Paul Maurice "State of the Union"

[Guardian17]

Didn't catch the interview but it sounds like a good one. Looks to me ownership, management and the coach are all using the same play book. By this description intent has been made clear and people should now know what to expect going forward. As someone has been cheering this transition on it is confirmation of what we have been witnessing play out this season. A little over due but I'm happy nevertheless.

I did hear that 1290 will be replaying it over the weekend, and does anyone know when? I'm heading out to the lake today for the long weekend and will certainly make time to give it a listen.

According to the morning show it will be replayed on TSN 1290

Friday 6:00pm

Sunday 3:00pm

 

[Whileee]

just loading up the interview to listen to it in full, caught about half of it on the drive home.

The talk about the team and young guys and what not seemed ok, though i'm not as enamored with it as some.

My primary concern was wit how he framed his answers around ehlers and goaltending.

While the Ehlers answer was generally glowing/positive, the things that fired warning bells in my head was a number of statements that seemed to be pretty much at odds with what analytic numbers were telling us.

Essentially

A) seems oblivious to the "thorburn effect" and had a number of statements that felt like he didn't realize how positive Ehlers influence had been prior. He felt concerned with Ehlers play once the scoring stopped, but Ehlers was still generating a whallop of chances and opportunities and being a positive possession guy, he just wasn't getting lucky. That's a flag for me as it really seemed like interpreting some swings in sh% as a player "struggling".

B) The goal tending answer. Now i haven't heard the whole section yet, just caught the clips they replayed on the big show but i did not come away from that with any sort of confidence. We got the same old answers trotted out about Pavy having a career year a year ago, and about the team not being good enough in front of him defensively, and finally, what seems like an extreme hesitance to trust a young tender.

I guess my main issue here is there was 3 big statements in there that are diametrically opposed to what analytics tells us:

Nik Ehlers has been damn good at hockey since he came in and should never have been banished to the thorburn line

Defensive system play is absolute bullocks as for evaluating your 29 year-old goal tender.

NHL teams and GM's are actually TOO hesitant to try new younger goalies: research has been showing tenders to likely peak as young as 22-24, years/ages that are most frequently spent in the minors.

The interview wasn't all bad, and there was some good things that I caught, and I'm ok with their picked direction to rebuild around the young guys.

I liked his takes on Scheif, Petan, Ehlers (for the most part) lots of this seemed real good.

There's just a couple things he keeps saying that drive me up the wall as they run very counter to modern information, which is made all the more confounding as Maurice does reference analytic's quite a bit and SEEMS on the up and up.

I think Maurice sees things and expects things that we don't, and they go beyond analytics. How many of the assembled masses here noticed players "sharking around" when they are in a bit of a slump, or just coming up from junior. I do think Maurice is a bit "old school" in some respects, but I also think that he's clearly tracking the analytics. I would bet he could rattle off the number of scoring chances Ehlers got, and how many he gave up. He could also probably tell you exactly how he fared with different players. He alluded to that in previous interviews (i.e. the Jets track how players perform together in terms of shot metrics, scoring chances, etc.) He had that sort of information at his finger tips in the interview. We are usually looking at fairly basic shot metrics. I think the Jets' analysis goes deeper. They actually track where chances come from.

That's no defense of Thorbs. I think Thorbs (and Stuart) fit into a different category. I would have loved for Hustler and Lawless to have carefully challenged Maurice on his usage of Stuart.

I also think that Maurice knows that the Jets need better goaltending, and that Hellebuyck is a better goalie than Pavelec. But a smart coach will never throw his goalies under a bus and take the team off the hook. Expecting to say what he really thinks about Pavs is unrealistic. Last season he had no problems casting Pavs aside for Hutch, even though he had annointed Pavs #1 and said the defense needed to get better. I think he really believes that the Jets give up too many grade A scoring chances, and he doesn't want to set things up where everyone in the media, fans and on the team start blaming only the goalies for the goals against. That's what happened in Toronto. He's demanding accountability from the whole team for goals against, and preserving the public face of the goalies. That was pretty obvious to me, though maybe more subtle than some would like.

