Brad "Frickin" Treliving

[Bingo]

That the GM hires a coach to change the style of play towards possession which worked. What didn’t work was the coaching staff’s ability to manage adversity and the mental side of the game.

Enter Peters who has possession with more snarl.


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[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by bubbsy

What's bingo's position/rebuttal exactly?? Advanced stats show coaching was ok?

That coaching wasn't "As Bad" as some make it out to be.


I will agree the Flames had some 'bad luck' last year. They hit more posts and crossbars then I can remember. They missed wide empty nets. And they let in a lot of bad goals.


However, I think it can be both. They can have had bad luck and a terrible coach/system. They weren't a bounce or 2 away from a successful season.



They finished 11 points out of the playoffs. If we want to be a top team we need to make up 20 points this year. Even if 6-10 come from better luck, we still need to make up another 10 on skill and better coaching.

[Lanny_McDonald]

That the GM hires a coach to change the style of play towards possession which worked.



Clearly it didn't. Puck possession only works if it turns into goals and keeps the puck away from the other team so they don't score against you. To use a football analogy, the Flames had a team that supposedly had a great ground game and managed to maintain the ball with long time consuming drives to the red zone. They couldn't punch the ball in, but they ground up the clock. Unfortunately the majority of teams they played managed to score majors while using little time from the clock. Clearly the ball/puck possession game worked.



What didn’t work was the coaching staff’s ability to manage adversity and the mental side of the game.



Well, that and the obviously flawed systems put into place. When you expect perfection in a game where chaos reigns supreme you are ultimately expecting your team to fail. Gulutzan was a terrible coach for the reasons you point out, but also because he game plans and systems were faulty. The fact that we go to a coach who employs the same systems should be a point of concern and make one wonder about Treliving's competence at selecting coaches. Peter's being the same but with more bark doesn't instill confidence. He needs to be a better manager of his players and bench. The preseason and the first 20 games of the season will be very interesting to watch. I'm hoping for something that is a stark contrast to Gulutzan, and not more of the same, but with more bark.

[bubbsy]

I think i agree with a bit of both your positions....

It wasn't Gulutzans fault or style that resulted in only 1 goal from the bottom 6 for a quarter of the year, or Brodie/hamonic looking useless together.

It was his inability to do what other good coaches do, adapt, switch things up, to try to ignite a change.

Gulutzan gets a complete grade F in my books as an nhl level head coach. So glad he is no longer a flame.

[Doc Hudson]

Originally Posted by New Era

[IMG] This isn't baseball where any event is binary in nature.

This is a weird statement, how is baseball binary?

He scores/not scores is binary, you can make many data types fit into a "binary" form. But, baseball also has more possible outcomes other that hit or miss.

[Jay Random]

‘Binary’ is the wrong word. Baseball is a game of discrete events. In hockey the action is continuous, and every player on the ice has the potential to affect it at any given moment – which means it cannot be perfectly described by a general mathematical solution. The most you'll be able to do with statistics is find trends and correlations – but you will, New Era to the contrary, be able to do that much.

It's rather like the n-body problem in gravitation. You can never perfectly analyse the orbital motions of all the bodies in our solar system, because they all affect one another in complex ways. But you can make predictions to a very high degree of accuracy. Hockey, of course, is less predictable because hockey players (as a rule) are capable of making their own choices and planets aren't. But those choices are highly constrained by the situation, and you can measure a player's value by the use he makes of the choices available to him.

[The Boy Wonder]

I think my thoughts on GG's system and why it sucked was that he didn't actually

a) change things up

b) put his less skilled players in a position to score goals.

When your bottom six struggles with scoring but is playing your system then the system is flawed.

To my eye, and no analytics can prove this one way or the other yet because they don't account for how many defenders are back, speed of zone entry, etc. but what it looked like was the GG system worked for JG, Mony, and other skilled players, but the bottom six was advancing the puck slowly (but as a unit as GG wanted) but there were almost always multiple defenders back behind the puck.

The top teams seemed to create more off the rush than the flames. Boston, Tampa, and Vegas, all were gaining the zone with more regularity of having fewer defenders to get through.

while a Jonny Hockey is skilled enough to score despite numbers, we regularly saw that the bottom six were not.

But the refusal to try different things was what truly killed the GG team

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by New Era

That the GM hires a coach to change the style of play towards possession which worked.



Clearly it didn't. Puck possession only works if it turns into goals and keeps the puck away from the other team so they don't score against you. To use a football analogy, the Flames had a team that supposedly had a great ground game and managed to maintain the ball with long time consuming drives to the red zone. They couldn't punch the ball in, but they ground up the clock. Unfortunately the majority of teams they played managed to score majors while using little time from the clock. Clearly the ball/puck possession game worked.

