[News] USA Olympic Roster announced

[SuperMatt18]

Funny thing is that Burke is a frequent participant of the Sloan Sports Conference and has been involved in the panels there for years.

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=251

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=4550

[Locke]

Oh, and yeah, that affiliated team wound up getting relegated, firing their coach and firing the reserve team coach.

Statistics FTW! They'll solve all your problems.

[Major Major]

Originally Posted by Flash Walken

It's facile to say Burke dismisses analytics of comprehensive statistically based analysis.

Pourquoi

[Huntingwhale]

I didn't see this article posted anywhere in this thread, so I'll just leave this here.

http://espn.go.com/olympics/hockey/s...pics-was-named

For the past four months, Scott Burnside was one of only two writers in the country who had unprecedented, behind-the-scenes access to the building of the U.S. hockey team bound for the Sochi Winter Olympics. Here is how the squad was named:

Brian Burke, who sits out the initial meeting, later telling ESPN.com that he purposefully avoided it because he wanted this to be Poile's meeting even though as director of player personnel for the Olympic team Burke will join Shero and Poile in Sochi.

Bobby Ryan was also in Vancouver and has been the most consistent of U.S.-born scorers, having tallied 30 or more goals four times for Anaheim before being dealt to Ottawa in the offseason. And yet there is surprising resistance to simply penciling him into a spot on the wing.

The issue is where he fits. If he's not a top-six forward, his skating doesn't really lend itself to him being a third-line checker. He cannot kill penalties, and while in Anaheim, he was not on the team's top power-play unit.

"I think he's sleepy. I think he skates sleepy," offers one member of the selection committee.


No one questioned Bobby Ryan's talent, but he made the U.S. decision-makers nervous.
Poile asks for a show of hands: "Are guys nervous about Bobby Ryan?" A flurry of hands go up in the air.
"That's a lot of guys," Poile note

Apparently Burke wasn't the only one who felt that way.

We as fans are always demanding more ''behind the scenes'' looks at the players we love to watch. Sadly with that access comes a more realistic view of how coaches and management view these players. And it's not always pretty. If we as fans want to be able to see behind the scenes and get a view of how things really go down, then we have to be prepared for some sort of controversy, especially when a reporter is allowed to attend.

I have absolutely no issue with what was said. Every single player on that squad, and every international squad, is going to be scrutinized like that. The Americans just happened to have a reporter in the room.

If you don't want Burke or any other GM to say something mean about another player, then you must like when NHL players and coaches give the same boring, stale interviews that everyone seems to complain about. I for one find it refreshing, and I hope the potential backlash of this doesn't impede other GMs from doing the same sort of format in the future.

[SuperMatt18]

Exactly CBC had their show yesterday about the making of team Canada, I would love to have access to all the cut footage from that tape and some insight into the actual arguments.

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

Funny thing is that Burke is a frequent participant of the Sloan Sports Conference and has been involved in the panels there for years.

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=251

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=4550

The funny thing is that he loves the sound of his voice so much that he goes there to slander the way that the people there think. "Stats are like a light post for a drunk."

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Dagger

The funny thing is that he loves the sound of his voice so much that he goes there to slander the way that the people there think. "Stats are like a light post for a drunk."

Because Stats are good for support but won't help you stand on your own.

It was a typical Brian Burke analogy, I guess you missed Peter Chiarelli stating very similar things to what Burke said.

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Yeah, Burke is arrogant and his claim that Anaheim's road to the cup was invented by Burke is false but now the Flames have a plan and it's a well proven plan that the Flames and others have used for success since organized hockey began.

I'm not saying building a big team is inherently wrong, just that the way that teams like Chicago, LA and Pittsburgh aren't adding size and getting big for the sake of it like Burke but carefully screening data to make the most informed choice they can. You see it with Lombardi making dossiers and videos on players and Burke more interested in discarding that for his own personal view. Jack Johnson for interested has proven to make his defensive partner worse and you have Burke up there saying he should have taken him 2nd overall.

[Dagger]

[QUOTE=SuperMatt18;4555843]Because Stats are good for support but won't help you stand on your own.

It was a typical Brian Burke analogy, I guess you missed Peter Chiarelli stating very similar things to

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Stats cannot teach you how to build a winning team. Burke has a lot of experience building teams. I'd take him over a stats guru every day of the week.

Pretty much. No sport is more micromanaged than the NFL with advanced measurements and stats and teams still strike out far more than they hit home runs in the draft. There's a certain eye and feel for talent that stats nerds will never have.