To my hearing, he made it very clear that Hellebuyck and Comrie were the goalies of the future for the Jets, which is a pretty clear indication that he doesn't think as highly of his 28-year old "starter" as he has indicated publicly.

 

[Grind]

I think Maurice sees things and expects things that we don't, and they go beyond analytics. How many of the assembled masses here noticed players "sharking around" when they are in a bit of a slump, or just coming up from junior. I do think Maurice is a bit "old school" in some respects, but I also think that he's clearly tracking the analytics. I would bet he could rattle off the number of scoring chances Ehlers got, and how many he gave up. He could also probably tell you exactly how he fared with different players. He alluded to that in previous interviews (i.e. the Jets track how players perform together in terms of shot metrics, scoring chances, etc.) He had that sort of information at his finger tips in the interview. We are usually looking at fairly basic shot metrics. I think the Jets' analysis goes deeper. They actually track where chances come from.

That's no defense of Thorbs. I think Thorbs (and Stuart) fit into a different category. I would have loved for Hustler and Lawless to have carefully challenged Maurice on his usage of Stuart.

I also think that Maurice knows that the Jets need better goaltending, and that Hellebuyck is a better goalie than Pavelec. But a smart coach will never throw his goalies under a bus and take the team off the hook. Expecting to say what he really thinks about Pavs is unrealistic. Last season he had no problems casting Pavs aside for Hutch, even though he had annointed Pavs #1 and said the defense needed to get better. I think he really believes that the Jets give up too many grade A scoring chances, and he doesn't want to set things up where everyone in the media, fans and on the team start blaming only the goalies for the goals against. That's what happened in Toronto. He's demanding accountability from the whole team for goals against, and preserving the public face of the goalies. That was pretty obvious to me, though maybe more subtle than some would like.

To my hearing, he made it very clear that Hellebuyck and Comrie were the goalies of the future for the Jets, which is a pretty clear indication that he doesn't think as highly of his 28-year old "starter" as he has indicated publicly.

the problem with all the points you make in the first paragraph is their pretty much an appeal to authority. For them to be right I have to

A)assume maurice has access to all of these "analytics"
B) assume these "analytics" (of which may or may not exist and we know nothing about) I am supposed to assume they are more accurate then what currently exists
C)assume the jets have a team of analysts capable of not only disecting this "black box" information appropriately, and in a useful predictive manner, but also being able to properly communicate that to the coaching staff
D) believe that statements made that run directly counter to what we know (important: know vs assume) are either founded in better information we could only ever dream of having, or are red herrings/mind games with the media.

Forgive me for not being willing to take any of the aforementioned leaps. My brain doesn't work like that. I trust what I've seen. I know enough about hockey management, organizations, and culture to never give them the benefit of the doubt of "better" data and analysis.

the example is "sharking". The assumption is we're relying on Maurice/whoever to put appropriate weight on what the effect of 1 "sharking" shift is on a players overall contribution. Anecdotally, it means nothing. If the player sharks on a shift yet finishes that shift with his line +4 CF, was sharking a bad thing? What if his sharking was responsible for turning a fumbled Dzone entry by the opposing team into break away, or a 2-1, or a goal? "sharking" in itself is just an input, we don't know what that correlates to on any given shift, it may not correlate to anything, which at the end of the day would mean, who cares?


as to the last bold, forgive me, my robotic brain does not like jumping to such interpretations (i also did not get to hear that whole section. the section i heard had no mention whatsoever of comrie and implied hesitancy around hellebuyck due to "pushing young tenders to fast").

 

[ps241]

just loading up the interview to listen to it in full, caught about half of it on the drive home.

The talk about the team and young guys and what not seemed ok, though i'm not as enamored with it as some.

My primary concern was wit how he framed his answers around ehlers and goaltending.

While the Ehlers answer was generally glowing/positive, the things that fired warning bells in my head was a number of statements that seemed to be pretty much at odds with what analytic numbers were telling us.

Essentially

A) seems oblivious to the "thorburn effect" and had a number of statements that felt like he didn't realize how positive Ehlers influence had been prior. He felt concerned with Ehlers play once the scoring stopped, but Ehlers was still generating a whallop of chances and opportunities and being a positive possession guy, he just wasn't getting lucky. That's a flag for me as it really seemed like interpreting some swings in sh% as a player "struggling".