Any system that shows a lion's share of scoring chances did work.

I think the system creates a positive balance of opportunities to score, and the players are responsible to finish. They didn't. You don't coach to miss nets and hit iron.

All this said I wasn't a fan of everything that Gulutzan did, namely deployment and the lean on D to D pass with every break out, but clearly his system did fine in generating scoring chances.


What didn’t work was the coaching staff’s ability to manage adversity and the mental side of the game.

Originally Posted by New Era

Well, that and the obviously flawed systems put into place. When you expect perfection in a game where chaos reigns supreme you are ultimately expecting your team to fail. Gulutzan was a terrible coach for the reasons you point out, but also because he game plans and systems were faulty. The fact that we go to a coach who employs the same systems should be a point of concern and make one wonder about Treliving's competence at selecting coaches. Peter's being the same but with more bark doesn't instill confidence. He needs to be a better manager of his players and bench. The preseason and the first 20 games of the season will be very interesting to watch. I'm hoping for something that is a stark contrast to Gulutzan, and not more of the same, but with more bark.

I think you can lump certain coaches into groups by style, but to say they deploy the same system is a stretch.

Peters has less east / west in the break out, faster transition, a huge dependency on face offs for controlling the play, and way better forecheck and pressure tendencies according to data.

They're not the same.

Possession yes, but there's more than one way to play under that headline.

[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Doc Hudson

This is a weird statement, how is baseball binary?

He scores/not scores is binary, you can make many data types fit into a "binary" form. But, baseball also has more possible outcomes other that hit or miss.

Statistics in baseball are extremely binary in nature. They are one-to-one events. Pitcher throws the ball - was it a ball or a strike? Pitcher vs hitter - was the hitter out or did the batter reach base? Ball was hit to the third baseman - did he record the out or not? The rules are black and white and very rigid which allows for very accurate data collection. Hockey is not like that at all, because there is potential for multiple bodies to act as an influence on an event that does not exist in baseball. This makes data collection much more difficult and less pure as more uncontrolled variables influence possible outcomes.

Originally Posted by Jay Random

‘Binary’ is the wrong word. Baseball is a game of discrete events. In hockey the action is continuous, and every player on the ice has the potential to affect it at any given moment – which means it cannot be perfectly described by a general mathematical solution. The most you'll be able to do with statistics is find trends and correlations – but you will, New Era to the contrary, be able to do that much.

Very loose trends and no correlations. Go take an advanced stats class and then try and tell me these “advanced stats” meet rigor. Much of what is discussed requires multivariate data collection and analysis, and the data does not meet rigor to do so. The vast majority of these stats are very basic analyses which are not capable of modeling complex environments like those being discussed. I learned a long time ago what simple stats can and cannot model. Hockey has too much chaos in the mix to properly model with such simplistic terms.

It's rather like the n-body problem in gravitation. You can never perfectly analyse the orbital motions of all the bodies in our solar system, because they all affect one another in complex ways. But you can make predictions to a very high degree of accuracy. Hockey, of course, is less predictable because hockey players (as a rule) are capable of making their own choices and planets aren't. But those choices are highly constrained by the situation, and you can measure a player's value by the use he makes of the choices available to him.

This thing is that those bodies behave in the same way, all the time. The rules of physics make predictive modeling possible. The rules of hockey, and the number of variable that can take place influencing any one event, make it extremely difficult to model. For instance, a shot from the boards bounces off multiple bodies on the way to the net and finds its way into the goal. Does that count the same as a clear shot? Should the goaltender be penalized for that? I don’t see an infielder getting charged with an error when the ball goes off an obstruction. Again, the complexities of the game make it very difficult to model using very simple statistics. As you lauded to, the fact that players have the ability to make their own decisions, and operate beyond the rules, makes the game that much more difficult to model. The black and white nature of events becomes much more gray and cloudy because of the chaos on the ice.

[Doc Hudson]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Hockey, of course, is less predictable because hockey players (as a rule) are capable of making their own choices and planets aren't. But those choices are highly constrained by the situation, and you can measure a player's value by the use he makes of the choices available to him.

Thanks.. and to be clear, I do stats all the time and just could see how the word binary was being used there.

I think that all sports are constrained to some degree and none of the events are independent, so for sure this is an analysis problem. But that is what makes sports fun to watch!

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by New Era

Statistics in baseball are extremely binary in nature. They are one-to-one events. Pitcher throws the ball - was it a ball or a strike? Pitcher vs hitter - was the hitter out or did the batter reach base? Ball was hit to the third baseman - did he record the out or not? The rules are black and white and very rigid which allows for very accurate data collection. Hockey is not like that at all, because there is potential for multiple bodies to act as an influence on an event that does not exist in baseball. This makes data collection much more difficult and less pure as more uncontrolled variables influence possible outcomes.



