Maple Leafs hire Kyle Dubas as AGM. Poulin/Loiselle gone.

[BigTuna]

First great move by Shanahan.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by SHOGUN

I just remember hearing Burke/Treliving saying that he doesn't like analytics, something along those words...

Burke said the oft quoted, "Stats are like a lamppost to a drunk, useful for support but not illumination."

His main objection with what people are now calling "advanced statistics" or "analytics" is that they are not particularly advanced or analytical. His teams have been doing analysis on stats similar to these for years, they just didn't give them fancy names.

What will make Burke excited is a system that will tell him to draft Player X instead of Player Y, when all of his scouts and every scouting service has Player Y ranked higher. It also needs to be a system that when all is said and done, Player X ends up having the better career, and it needs to be correct consistently and repeatedly.



As for Treliving, I don't remember the exact quote, but when he was hired he said something like, the Flames will lead the league in information.

[FAN]

Originally Posted by handgroen

a 27 year old AGM.
bwahaha we shall see. Would love to pick the brain of someone like burke on this

Nonis was pretty young himself when Burke promoted him to AGM. But they're buddy buddies of course.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Uh, from the Flames Hockey Operations site

PUCKS is not analytics.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

PUCKS is not analytics.

Okay, so inform us?

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Okay, so inform us?

Pucks is essentially a game review application. It helps you break down the game into important segments, but it has nothing to do with hockey analytics as you and I understand it.

Sure, it can help you calculate analytics in that you can review the game, but it doesn't do any calculations or provide any insight of the sort.

Edit: the Flames had a video a while ago about it. It essentially combines relatively basic stats (like those found on NHL.com) with game video.



Snow even says that the team has to keep track of important stats that the system doesn't do.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Pucks is essentially a game review application. It helps you break down the game into important segments, but it has nothing to do with hockey analytics as you and I understand it.

Sure, it can help you calculate analytics in that you can review the game, but it doesn't do any calculations or provide any insight of the sort.

Edit: the Flames had a video a while ago about it. It essentially combines relatively basic stats (like those found on NHL.com) with game video.



Snow even says that the team has to keep track of important stats that the system doesn't do.

Thanks again but with Snow coming from a baseball background in Boston, he probably has a similar analytics set up as well as using PUCKS.

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Thanks again but with Snow coming from a baseball background in Boston, he probably has a similar analytics set up as well as using PUCKS.

You're right. I just don't know anything about that.

All I meant to say was that using PUCKS does not mean a team relies or even uses analytics. Though yes, in combination with other tools, it will help.

[Ro]

A few things stood out to me re: this hire-

1- Shanahan mentioned that their initial meeting/interview lasted 7 hours, during which time Dubas was teaching Shanny things he didn't know about the game.

2- Shanny mentioned several times just how intelligent Dubas was. It was a point of emphasis. The kid must have really impressed him.

3- Shanahan said that metrics/advanced stats were "scary words" no one mentioned in meetings, and he wanted to change the culture a bit in the front office and get everyone thinking a little differently.

4- "Somebody is gonna hire this kid really soon. I wanted it to be my team." - Shanahan re: Dubas


How could you not love this as a Leafs fan? Would loved to have him brought in here.

[Beatle17]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Pucks is essentially a game review application. It helps you break down the game into important segments, but it has nothing to do with hockey analytics as you and I understand it.

Sure, it can help you calculate analytics in that you can review the game, but it doesn't do any calculations or provide any insight of the sort.



Snow even says that the team has to keep track of important stats that the system doesn't do.

This isn't to question you but just using your comment to bring up a question I have. If a system like Pucks is a game review application what are all of the other analytics or advanced stats, don't they use game reviews to build their stats? Pucks visually shows what happened and advanced stats put it on paper.

I think what Burke wants is an advanced stat that doesn't rely on past stats analysis only, as most of these are hugely reliant on how good the team is. Corsi as an example will tell you how good Hall and Eberle are in Edmonton but visual, or Pucks type breakdowns, will actually show how badly they play the NHL game.

[Meers]

Welcome to the twenty-first century Toronto.

Dubas is as keen a hockey mind as is out there.

[bubbsy]

leafs hire analytics department:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/...port-1.2740784

It looks like the Toronto Maple Leafs think analytics could offer a solution to their Stanley Cup curse.
Greg Wyshynski of Yahoo's Puck Daddy blog reported Tuesday that the Leafs are creating an analytics department and are in the process of hiring three respected names from the advanced-stats set: Darryl Metcalf, who ran the blog ExtraSkater.com (now offline); Cam Charron, an advanced stats-savvy writer who has contributed to Yahoo Canada and Grantland.com; and Rob Pettapiece, who worked with Yahoo Sports' Buzzing The Net junior hockey blog.
The new hires would likely report to assistant general manager Kyle Dubas, Wyshynski reported.

also funny is that they quote the following steve simmons tweet in the above article:

steve simmons ✔ @simmonssteve Follow I like the hiring of Darryl Metcalf. I dislike the hiring of Cam Charron, who from my experiences is a weasel who can't be trusted.

in any case, if i were a leaf fan, i'd be pretty happy with this. in a non-cap era, the leafs have done next to nothing (other than meaningless things like being one of the first teams to do annual father road trips...) to use their massive profits to better their competitive advantage. I realize advanced stats and their importance is a never-ending debate (today), but trying something innovative and creating a whole department to manage this area is a great idea on trying to use all that money to try to actually make a better team.