B) The goal tending answer. Now i haven't heard the whole section yet, just caught the clips they replayed on the big show but i did not come away from that with any sort of confidence. We got the same old answers trotted out about Pavy having a career year a year ago, and about the team not being good enough in front of him defensively, and finally, what seems like an extreme hesitance to trust a young tender.

I guess my main issue here is there was 3 big statements in there that are diametrically opposed to what analytics tells us:

Nik Ehlers has been damn good at hockey since he came in and should never have been banished to the thorburn line

Defensive system play is absolute bullocks as for evaluating your 29 year-old goal tender.

NHL teams and GM's are actually TOO hesitant to try new younger goalies: research has been showing tenders to likely peak as young as 22-24, years/ages that are most frequently spent in the minors.

The interview wasn't all bad, and there was some good things that I caught, and I'm ok with their picked direction to rebuild around the young guys.

I liked his takes on Scheif, Petan, Ehlers (for the most part) lots of this seemed real good.

There's just a couple things he keeps saying that drive me up the wall as they run very counter to modern information, which is made all the more confounding as Maurice does reference analytic's quite a bit and SEEMS on the up and up.

That answer on Ehlers is painful if Paul actually believes it.

To build on your post I was listening to the Big Show on my drive in today and they had Lawless on shortly after 8:00 to discuss this interview. Gary was great on a few topics.

First on Maurice Gary said that Paul usually answers everything thoughtfully but Gary believes if you read the tea leaves that Paul plans to lean on Hellebuyck next season but like Ehlers last year Paul is carefully downplaying expectations in this interview. Gary felt the last thing Paul wants to do is anoint Helle the savior and put too much weight on him.

Gary also addressed a personal conversation he had with Dale Hawerchuk during the first part of Scheifele's rookie season when he was struggling and our board was saying Mark should be sent to the AHL. Gary said around that time he told Dale that maybe Mark should get some time in the AHL and he said Dale "almost scolded him" and told Gary abouslutey not, and that Mark needed to play his way through it at NHL level speed.

Just supports some of the growing pains rational around playing rookies. Now it in no way explains why they need to dress plugs along side the rookies though. That part of the plan is indefensible.

 

[VictoriaJetsFan]

If we have a stealth tank going on here, and it sounds very much like that is the case, playing Hellebuyck for an extended amount and having him steal games is not good for the plan.

You could apply that to other lines as well.

I think there is more tanking strategy going on here than we previously thought.

Starting Pavelec is kind of essential for this and it may be next year as well.

 

[cbcwpg]

If we have a stealth tank going on here, and it sounds very much like that is the case, playing Hellebuyck for an extended amount and having him steal games is not good for the plan.

You could apply that to other lines as well.

I think there is more tanking strategy going on here than we previously thought.

Starting Pavelec is kind of essential for this and it may be next year as well.

If the plan next season is the same as this season went, with a youth movement, I could see them giving Helly more time in the nets over Pavelec up until Christmas. But if it is once again apparent that the Jets are planning their spring tee-times during Christmas break, then I think we would see a shift to Pavelec and another "strategic rebuild" to getting a higher draft pick.

The management I believe is smart enough to realize if the team is sucking then they might as well suck to get something out of it.

 

[VictoriaJetsFan]

If the plan next season is the same as this season went, with a youth movement, I could see them giving Helly more time in the nets over Pavelec up until Christmas. But if it is once again apparent that the Jets are planning their spring tee-times during Christmas break, then I think we would see a shift to Pavelec and another "strategic rebuild" to getting a higher draft pick.

The management I believe is smart enough to realize if the team is sucking then they might as well suck to get something out of it.

Now that the rebuild is kind of official, selling off more assets for youth will make more sense..the playoff appearance put us in expectations limbo...

that playoff appearance appears more and more like an unnecessary waste of time..

 

[Dayofthedogs]

Now that the rebuild is kind of official, selling off more assets for youth will make more sense..the playoff appearance put us in expectations limbo...

that playoff appearance appears more and more like an unnecessary waste of time..

I'm expecting 1 or both of MP or Stafford getting traded at either draft day or the trade deadline next year. As much as I love MP, I think he might be place holding for Petan.