Very loose trends and no correlations. Go take an advanced stats class and then try and tell me these “advanced stats” meet rigor. Much of what is discussed requires multivariate data collection and analysis, and the data does not meet rigor to do so. The vast majority of these stats are very basic analyses which are not capable of modeling complex environments like those being discussed. I learned a long time ago what simple stats can and cannot model. Hockey has too much chaos in the mix to properly model with such simplistic terms.



This thing is that those bodies behave in the same way, all the time. The rules of physics make predictive modeling possible. The rules of hockey, and the number of variable that can take place influencing any one event, make it extremely difficult to model. For instance, a shot from the boards bounces off multiple bodies on the way to the net and finds its way into the goal. Does that count the same as a clear shot? Should the goaltender be penalized for that? I don’t see an infielder getting charged with an error when the ball goes off an obstruction. Again, the complexities of the game make it very difficult to model using very simple statistics. As you lauded to, the fact that players have the ability to make their own decisions, and operate beyond the rules, makes the game that much more difficult to model. The black and white nature of events becomes much more gray and cloudy because of the chaos on the ice.

Then it's your fault.

If you want to call counting a model you're never going to be happy. The thing is ... that's all it is and why you shouldn't be so afraid of it ... counting.

If you count the number of times teams make shot attempts and not shots in a given area it takes out a lot of the noise that you are trying to avoid because it isn't interpretive.

Shots on goal will get blocked, scoring chances will get shot wide ... but by counting the number of occurrences that happen in certain areas of the ice that don't get binned you get a very simple, honest count by team.

It's not meant to be conclusionary, it's a count that leads to most relatable outcomes.

Teams that get more shot attempts tend to have more possession.
Teams that get more shot attempts within home plate tend to get more scoring chances.
These teams tend to win more often than not.

And how many coaches would suggest anything other than get shots from in close?

The key is to not boast they are more than that and you keep the simplicity on your side.

The Flames were top 5 in shot attempts
The Flames were top 5 in shot attempts within home plate.
My study showed the Flames top nine forwards were consistent in both behind the net passes and across the royal road passes with the game's best offences.

Those counting stats really can't be argued.

What can be argued is the conclusion ... Flames were unlucky and I'm fine with that.

[Lanny_McDonald]

And I’m fine with you believing something ridiculous. Flames were just unlucky. That is something Oilers fans were saying when they dreamed up half of these advanced stats to make themselves feel better about bad play. The reality is the Flames played a bad and very predictable system. When you know what they are going to do, it is easy t defend against. I mean, like was any team surprised the Flames would start moving forward then make a back pass to a guy rushing up the ice? They were PREDICTABLE, and it didn’t take anyone counting those back passes to figure out what was going to happen. All it took was watching a few games. The Flames were the same no-trick pony for much of the season and it became easier to defend against. When you know that a pitcher only has a fast ball you get to sit on it and the results speak for themselves.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Bingo

No stat is infallible, but no stat should be ignored because it can't be proven 100% linked to results either.

+/- has always been flawed because of circumstances that could build pluses or minuses despite not being the cause of good or bad.

Shots on goal used to mean you out played someone when really it only indicated that most of the time with no actual look to quality of shots

An independent source counting the number of times each team shoots the puck from within a predescribed area on the ice is an accurate and helpful tool. Not all shots from within that home plate are created equal but that doesn't change the fairly tight relationship that teams with more shot attempts in those dangerous areas generally win.

I've done nothing but challenge fancy stats. I just wrote an article that dug deeply into the types of passes each team makes to try and add some clarity as to whether or not the Flames were getting goalies moving enough to actually create a dangerous chance.

I challenge everything.

I don't throw out any information out of some archaic view that the scoreboard is the only thing that matters.

I see the value of analytics. I am also one who was not pleased with the style of play under Gulutzan. I really liked how VGK played the game.

I think it would be a good exercise if we could all re-watch one (a few) games from last season where the Flames had great possession numbers (and had Smith in net and were still in the race), a lot of high danger chances but lost.

It would be great to see how the numbers related to video or 'eye' after the fact. Certainly there must be some way to do this. Compare it a VGK game where they had great possession and high danger chances and see the difference between VGK and CGY quality of chances.

I certainly could be wrong when I said CGY just didn't play a good system, perhaps my in the moment fandom tainted my experience - but I just thought VGK style was much better than CGY and produced much higher quality chances.