[Ashasx]

Simmons has acted completely unprofessional through all of this. Mirtle called him out for being a hypocrite and he replied with this:

steve simmons@simmonssteve · 2h
When you find your name in my column @mirtle call me. Until then, go back to tweeting answers to questions you don't have the balls to ask.

Just embarrassing.

Anyway, sucks that we lose the extraskater website. Still waiting for the Flames to make a move before all the good numbers guys are gone.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Simmons has acted completely unprofessional through all of this.

When you say "through all of this", I assume you mean his entire career.

A couple of years ago, I saw him on a show where he was laughing about trying to get Bob Johnson's work visa blocked when the Flames hired him because he didn't think an American should be coaching a Canadian team. He is by-far the worst person to ever cover the Flames for one of the local papers, and that's saying a lot considering Eric Francis and Bruce Dowbiggin have done it too.

[MissTeeks]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Anyway, sucks that we lose the extraskater website. Still waiting for the Flames to make a move before all the good numbers guys are gone.

Harrison Mooney had this tweet last week:

“@HarrisonMooney: They were, and they did. RT @clayTRON8000 rumoured flames looking for another stats guy....”

No name sadly.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by MissTeeks

Harrison Mooney had this tweet last week:

“@HarrisonMooney: They were, and they did. RT @clayTRON8000 rumoured flames looking for another stats guy....”

No name sadly.

Maybe the Flames will break the trend and hire *GASP* an actual trained statistician instead of a journalist or a blogger.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Maybe the Flames will break the trend and hire *GASP* an actual trained statistician instead of a journalist or a blogger.

No doubt...it's more a case of loudest and time on their hands over smart.

Our res eng guys come up with better stuff than Corsi/Fenwick, but they have jobs so they don't write one sided arguments on a blog.

Embarrassing that teams are bush league enough to hire these jokers...go grab some stats geeks from MIT and teach them about hockey.

[Tinordi]

What makes someone a "statistician" a degree? I'll take the guys who both understand stats and are applying them to hockey.

Good for Cam Charron. His work on Canucks Army was very impressive. Glad to see the hard work that all these guys have poured into coming up with statistical analysis of hockey paying off.

My prediction of the value of these stats departments is two-fold. It will help alot with coaching and it should avoid GMs making egregiously bad signings in the offseason. An empowered stats team, for example, would have pretty much nixed that Clarkson signing right away.

The grail of stats is in actually helping build a team composition. Stats can point out where you've gone wrong but they're still weak in providing insight in where to go right. Again, that's a problem with ALL statistics. They use ex post data to describe what happened. Their application to the future is still subject to alot of uncertainty.

Again though, this is just more evidence that there's a revolution going on in how hockey decisions are made. The days of a cigar-chomping alpha-manager yelling on the phone to get a deal done and going with his gut are over. It's very interesting to see the innumerate classes of know-nothing story weavers populating the Sports pages of major tabloids become so threatened. It's because they should. Stats are pretty much eroding away many of the popular but fundamentally flawed narratives and prognotistications of the game that these guys peddle.

The question for the Flames is are they on the wave or off?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

What makes someone a "statistician" a degree?

Well yes. But the degree is merely a reflection of one's successful comprehension and application of skills derived from the years of specialised training.

Originally Posted by Tinordi

...I'll take the guys who both understand stats and are applying them to hockey.

So would I, but I'm not at all convinced that the bloggers I am most familiar with have enough of a clear understanding of how to do advanced statistics to make them altogether useful. I imagine that I could read a book or take a basic introductory course and produce the same sorts of analyses. But I am also fairly confident that this limited "training" would no doubt fail at various points in my amateur attempts to measure, apply, and interpret data.

*EDIT* Upon further reflection, I now wonder how useful it is to be both a competent observer of the sport and a trained statistician. I am now starting to think that certain benefits would follow from an entirely blind system of data processing. How much does one's own expectations and intuitions actually interfere with statistical results?

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

*EDIT* Upon further reflection, I now wonder how useful it is to be both a competent observer of the sport and a trained statistician. I am now starting to think that certain benefits would follow from an entirely blind system of data processing. How much does one's own expectations and intuitions actually interfere with statistical results?

What do you mean?

The numbers are the numbers. Your own expectations and intuitions won't change the numbers.


They would change your interpretation of the numbers, but I doubt the GMs and other managers are going to be relying on the stats guys to interpret all of the stats for them.

I think it is more likely that they use these guys to get the raw numbers and then they interpret the stats themselves.