems miniscule compared to the things we've seen from Holland.
Another point I'd like to bring up is the draft. We are coming into Holland's fifth season with the club and we have yet to have an established NHL player from his drafts. A few guys nibbling around the edges but that's about it. Keep in mind that's using all four first round picks. It wasn't until this year we finally traded one away. I don't know how many years of leeway we're willing to give with development. Maybe we should try and compare our last four drafts to other teams and see how many regulars they have playing for them. Now, Holloway is a lock for next season, even if he isn't ready. Our cap situation demands he plays a full season no matter what. As for Broberg, he's currently a #7/#8 guy on a team with one of the worst defences in the league. I'm low on him, but that's besides the point. These two guys were supposed to be budding into stars, or at least solidified as solid NHL players at this point no? Maybe I'm expecting a bit too much ...
SupremeTeam16
5-14-6-1
You lose all credibility when you say things like the Oilers have one of the worst defences in the league.
No kidding. The defence was solid for half of the season, and that's without accounting for Campbell's terrible season. Skinner falls apart in the playoffs, and now we have the worst defence in the league? Ridiculous. I'll take a bet with anyone who wants it that the Oilers finish in the top-15 in goals against this season.
KeithIsActuallyBad
SPEEN!
I don't know about one of the worst but it's definitely not championship calibre. It's middle of the pack at best.
I don't know if that's true either, 7th in the league in GA/G after the Ekholm trade, 15th from January 1st on. Maybe the numbers after the Ekholm trade aren't sustainable, we'll see.
Fourier
Registered User
I actually agree that the contracts for Leon and McDavid are a big plus for the team right now. This why I have almost always been supportive of long term deals for core plyers. They would have been even better if the cap today was close to $90M which is why I pointed out the significance of "bad luck" in the Oilers cap situation.
If you are looking at contracts that are no longer on the books only, then the contracts for JP and Yamamoto are pretty much irrelevant since Kostin would have been gone anyway. If you want to count these then you have to do the same with some of Chia's duds as well. He mishandled the Pouliot, Gryba and Sekera buyouts, started the spiral that led to the Nurse deal and just in general caused death by 1000 cuts as far as the cap was concerned. While both guys, Chia and Holland have pluses and minuses trying to pick which guy was a wizard with the cap is like trying to argue about who won the Lucic/Neal trade. In both instances everyone lost.
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Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
Just a comment that the Oilers GA should be understood within the realm of being one of the best offensive clubs in the league. Teams that are that dominant on an offensive basis tend to have the puck a lot, and tend to have Ozone possession a lot. Meaning that there are significant amounts of time where this team can't get scored against. A more involved analysis of D would need to factor that in.
One of the best defensive clubs I've seen recently were the Pittsburgh Penguins and I cite that because it wasn' their D (beyond Letang they were pretty normal) Its that if you were playing the Pens you rarely had the puck and especially in the playoffs.
Another factor would involve score factors. how many games when the Oilers offense buries clubs do they effectively give up in regular season, which doesn't occur nearly as much in playoffs. To the last point I think another barometer is what does a D look like when facing quality opposition in playoffs. Particularly when clubs scheme around us.
Fourier
Registered User
The score factor tends to work the other way. Teams that are far ahead give up more chances and more meaningless goals because they slack off. That is why you see score based adjustments be more forgiving when a team is leading.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
I think theres instances where it can go both ways. I do think to some degree it depends on team as well and isn't necessarily as uniform as the analytics want it to be. Score factors can have many effects. Goals aren't all the same either and don't produce the same reactions. The game within a game needs to be factored as well and that hockey is essentially like many sports a momentum sport subject to bench swings.
In 1990 when in the Final Glenn Anderson took a puck 200ft and scored and went through the entire Bruins team to do it he effectively destroyed the opposition. Oilers likely win series anyway but that one play totally demoralized the Bruins bench. Its like they thought playing the Oilers would be manageable without Gretzky, but then an all world goal like that. Bruins knew they didn't have anything like it in the lineup and that the Oilers still had multiple players that could completely burn a club.
That also describes the type of goals McD or Leon can score. The type that just say this game is over and you can't stop this.