[Gaskal]

League average shooting % is around 9.1%. Here are the 2017-18 Flames:

Michael Frolik: 5.2
Matt Stajan: 5.7
Sam Bennett: 5.8
Curtis Lazar: 5.9
Troy Brouwer: 6.2
Michael Stone: 6.6
Travis Hamonic: 6.8
Mikael Backlund: 7.0
Mark Jankowski: 7.2
Brett Kulak: 7.2
Garnet Hathaway: 7.7
Dougie Hamilton: 7.9
Mark Giordano: 8.1
TJ Brodie: 8.1
Matthew Tkachuk: 8.5
Micheal Ferland: 10.1
Johnny Gaudreau: 10.4
Sean Monahan: 10.7

And here are the newcomers:

Noah Hanifin 7.6
Derek Ryan 8.3
Elias Lindholm 8.7
James Neal 11.5

If just half of the sub 0.091 shooters increase back towards the mean, we should see quite a bit more offense even if Gaudreau-Monahan-Neal regress a bit.

[Moneyhands23]

BT will be up on fan960 in 15 minutes 5mt

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by New Era

And I’m fine with you believing something ridiculous. Flames were just unlucky.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Bingo meant to suggest that "luck" accounts for everything that went wrong with the Flames last season. By and large, I think it is also shortsighted to dismiss how much the randomness of luck factors into a team's success for failure over the course of a full season.

That is something Oilers fans were saying when they dreamed up half of these advanced stats to make themselves feel better about bad play. The reality is the Flames played a bad and very predictable system. When you know what they are going to do, it is easy t defend against. I mean, like was any team surprised the Flames would start moving forward then make a back pass to a guy rushing up the ice? They were PREDICTABLE, and it didn’t take anyone counting those back passes to figure out what was going to happen. All it took was watching a few games. The Flames were the same no-trick pony for much of the season and it became easier to defend against. When you know that a pitcher only has a fast ball you get to sit on it and the results speak for themselves.

So, you have now changed the tack of your argument, which was originally:

Originally Posted by New Era

...Throwing a ton of pucks at the net from low percentage areas does not trump a few pucks from high percentage areas. The Flames can skate around the perimeter and throw pucks from outside all night and all they do is generate a lot of shots with no goals...

While I think you are now more on-point with your "predictability" narrative, you would also do well to acknowledge that there were certainly elements of the coach's system last season that did work: namely, the team was able to control the puck in the offensive zone, and to generate high-quality scoring chances with a high level of consistency.

This is in large part what Bingo is getting at, and which various models help to identify: The Flames need to improve in areas beyond their ability to possess and control the puck, which appear to be just fine.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Gaskal

League average shooting % is around 9.1%. Here are the 2017-18 Flames:

Michael Frolik: 5.2
Matt Stajan: 5.7
Sam Bennett: 5.8
Curtis Lazar: 5.9
Troy Brouwer: 6.2
Michael Stone: 6.6
Travis Hamonic: 6.8
Mikael Backlund: 7.0
Mark Jankowski: 7.2
Brett Kulak: 7.2
Garnet Hathaway: 7.7
Dougie Hamilton: 7.9
Mark Giordano: 8.1
TJ Brodie: 8.1
Matthew Tkachuk: 8.5
Micheal Ferland: 10.1
Johnny Gaudreau: 10.4
Sean Monahan: 10.7

And here are the newcomers:

Noah Hanifin 7.6
Derek Ryan 8.3
Elias Lindholm 8.7
James Neal 11.5

If just half of the sub 0.091 shooters increase back towards the mean, we should see quite a bit more offense even if Gaudreau-Monahan-Neal regress a bit.

As is often pointed out, not all players are created equal in their ability to create goals, which is why some players like Neal and Monahan have historically high shooting percentages. But what that breakdown does show is a significant drop in career-average shooting percentages for an inordinately high number of players, including Frolik, Bennett, Brodie and Backlund.

[Bingo]

Man you haven’t changed since the old days; can’t make a point without salacious insults.

I’ve never said anything is all luck or just because of luck. Heck I’ve never said mostly luck.

Teams that have high shot attempt splits, high shots on goal splits, high scoring chance splits and a number of players that have had their career shooting percentages halved have experienced some strange bounces

That isn’t ridiculous at all.




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[squiggs96]

If you get sick when you go to McDonald's. That's their fault. If you continue to go back to McDonald's, or bring McDonald's into your home, and continue to get sick, that's your own fault. Instead of complaining about McDonald's, maybe remove it from your life.

[FlamesFanTrev]

Originally Posted by squiggs96

If you get sick when you go to McDonald's. That's their fault. If you continue to go back to McDonald's, or bring McDonald's into your home, and continue to get sick, that's your own fault. Instead of complaining about McDonald's, maybe remove it from your life.

Dude, what's your "100% real beef" with McDonald's?