If you look at the contract they offered Staff and the one they walked away from with Frolik I think that this tank was probably more planned out than an accident.

 

[VictoriaJetsFan]

I'm expecting 1 or both of MP or Stafford getting traded at either draft day or the trade deadline next year. As much as I love MP, I think he might be place holding for Petan.

If you look at the contract they offered Staff and the one they walked away from with Frolik I think that this tank was probably more planned out than an accident.

Agreed....but I have to wonder..if they had been more pro-active in jettisoning this core, would we have been in the running for mcDavid last year?

 

[Whileee]

That answer on Ehlers is painful if Paul actually believes it.

To build on your post I was listening to the Big Show on my drive in today and they had Lawless on shortly after 8:00 to discuss this interview. Gary was great on a few topics.

First on Maurice Gary said that Paul usually answers everything thoughtfully but Gary believes if you read the tea leaves that Paul plans to lean on Hellebuyck next season but like Ehlers last year Paul is carefully downplaying expectations in this interview. Gary felt the last thing Paul wants to do is anoint Helle the savior and put too much weight on him.

Gary also addressed a personal conversation he had with Dale Hawerchuk during the first part of Scheifele's rookie season when he was struggling and our board was saying Mark should be sent to the AHL. Gary said around that time he told Dale that maybe Mark should get some time in the AHL and he said Dale "almost scolded him" and told Gary abouslutey not, and that Mark needed to play his way through it at NHL level speed.

Just supports some of the growing pains rational around playing rookies. Now it in no way explains why they need to dress plugs along side the rookies though. That part of the plan is indefensible.

I am pretty sure that "playing plugs along side rookies" has a lot to do with their development as pros, and how they approach the game. It has much less to do with on-ice success in the short term. There is also a social process on a team. Rookies need to make their way onto a team and be seen as earning it, especially if vets' buddies are being traded away to make room for raw rookies.

For us, these human interactions are irrelevant, because we watch the team on TV, or from the stands, or through stats. But I think good teams pay attention to the culture in a team. The culture that had developed previously (under Noel) was toxic, and there wasn't enough accountability. I think Maurice is addressing that and doesn't want the young stars that are coming in to think it's all too easy and that they don't have to take their lumps.

 

[Whileee]

Agreed....but I have to wonder..if they had been more pro-active in jettisoning this core, would we have been in the running for mcDavid last year?

Nobody was out-tanking the Yotes and Sabres last year. You would have had to get rid of Buff, Enstrom, Little and Wheeler probably, and they still might have finished ahead of those two.

 

[Howard Chuck]

While I am a very logical, organized and analytical person, I tend to believe that high level coaches have insight and vision beyond the stats and what I see.

Case in point. My child had the rare opportunity to work with a very high level coach for that sport. I was seeing things and keeping track of things and would occasionally approach this coach with my thoughts. If I'm being honest, I'll bet I was wrong in my assessments about 80% of the time. The coach would explain what they were working on and why and it never failed to amaze me what insights I had missed.

I love the analysis and the stats (I've learned a great deal here), but there are always things just don't fall into those categories. It has to be this way or all the teams would be the same.

I think Maurice is a smart, thoughtful guy and he sees things quite a bit different than most of us. I always have to place some trust in people that obviously know more than I do, so I don't tend to get too worried about statements that may or may not agree with my thoughts.

 

[gbill2004*]

My favourite part of the interview was discovering that Lawless lives in the same neighborhood as Maurice, and that Paul's wife always cuts their lawn...not Paul!

 

[Puckatron 3000]

the example is "sharking". The assumption is we're relying on Maurice/whoever to put appropriate weight on what the effect of 1 "sharking" shift is on a players overall contribution. Anecdotally, it means nothing. If the player sharks on a shift yet finishes that shift with his line +4 CF, was sharking a bad thing? What if his sharking was responsible for turning a fumbled Dzone entry by the opposing team into break away, or a 2-1, or a goal? "sharking" in itself is just an input, we don't know what that correlates to on any given shift, it may not correlate to anything, which at the end of the day would mean, who cares?