Fourier
Registered User
Yes it can go the other way but it's just far more likely to go against what you said, especially these days where game management is the absolute law of the land. The chart in this article gives a pretty decent picture of the degree to which score impacts things like shots against.
Score effects provide critical context in stats analysis - TSN.ca
Score-adjusted numbers provide the truest measure of team performance, TSN's Travis Yost writes
www.tsn.ca
This is a well studied phenomenon. And as I said, game to game the effect can be in the opposite direction, but it is much much more frequently the case that the team with the most goals lets up and teh team with fewer goes more on the offensive.
duul
Registered User
- Jun 21, 2010
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Hey thanks for this. I’m in transit is there any chance you could post where we ranked for HDCA?Yes it can go the other way but it's just far more likely to go against what you said, especially these days where game management is the absolute law of the land. The chart in this article gives a pretty decent picture of the degree to which score impacts things like shots against.
Score effects provide critical context in stats analysis - TSN.ca
Score-adjusted numbers provide the truest measure of team performance, TSN's Travis Yost writes
This is a well studied phenomenon. And as I said, game to game the effect can be in the opposite direction, but it is much much more frequently the case that the team with the most goals lets up and teh team with fewer goes more on the offensive.
SORRY FOR EDIT: Also, it would be interesting to see time spent in our own zone in relation to other teams, or maybe time spent in offensive zone...to see if what old Drivesaitl here holds up.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
Its all good. You defer to the mathematics, and stats, which is pretty logical considering your background, and I defer to the human effects and dynamics I see taking place from time to time and how individuals and teams are effected. Predictable that I would defer as much to that type of thing.Yes it can go the other way but it's just far more likely to go against what you said, especially these days where game management is the absolute law of the land. The chart in this article gives a pretty decent picture of the degree to which score impacts things like shots against.
Score effects provide critical context in stats analysis - TSN.ca
Score-adjusted numbers provide the truest measure of team performance, TSN's Travis Yost writes
This is a well studied phenomenon. And as I said, game to game the effect can be in the opposite direction, but it is much much more frequently the case that the team with the most goals lets up and teh team with fewer goes more on the offensive.
Not disagreeing that the score effects in total behave in the way you describe, just saying there can be exceptions. In the Oilers case though theres probably games and instances where its both. The Oilers let up with a huge lead or the opponent does.
One strange citation is the 2021-22 Calgary Flames. They would intentionally start games with hellfire bringing everything and it was working for them. So many times they seemed to stake out multiple goal leads in first period and in that season it resulted in one of the highest shutout totals in history. A dozen as I recall and which was just a nuts total for such an ordinary club. opponents were just giving up, they weren't matching intensity and they were parking it. The Flames weren't really that good, they were playing the table of what opponents were prepared to do to match in regular season games. In the same way isn't it an effect when a poker player pushes large chips some opponents fold? Often times doesn't matter what hand you have. Psychology within the game.
It was so predicable Flames would fall apart in playoffs as soon as teams were prepared to match play intensity when the games mattered.
This part is an aside but I wish analytics gurus were a little better at writing. When a statement like this is made it detracts from the article.
Score –adjusted numbers on a single game basis are also automated, which gives executives and coaches even more reason to use those over raw counts. It's the only way an evaluator will be able to properly assess his team's performance on both ends of the spectrum.
This is relevant because studies involving or alleging objective data should be described in such a way. The bolded is poor form writing and is wrong as soon as its stated in absolutes.
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duul
Registered User
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Good point at the end there especially.
There seems to be a valley between the analytics crowd and the eye-test crowd so to speak. The problem in that people who are into sports, or are into math...are not usually into both so we're already drawing from such a small pool of people.
The big problems lies in the fact that logic is not studied anymore from what I have gathered. Imagine if we had a hockey-obsessed Wittgenstein type to come in and solve the sport. The problem with analytics, like you pointed out here, is that the data is never interpreted correctly, with so much of it predicated on leaps of faith. Reminds me a bit of the multiverse stuff where in order to make the theory work at all it required such an endless amount of leaps of faith that it became infinitely more fantastical than the 'other' explanation they are trying to give an alternative to as an explanation for how the universe came to be.