Pretty interesting how some Burke comments about a US player has turned into a "sky is falling" thread about how Burke will run the Flames into the ground. Just in case anyone forgot, the Flames were already into the ground when he got here.

[kyuss275]

Not sure why everybody is mad about what Burke said? If anybody is in the wrong it was USA hockey for letting a reporter to document everything on the record.

Just like in any meetings there are disagreements on things. Did people really think Burke would say "i don't want Ryan on the team" and leave it at that? He has to make a case why he does not want him on the team. Also reading the article it looks like others in the selection process agree with Burke.

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Stats cannot teach you how to build a winning team. Burke has a lot of experience building teams. I'd take him over a stats guru every day of the week.

Please explain. 4 of the last 5 cup winners use them extensively and Chiarelli uses his own plus/minus among other things to build his teams. Meanwhile Burke was fired from his last job as GM and he hadn't exactly left a dynasty behind.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Dagger

Please explain. 4 of the last 5 cup winners use them extensively and Chiarelli uses his own plus/minus among other things to build his teams. Meanwhile Burke was fired from his last job as GM and he hadn't exactly left a dynasty behind.

What are you talking about? Burke's Toronto Maple Leafs (Maple Leaves?) were a short 3rd period collapse away from winning the Stanley Cup last year!!

[Dagger]

Originally Posted by Locke

What are you talking about? Burke's Toronto Maple Leafs (Maple Leaves?) were a short 3rd period collapse away from winning the Stanley Cup last year!!

My mistake! If Burke had more chapter guys like Mike Komisarek they would have been ok!!

[Red John]

Three things:

1) This is why hockey execs almost never allow "back room access" to media in stuff like this. It's entertaining for fans but stuff becomes public and players get hurt by it. Bet hockey USA doesn't make that mistake again.

2) Brian Burke did NOTHING wrong. This wasn't supposed to be public knowledge, it was behind closed doors where stuff far worse than that gets said all the time about players. Fans want inside access into what really goes on - then complain about what they find.

3) The problem with advanced stats is that people treat them as evidence. They aren't. Watching games is evidence - what you see is evidence. Stats is just a way to describe on paper, the outcome of what you see on the ice. Most of the time, the stats will reflect and corroborate what you see and sometimes they won't.

Most NHL executives use advanced stats, but don't put an emphasis on them because they serve only to quantify what these guys already know from having watched the games. Moneyball was an entertaining film but it suggested that Billy Beane never watched games because stats could tell him everything. That was a lie - Billy doesn't watch his teams games because it helps him to detach emotionally and not make rash decisions based on what happened in one game.

Advanced stats are helpful but there's a reason it's 99% basement bloggers that keep trumpeting them. They don't describe what actually happened on the ice, only the result of those actions.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Dagger

Please explain. 4 of the last 5 cup winners use them extensively and Chiarelli uses his own plus/minus among other things to build his teams. Meanwhile Burke was fired from his last job as GM and he hadn't exactly left a dynasty behind.

According to an article from Scott Cullen there were 6 teams represented at the 2013 Conference.

Dallas, Edmonton, Minnesota, Tampa Bay, Vancouver and Washington

Also in the article it stated that 4 teams had full time analytic position's. Calgary, Buffalo, Minnesota, and Chicago.

Plus last I saw the Burke didn't instantly fire Chris Snow when he had the chance so he must be more favourable to stats then you are stating. He just doesn't feel that you should only be using stats to make the decision.

And for the record I like advanced stats and am supportive of them. I just think people are wrongly stating Burke as a guy who hates advanced stats. Also the whole advanced stats thing is still up to interpretation. Just because Burke maybe doesn't use Corsi doesn't mean that there isn't some tool that he uses to rate players.

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Stats cannot teach you how to build a winning team. Burke has a lot of experience building teams. I'd take him over a stats guru every day of the week.

This is from today. They tend to be right more often than not.
http://www.sbnation.com/nhl/2014/1/2...wAAAAAAAAwmAAA=




It's really not that complicated. You win hockey games by scoring more goals than the other team. You can accomplish this in one of three ways:

1. Score lots of goals;
2. Don't let the other team score much;
3. Both of the above.

Hockey players, like teams, are good at 1, 2 or 3. But all of these correlate to puck possession. Possession leads to scoring chances, and having more scoring chances lead to scoring more goals than the opposition. This is irrefutable:



It's also super obvious. Seriously, does anyone actually think the statement, "a team that generally has the puck more than its opposition tends to win most of its games" is surprising?

Now to this point,

its being able to know which statistics are relevant statistics and combine that with a knowledge of what you're applying those statistics to.