Hey Grind,

As much as I respect the stats-minded folks who post here, and recognize their hockey knowledge as far superior to my own, I have seen a few of these sorts of arguments lately. And I believe it a flawed argument that should be challenged, if I may.

The argument can be boiled down to something like "the individual factors (size, strength, skill, technique) are irrelevant if the desired result (out-shooting or more specifically out-scoring your opponent) is achieved. I believe Garret often uses the expression, "not seeing the forest for the trees". This is a dangerous statement if you allow it to singly govern how you coach and develop players. You also don't want to "not see the trees for the forest".

In your quote above, you criticize Mo for attempting to correct Ehlers for what he considers a bad technique (sharking). Your basis is that he has no good reason, perhaps no hard data, to substantiate this belief. Therefore he should not do it.

There's a few ways I could try to refute this. The first is a reductio ad absurdum.

Imagine if Ehlers decided to play the whole game skating backwards. Would it be foolish for Maurice to correct this behavior? After all, we don't have any statistical analysis of players who do this. Maybe Ehlers even ends up Corsi positive while doing so. Do we then say, well I guess it's OK? Of course not. The proper response is to correct the behavior. If he can play so well skating backwards, he'll be a monster doing things properly (skating forwards).

It seems to me the mistake being made here is to ignore established, non-statistical knowledge (sharking is bad, skating forward is good). Of course, not all traditional, established knowledge is perfect. But neither is statistical analysis, due to incomplete data, simplified analytical models, or confounding factors.

Both are valuable. Both tend to be good or bad at particular things relating to hockey. I trust stats to give me a pretty accurate measure of a player's current contribution to winning a game. I trust stats to give a reasonably good prediction of future success.

I trust coaching, training, and established hockey knowledge to improve a player's technique, strength, and other "inputs" into the Corsi machine that maximizes a player's effectiveness.

As we move forward into the high tech future of sport, analytics may have more and more to say about all aspects of the game. (And it certainly has identified some gaps in established wisdom already.) But we're not quite there yet.

 

[Whileee]

While I am a very logical, organized and analytical person, I tend to believe that high level coaches have insight and vision beyond the stats and what I see.

Case in point. My child had the rare opportunity to work with a very high level coach for that sport. I was seeing things and keeping track of things and would occasionally approach this coach with my thoughts. If I'm being honest, I'll bet I was wrong in my assessments about 80% of the time. The coach would explain what they were working on and why and it never failed to amaze me what insights I had missed.

I love the analysis and the stats (I've learned a great deal here), but there are always things just don't fall into those categories. It has to be this way or all the teams would be the same.

I think Maurice is a smart, thoughtful guy and he sees things quite a bit different than most of us. I always have to place some trust in people that obviously know more than I do, so I don't tend to get too worried about statements that may or may not agree with my thoughts.

Not very good results this year, but he's had the Jets in the top-10 in shot metrics for two years running. Their struggles this year are fixable, in my opinion, and I think Maurice pointed them out.

Poor PK. Not as good goaltending. Transitioning styles with youth.

Interesting that he didn't pin the blame on youth, but more in relation to how the Jets were changing their style.

 

[cheswick]

At what point does Maurice talk about goaltending?

I am incredibly interested in hearing him talk about how Pavelec wouldn't be the #1 going forward.

Just before the 26 minute mark. And he never said Pavelec wouldn't be #1, simply agreed with Lawless that the organization has some decisions to make in regard to goaltending. Nothing about what he said made me believe goaltending will handled any differently next season, and it certainly sounded like he has no intention of giving Hellybuck the starting role "we've all seen goalies come in and be given too much too fast" referenced Jim Carrey. He on several occasions put the blame on the team for the goalies poor stats "we haven't given our goaltenders an opportunity to excel" and mentioned that Pavelec had a career year last year.

 

[Grind]

Not willing to make that jump.

buuut...i'm not saying i know more or anything like that.

But I have had enough interactions to know that USEFUL analytics (extremely different then "analytics") are in the grand scheme of things EXTREMELY young in hockey. We're seeing the entire conventions of "defensive hockey" being torn down by a new deeper understanding. That's pretty significant.

Add in that "analytics guys" in hockey have historically done very "black boxy" things, not vetted or tested their numbers publicly, there's a good reason to be "suspicious" of comments/strategies by NHL teams that say their doing things "analytically" but actions run 100% counter to what "known" analytic say they should be doing.