We need a classical logician who also knows the game of hockey to a high level. I suppose everyone who majored in mathematics does take various formal logic courses but it's nowhere near sufficient.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
Indeed. The gap has always existed btw. Its the statements like the bolded which are textbook absolutes that contribute to that divide. Yet if confronted the writer wouldn't even be aware that he did it. That he claimed factual ground and its the only ground there can be is precontemplation of fact. It isn't scientific process. Somebody making such pronouncement seemingly doesn't comprehend the concept of refutation.
In the bolded the expressed " Its the only way" and " to properly assess" is assumptive phrasing. To me it makes one wonder about the subjectivity of somebody making such in-objective pronouncements. Which we all do, but not in some capacity wherein we are trying to define some relative truths.
Worse the writer is describing his favored thesis as the only way to assess. That would normally be described as bias or distortion.
Of course in many endeavors where alleged expert domain is involved (i.e scouting and hockey assessment jobs in this case) of course theres going to be pushback in the area where some are claiming whole domain in already established and occupied (scouting) domain. I've seen this struggle for around 20yrs now.
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Fourier
Registered User
The Oilers had the 6th least HDCA last year with 712. Carolina was the best at 680. Vegas had 755, Colorado 768 and Florida was at 817 with Anaheim bringing up the rear at 1069.
After Ekholm came they had the 5th lowest HDCA/gm behind Dallas, LA, Seattle and surprisingly Philadelphia.
duul
Registered User
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Awesome link, thank you. It's interesting because none of those teams are known for having a stalwart defence, at least the ones since we got Ekholm.
Is there a solid place to find offensive zone numbers? I wonder if they correlate at all. As in, we can probably expect that given the way L.A. plays, they would limit HDCA against because they run a pretty deep team, they're build like Seattle in a way. Four solid lines. Maybe those bottom 6 lines just dominate offensive/neutral zone time so they spend such little time in the defensive zone it is limiting HDCA. Not sure how to go about thinking through it, but it's interesting.
Then we see Edmonton who runs a line with McDavid and a line with Draisaitl, wondering how strong that brings us with the offensive zone ice time numbers and then looking at it and possibly explaining why our HDCA is so low. I wonder how much of that stat has to do with having good defencemen. If I'm reading what you wrote correctly, Ekholm brought us from 6th to 5th or something? So that huge addition hardly made a dent in this number?
Fourier
Registered User
My background is in mathematics and to a lesser degree probability/stats. I don't think you actually need someone specifically in logic since their specific expertise is not really needed at the level of a hockey discussion. I'd also argue that a background in probability and statistics would be more valuable than a background in formal logic.
The problem with the math vs the ice test is that neither is reliable in the absolute. But it is almost impossible to verify the eye test without literally going over film. Part of this is that we tend to see and remember what we want to and can do so even if it did not happen as we say. This is how the human brain works. Moreover, two people with similar expertise can watch the exact same game and come away with two very different impressions of what happened. This makes it hard to debate on the eye test alone.
The problem with stats is that they are often used to draw conclusions for which they are neither suited or in fact misinterpreted so that the numbers don't actually say what the user claims. I would never claim that every stat I post always proves my position. But at least I understand what the numbers I post can and cannot do. I tend to use stats that can at least objectively show strong evidence that a claim is either true or false. But I also watch games which adds context to which stats I believe are relevant and which stats are not.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
Perhaps not much of what occurs post TDL is all that indicative in a 32 team league with a socialist draft system whereby up to 6-10 teams in the league might be deliberately tanking or not minding the idea of it. For the most case by then the season is a solved puzzle for the vast majority of teams. I don't think that this segment of seasons offers as much in evaluation even though its recent data. Its data with extraneous variables. Some teams have packed it in already, others are resting for what really matters, the playoffs.
I wonder what kind of correlation there would be between post TDL results and playoff results. I've seen the Oilers enough to know that teams like the Jets and Hawks can rise up from apparent depths.
Or Florida could get to the SC final. Or Vegas who weren't great down the stretch along with them. Not meaning for you to have to feedback any data, just saying in reply. I do like discussions like these that are exploratory.