Correct. This isn't to say that possession stats are the be all end all of hockey. You also need guys who can finish, i.e. a decent shooting percentage (see NJD, who have goot possession numbers but don't have this). You need good goaltending (see TOR, who are only afloat right now because of team save %). And you need good special teams (see WSH who are actually getting outscored at evens but have a 25% PP).

New Jersey is the perfect example of this - they're a top 10 possession team quite comfortably, sporting a 52.8% Fenwick close. They're an average PP team and a very good PK team. However, they're last in the NHL in save percentage and 27th in shooting percentage at even strength with the score close.* So, they tend to generate more chances than the opposition's, but their chances turn into goals at a lower than average rate, while the opponents' chances turn into goals at a higher than average rate. Given that, having the puck more isn't enough to result in outscoring their opponents. In contrast, Toronto is 29th in the league in Fenwick close, but their sv% is top 5, and their PP is 6th, so they have a couple of things keeping them semi-afloat still. So, if you have these other things going for you, you can overcome bad possession numbers to some extent, and if you don't have them, then being a good possession team isn't enough.

But generally, goaltending and shooting percentage fall within a range of normalcy, and if you're outside that range, you can usually predict a regression to the norm. For example, New Jersey will probably not finish the year with a team save %age as low as .899 at even strength, while Toronto's .939 will probably drop a bit. Possession doesn't tend to vary as much. Possession also measures even strength play, which is when most goals are scored - while it's possible to have a team be handily beaten at even strength and have their special teams bail them out, over a longer stretch of games, usually the team that's better at evens will end up winning out.

Really, when you think about it, "advanced" stats aren't advanced. They tend to measure things that are pretty commonsense. Identify the purpose of the game: score more goals than the bad guys. Then consider what things lead to that: having the puck more than the other team (especially when the score is close), having good goaltending, and having good special teams. Teams that do this win a lot. None of this should surprise anyone.

*usually the "score close" situation is the most useful one, because teams who are trailing by more than a goal tend to outshoot the opposition while trying to catchup, while the team with the 5-1 lead or whatever tends to sit on it. See http://nhlnumbers.com/2013/12/5/score-effects-and-you

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by Red John

Advanced stats are helpful but there's a reason it's 99% basement bloggers that keep trumpeting them. They don't describe what actually happened on the ice, only the result of those actions.

This is not only wrong, it doesn't even make any sense. Of course stats describe what happened on the ice. Regardless of the stat, that's the case. The "goals" stat describes who scored how many goals. Plus / Minus describes who was on the ice for goals for their team and against their team.

The "watch the games" schtick has been so done to death by now it's absolutely laughable; those basement bloggers watch way, way more hockey than you do and pay much closer attention - these are the guys who re-watch every leafs game from last season holding a stop watch to see how much total time the Leafs had the puck compared to their opposition, or record every single Flyers zone entry as well as their opponents' to see how much more successful teams are when carrying the puck in as opposed to dumping and chasing.

So-called advanced stats are more predictive simply because goals themselves are a rare enough event that a certain amount of randomness plays into whether a goal is created, whereas shot totals create a larger sample size and as a result, you can discern a clearer pattern that has less randomness and noise. Which is why they're predictive of who's going to be successful at the end of the year - see quote from Kent below.

Originally Posted by SuperMatt18

There is no correlation to a team using advanced stats and being successful at this time.

There's certainly a correlation between being GOOD at "advanced stats" and being successful. From Kent Wilson of Flames Nation:

Since 2007-08 (not including last year), 75% (50/66) of teams with a possession ratio between 50-54.9% have made the playoffs, while 100% of clubs with a possession rate about 55% (8/8) have made the dance. On the other hand, just 31% of clubs with a corsi ratio below 50% made the playoffs over the same period (22/70), while no team below 44.9% made the dance.

[mikeecho]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

i'm willing to take my harsh criticism of burke's comments back. I thought these statements were made to the media directly, which it seems they were not.

Weren't they made to the media? When you let a reporter sit in on your meeting with full acces, anything you're saying is directly to the media and Burke knows this (and I suspect thrives on it).

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

There's certainly a correlation between being GOOD at "advanced stats" and being successful. From Kent Wilson of Flames Nation:

I agree 100% but there is no proof that those teams used advanced stats to make the decisions that allow them to be good at advanced stats.

My point is more that Chicago may use advanced stats but I don't think they drafted Toews and Kane because they had a strong Corsi in junior. Or that they use advanced stats to make personel decisions because that would mean they should trade Patrick Kane for Backlund since Backlund has a much better relative corsi then Patrick Kane.

The point is advanced stats are helpful but shouldn't be the be all end all for determining if a player is good.