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News Article: Sens hire DJ Smith as head coach

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Tuna99 said:
Analytics don’t mean much because St Louis had the worst analytics in the game for half the season and are going to win in the Cup.

Eye test before all. Heart, Grit, Patience and belief still win games over recording how many 2 zone passes a player can make
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Have to agree with this.

Analylitics work really well in MLB, where all the players are stationary, before the ball is put in play, and set up for whomever the batter is, and his tenancies vs a Left or Right Handed batter, in whatever situation he's in ........ number of outs, runners on base, score of the game etc.
 
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Tnuoc Alucard said:
Have to agree with this.

Analylitics work really well in MLB, where all the players are stationary, before the ball is put in play, and set up for whomever the batter is, and his tenancies vs a Left or Right Handed batter, in whatever situation he's in ........ number of outs, runners on base, score of the game etc.
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Baseball is a sport with a very finite number of potential outcomes. It makes sense that it's far more "solved" as a sport than hockey. That doesn't make analytics useless – just not as predictive yet. There's still a use for them in specific contexts. Though, as Bonk points out, they're ideally used for illumination rather than support.
 
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Tuna99 said:
Analytics don’t mean much because St Louis had the worst analytics in the game for half the season and are going to win in the Cup.

Eye test before all. Heart, Grit, Patience and belief still win games over recording how many 2 zone passes a player can make
Click to expand...

Just curious, but how did their advanced stats change after the half-way point?

I mean, they had the worst analytics in the first half, but they were also the worst team in the league. Just wondering if their advanced stats trended in the same direction as their spot in the standings.
 
stempniaksen said:
Just curious, but how did their advanced stats change after the half-way point?

I mean, they had the worst analytics in the first half, but they were also the worst team in the league. Just wondering if their advanced stats trended in the same direction as their spot in the standings.
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They trended up though they were never among the worst. They were pretty much average. In general I think you would find teams have better analytics on a hot streak than on a cold streak, relative to there own performance. It's one thing to compare a teams performance in two halves, it's another thing to compare one team to another team and it's a whole different beast when you take analytics and attempt to compare players. That's where a lot of people fail with analytics.
 
Anyone here not over their Jacques fetish yet? Everyone argues Smith was a risky hire. With the way the league is going, I’d argue he was in fact quite low risk. Players will buy into him more than Martin, Bowness, and Crawford (obviously).
 
stempniaksen said:
Just curious, but how did their advanced stats change after the half-way point?

I mean, they had the worst analytics in the first half, but they were also the worst team in the league. Just wondering if their advanced stats trended in the same direction as their spot in the standings.
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I don't track it cloeely but heard Peirre Mcquire talking about analytics (he's not a huge fan) - ever since Patrcik Wericoche was an analytics darling in Ottawa and now he's a -11 in the KHL - I've never had faith.

Big Teams, Gritty teams, good goaltending, elite Dmen - bottom 6 players who can challenge top line players, a couple of players who make you believe you can win - all the same ingredients to winning hockey since I've been watching. And St Louis and Boston are the epitome of these elements. Washington was that last year, L.A. was, Chicago was, Detroit, New Jersey, Colorado - Pitt didn't have the most elite D 2 years ago but Jacques Martin had them all playing excellent, clean hockey and the group of 6 as a whole was praised all playoffs.
 
BondraTime said:
He's one of 2 guys working on analytics for the Sens, the other being Elias Collette, more than enough background in analytics

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That was an interesting chat with Elias Collette, thanks, I didn’t know about him. Hedge fund traders and Econometric modellers have some obvious mathematical tools in their arsenal that can be adapted for hockey analytics.

Interesting how he was noting the immense amounts of objective hockey data out there, data being the plutonium of our times as Jim Balsillie noted recently, to which econometric modelling techniques can provide pretty sophisticated insights with their ability to isolate variables. And as he noted, take advantage of context like injuries causing performance dips, or Alfie playing on the 2nd line always because by himself he makes it a 2nd line that is hard to pick up from my couch.

He made an interesting point about how usually academic research on new modelling techniques is always available for all, but more and more now hockey analytics is getting a lot of proprietary techniques snapped up by the pro teams and not made available in the public domain, as if they were google algorithms or something.

So I guess when I think of analytics I tend to think of things like corsi even war etc, but some of the analytics currently in use may be far more intriguing than we currently think of. And I do remember a few times a hockey announcer quoting a stat where I went, wow, they actually figured out how to measure that?
 
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Some of the answers here are pretty funny,,

"It's the Senators so probably like a bus pass and a Rexall discount card."
"The McDonalds gift cards Andrew Hammond got that Melnyk (I’m sure) repossessed."
 
I've never been a fan of analytics, there are just too many variables in hockey that are not taken into account that can skew results or that can't be measured. I'm not saying that they not use them but to evaluate players on all aspects of the game including heart, determination, competitive spirit, willingness to engage & courage.

On DJ Smith, like every other coach I'm willing to give him a chance but I hope he doesn't try & turn the Sens into another soft version of the stinking Leafs. I would hope that he would take a lesson from these playoffs & see how tough playoff hockey can be & build a team bearing that in mind. They have plenty of players/prospects that have some of the qualities & skill packages required such as speed, grit, skill, size, strength, smarts & never quit attitude & determination. His job will be to put together the most players/prospects with these characteristics who are high achievers into a team that is very hard to play against. If he can get them to play a fast & determined defensive game, the offence will come at some point.
 
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Micklebot said:
Hartsburg by far. Also if he counts, Paddock.
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On par with Hartsburg and Paddock, but they came in at a time where I didn't feel we needed a "big name" quite as much as I felt we did this time. With this incredibly mediocre roster, guys like Martin or Roy or a highly coveted coach like Keefe would have at least brought a bit more excitement imo.
 
L'Aveuglette said:
On par with Hartsburg and Paddock, but they came in at a time where I didn't feel we needed a "big name" quite as much as I felt we did this time. With this incredibly mediocre roster, guys like Martin or Roy or a highly coveted coach like Keefe would have at least brought a bit more excitement imo.
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I don't disagree that he wasn't the sexiest pick but Hartsburg was just plain bad and i couldn't think of any reason to believe he would be successful when we hired him other than our roster was too good to fail.
 
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FormentonTheFuture said:
Why’s that? Apparently works well with young players. I think getting anybody with his experience is good.

Smith, Capuano, Kelly would be decent, or if Jim Playfair is an option he’d be good too
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Ever seen the clip of Playfair losing his mind on the bench in the AHL a number of years ago? Now THAT is the kind of intensity we need. :-) Seriously, though, I understand that he was heading to Edmonton to be with Tippett, for whom he worked with the Coyotes...
 
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