ChaoticOrange
Registered User
I will always take the opinion of someone that's got some facts and stats to back up their position over the "trust me bro" losers, even if the stats are imperfect.
Fourier
Registered User
Natural Stats Trick has zone starts for individuals but not for teams. I don't know of any site that lists team zone starts but you can get a sense of this much from the faceoff numbers here:
NHL Stats
The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.
www.nhl.com
The problem is that they don't break this down by 5vs5 stats separately. In teh Oilers case overall they had more DZ FO's than OZ FO's but I am not sure if this was true 5 vs 5.
Drivesaitl
Finding Hemingway
LA was not dominating possession or shots or scoring chances. Teams like LA and Seattle in contrast seemingly demonstrate a bend but not break approach. LA seems best to me when they are running a counter strategy, and to wit this is what Seattle was doing when i was curious enough to watch them.
The objective being you can allow your opponent zone possession but try to control the degree of dangerous chances allowed and try to have good team sticks and support and work defensively as a club with levels of support. Conversely when the Oilers were breaking down they were breaking down good and proper.
But I think a year ago was more of a demonstration of Kings counters. McLellan got scared and had numbers back, and was running a very defensive set. I think it cost them. It negated a lot of their transition pace. It negated the strengths of some of their lineup imo.
I saw the 2005-06 Oilers as a strong counter club with players that were predatory at it.
Football (Soccer) to me demonstrates the best views of what player usage push forward or back and where players are deployed usage. In that its more evident in Soccer, also the brilliantly played counters tend to be more noticeable in Football. Perhaps an aside to the convo but Football matches often demonstrate that possession doesn't mean as much. Many times upstarts will win due to better control of what kinds of chances are being allowed and then just jumping counter at exposed opportunities. Hockey in a sense is a somewhat similar game just with less players on ice. The same exposed factors occur when a team has pushed too far forward and loses puck.
duul
Registered User
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Ah that's too bad. I wonder if the NHL clubs have access to that kind of stuff. They must.Natural Stats Trick has zone starts for individuals but not for teams. I don't know of any site that lists team zone starts but you can get a sense of this much from the faceoff numbers here:
NHL Stats
The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.
The problem is that they don't break this down by 5vs5 stats separately. In teh Oilers case overall they had more DZ FO's than OZ FO's but I am not sure if this was true 5 vs 5.
I have always wondered to what extent the value is for a defenceman who is typically known for 'breaking up the cycle' vs one who is typically known for 'breaking out the puck'. I never understood how the analytics guys seemed to love certain defencemen who were known for breaking up cycle like Adam Larsson, yet attacked Kris Russell for blocking shots because it implied he was in the defensive zone too often.
I've viewed the game in terms of D as the most important part being capability of getting the puck off a dump in and being able to cleanly exit your zone with a pass. Funny enough, that has been Edmonton's biggest weakness that I've noticed on the defensive side of the game for forever now. We watched Vegas put a clinic on in this way, and even other teams who are not necessarily known for this always place a precedent on exiting the zone with control. We in Edmonton have seemingly, for personnel reasons or otherwise, have forgone this in favour of skying the puck or chipping off the glass in a panic. Is this a fair analysis or not? Perhaps there is a stat to back this up, I know I used to follow one guy who did the Hurricanes stuff -- Corey Sznajder. He had some real impressive defensive metrics that seemed to align with the eye test.
Fourier
Registered User
Corey Sznajder has some really good stuff with lots of visuals. But it's now mostly behind a paywall, which I think is perfectly reasonable.
The standard stuff we see is very bad at isolating defensive ability. It's mostly way to unit dependent.
I don't consider myself to be a technical expert in hockey, not even close. I know a lot more about other sports as far as that goes. But I have watched hockey for a long time and I sympathize with what you say about attributes of various defenders. Paul Coffey is a guy I bring up a lot. By conventional wisdom he is "bad defensively". But at least in his time with the Oilers he was incredibly good in getting the puck out of the Oiler zone. Once he got the puck, he could do it by skating it out or by using his tremendous passing skills. And I don't think many did it better than a young Coffey, In addition his incredible skating skills would allow him to overcome mistakes that he and others made from being overly aggressive.