It also means that things and events and strategies and frames of mind that were thought to be "the best way to do things" up until 4 years ago, could quite frankly be the worst way to do things today. We're talking "best" to "worst" within 3 years. That's a lot to grapple with as a coach and a human being. That's 15-20 years of your career's "truths" being stripped away. No ones going to take to that easily.

Finally, I think a lot of fans would be shocked by what the business community might refer to as a "lack of professionalism" within high level hockey organizations. These are emotional people who have been very close to the game for a very long time. Egoism, politics, and "personal experience" have an amount of pull and influence in decisions far beyond rational/analytical approaches.


Getting OT here and also making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill.

I didn't hate the interview and I still think maurice is a good coach (a decidedly average one). I don't expect a coach to latch hook line and sinker onto the latest breaking things every day and act like a robot.

That being said, the amount of references to analytic/s combined with actions that run 100% counter to them (were not talking deviations, i mean statements that are 100% factually incorrect or antonyms) is more then enough for me to give pos and yes, i unfortunately do reject the notion that they have access to "better" analytics and all these bad decisions are actually "good" decisions. I don't buy it until i'm given a reason to.

 

[Analyst365]

Just finished listening to the excellent "year end" interview with Maurice on H&L. http://www.tsn.ca/radio/winnipeg-1290/hustler-and-lawless-the-2016-coach-s-summit-with-paul-maurice-1.458477

As usual he was articulate, but he also had some interesting insights into the Jets strategy for the future. Of note, the die was cast to get younger some time ago, and crystallized last year.

Fire away!

How long ago was some time ago? Well through half way through last year the mantra was we're going to be big and hard to play against. The players were repeating the same thing. Then we went young, small, and soft to play against.

 

[Grind]

Hey Grind,

As much as I respect the stats-minded folks who post here, and recognize their hockey knowledge as far superior to my own, I have seen a few of these sorts of arguments lately. And I believe it a flawed argument that should be challenged, if I may.... snip for brevity.

Edit: snipped my first part as kind of irrelevent.

to be fair, i do think correcting sharking is probably the right thing to do. My point was stapling him to a line with thorburn likely cost this team wins, and that seems a piss poor way to teach a kid.

again it's the question of "how much is this impacting his play". It's the issues of

[stat]-----------[reality]-----------[perception]

even assuming reality was in the middle, the use/punishment/explaing away of ehlers struggles etc was still way to far to the perception side for my liking.

I believe in a combined approach as well.

But...when a coach makes statements/takes actions that run completely counter to analytics they apparently use, and backs them up with things like the "sharking" to which i'm required to put absolute faith in them to properly assess (when evidence provides the counter) i'm unwilling to.

Useful analytics are very new and lots of teams are using weird black boxy things still. I don't consider this a slight against a coach, i assume almost all are in the same position.

Just color me extremely suspicious.

 

[Aavco Cup]

Did anyone else get the sense there is a timing aspect to the plan they are on? Maurice kind of mentioned the teams that are good now might not be. I get the sense they want to be among the next wave of good teams just as Chicago LAK etc...are fading away.

 

[Grind]

Did anyone else get the sense there is a timing aspect to the plan they are on? Maurice kind of mentioned the teams that are good now might not be. I get the sense they want to be among the next wave of good teams just as Chicago LAK etc...are fading away.

Yah i caught that in there too, also i'm pretty sure i remember hearing something similar from him or Chevy in a previous interview as well.

My only concern is if they have a proper handle on how far away that is, and how those timelines actually work.

I'm onboard with "going young" but i think some of our "young" guys are actually old enough that going whole hog young now runs the risk of aging them out.

 

[Whileee]

Hey Grind,

As much as I respect the stats-minded folks who post here, and recognize their hockey knowledge as far superior to my own, I have seen a few of these sorts of arguments lately. And I believe it a flawed argument that should be challenged, if I may.

The argument can be boiled down to something like "the individual factors (size, strength, skill, technique) are irrelevant if the desired result (out-shooting or more specifically out-scoring your opponent) is achieved. I believe Garret often uses the expression, "not seeing the forest for the trees". This is a dangerous statement if you allow it to singly govern how you coach and develop players. You also don't want to "not see the trees for the forest".

In your quote above, you criticize Mo for attempting to correct Ehlers for what he considers a bad technique (sharking). Your basis is that he has no good reason, perhaps no hard data, to substantiate this belief. Therefore he should not do it.

There's a few ways I could try to refute this. The first is a reductio ad absurdum.

Imagine if Ehlers decided to play the whole game skating backwards. Would it be foolish for Maurice to correct this behavior? After all, we don't have any statistical analysis of players who do this. Maybe Ehlers even ends up Corsi positive while doing so. Do we then say, well I guess it's OK? Of course not. The proper response is to correct the behavior. If he can play so well skating backwards, he'll be a monster doing things properly (skating forwards).

It seems to me the mistake being made here is to ignore established, non-statistical knowledge (sharking is bad, skating forward is good). Of course, not all traditional, established knowledge is perfect. But neither is statistical analysis, due to incomplete data, simplified analytical models, or confounding factors.

Both are valuable. Both tend to be good or bad at particular things relating to hockey. I trust stats to give me a pretty accurate measure of a player's current contribution to winning a game. I trust stats to give a reasonably good prediction of future success.

I trust coaching, training, and established hockey knowledge to improve a player's technique, strength, and other "inputs" into the Corsi machine that maximizes a player's effectiveness.

As we move forward into the high tech future of sport, analytics may have more and more to say about all aspects of the game. (And it certainly has identified some gaps in established wisdom already.) But we're not quite there yet.

Agree. For young players it's not so much how they are playing now, but how do you get them to become the most effective players they can be. Shot metrics are obviously very important, but there are other factors that contribute to an individual player's contribution to a winner.

Hockey has high frequency events (shot attempts) and low frequency events (goals). The main reason that the Corsi stat is a statistically better predictor of future goals etc. than goal-based stats is that it has much less statistical variability. Still, shot metrics clearly don't explain all of the variance in goal differentials and wins, so there are other factors involved. For low frequency events like goals, a higher frequency of defensive breakdowns that result in very high quality scoring chances seem likely to be part of the reason why a statistic like shot attempts doesn't explain an exceedingly high proportion of the variation in goal differentials. Sure, a lot of the variation is luck, but a team that is generally good on shot metrics but has a lot of defensive breakdowns seems likely to perform more poorly in terms of goal differentials.

A coach's job is not only to instill a system and deploy players that will consistently have good shot metrics, but also to ensure that there aren't a lot of defensive breakdowns that result in 2-on-1 and breakaways, or bad defensive coverage in the defensive zone that leads to very high quality chances. That's probably why Maurice also alludes to looking at stats on high-quality chances against (as a team, for individuals and for combinations of individuals).

 

[cbcwpg]

Did anyone else get the sense there is a timing aspect to the plan they are on? Maurice kind of mentioned the teams that are good now might not be. I get the sense they want to be among the next wave of good teams just as Chicago LAK etc...are fading away.

I think it's a good plan to be on the up when some of the central is on the down. But, there probably will be one or two teams in the central with some longer term staying power. We may have to beat out the Minn, St.L, or Nash teams when they are on the down. I could really see Chi being strong for a long time yet.

 

[Puckatron 3000]

@Grind cool. I pretty much agree, or can follow the thought process of everything in your last post. I trust your instincts far more than my own on how well NHL clubs are using stats.

Did anyone else get the sense there is a timing aspect to the plan they are on? Maurice kind of mentioned the teams that are good now might not be. I get the sense they want to be among the next wave of good teams just as Chicago LAK etc...are fading away.

Yep. Far more than just a sense. IMHO it was clear as day. That was definitely a significant part of the interview worth pointing out.

 

[Puckatron 3000]

I can imagine, when discussing the strategy around the youth movement, they looked our current roster vs. the central div teams and said, this is a losing battle.

The move from the SE to central may have played a non-trivial part in the ultimate decision to rebuild/refocus around the youth. Of course you need a great team to win a SC either way. But the path through the central is brutal. And you're less likely to even get a respectable playoff showing in the central without a very strong team.