[News] LeBrun/Dreger - Flames open for Business

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Fourteen FTW

Well, it’s pretty well align to the topic of conversation. I truly have no idea though .

OK, thanks. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing a hint.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Fourteen FTW

Well, case closed, right spurs? You can argue with a good scatterplot.

Case closed for what?

That article is arguing a different point to what I was talking about. In fact not sure it addresses any points that anyone brought up but I only quickly glanced at it.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Jason14h, who is saying that you CANNOT win the Stanley Cup in any other way.

I didn't see any posts with him saying it was a universal rule but if he did take it up with him. I have said many times there is no sure fire way to win never hinted at any universal rules.

I did, and all he has done is double down on his initial statement.

Sorry I can't speak for other posters.

You thought ‘LOL’ was a sufficient answer when I said what I was talking about. Evidently you believed that I wasn't talking about the thing that I explicitly said I was, and insisted that the conversation had to be about what you decided I must be talking about.

Nope I was responding to your statement that NOBODY was talking about the Flames when clearly people were. You are free to talk about what you like as I said.

We are clearly talking about how a team, any team, can be built to win the Stanley Cup. Whether the Flames ever can or will get there is a separate question, which we have not even begun to discuss.

We are clearly talking about how this relates to the position that the Flames are in. Flames are the Avs and this thread doesn't exist this topic is of very little interest to the Flames. The title of the thread shows it is clearly related to the Flames.

I am RECOGNIZING the fact that nobody has identified a CORRELATION between a top-2 pick (which is what Jason14h insists on, for some reason) and winning the Cup.

I'm still waiting for someone to acknowledge that point.

Again this seems to be an issue between you and Jason.

No, THAT IS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH IT, because that IS the point I made.

NOBODY HAS ESTABLISHED A CORRELATION. That is my ENTIRE point. Without a correlation, there is NO CASE. People are jumping to the conclusion based on nothing but the fallacy of survivorship bias.

Nope again moving the goal posts or an issue you have with another poster.

Really? So according to you, this is silly:

‘X was the most valuable player in his team's Stanley Cup win because he won the Conn Smythe trophy for being the most valuable player in his team's Stanley Cup win.’

But this is not silly:

‘Y was the most valuable player in his team's Stanley Cup win because he had the highest draft position many years ago.’

Give your head a shake.

It is beyond silly, but I was trying to be kind.

Equating a vote by media members who report on the league that they conduct in the 2nd period of the last game on who they think is the best play of the play-offs a process that many of them admit is often a toss up in which they would take two or more guys to a draft in which thousands of people paid 6 or 7 figure salaries spend years and millions on as their job to evaluate kids based on years of experience and data is silly.

There really is no comparison.

But all that really gets away from the initial point that there is no way that Marchesault was the bigger star on that team over Eichel. At worst it they were equal and even that is a stretch. Trying to minimize Eichel's impact is silly and that is where the whole point began.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Jason14h, who is saying that you CANNOT win the Stanley Cup in any other way.
.

No I didn’t why do you continue to make stuff up . I said it’s the most logical and best way , supported by stats from winning teams

86% of the last 15 winners did it this way

That’s does not equal the only way - just the best strategic way

But continue to make stuff up!

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

It's starting ro look like this might be a team game.
Perhaps the deciding factor is a gm who isn't ####.

That, and an owner who is willing to take intelligent risks and knows how to hire people who can tell which risks actually are intelligent.

Throughout the history of the NHL, there have been teams in contention and teams that were just there to make up the numbers. I can give some examples of what I mean to make it clearer:

The Leafs were in contention in the 6-team league. They had a goal of competing for the Cup every year and the resources to back it up. They sponsored so many minor hockey teams that they could always, in those pre-draft days, rely on plenty of young talent coming up through the system.

After expansion, the sponsorship system went out, the draft came in, and Harold Ballard bought the Leafs. He didn't give a damn whether he ever won the Stanley Cup or not, as long as all the tickets were sold. So the Leafs became a make-up-the-numbers team and were irrelevant for decades.

The Canadiens stayed in contention a lot longer, chiefly because Sam Pollock was a grandmaster at cheating other teams out of their draft picks. Around the time the Bell Centre opened, their owners started treating the team as a cash cow. Instead of hiring GMs with a plan to win and the chops to see it through, they hired a string of GMs who spoke good French and looked plausible to the media. The Habs became a make-up-the-numbers team.

For many years in the Original Six, Detroit was in contention and Chicago was a make-up-the-numbers team. Then the Norris family, which controlled both teams, decided to change their priorities and the teams switched roles. (There was actually a pretty big trade between Detroit and Chicago which, I believe, marks the exact turning point.)

Much later, ‘Dollar’ Bill Wirtz got control of the Blackhawks, pinched every penny, and the club became a make-up-the-numbers team again. When he died, Rocky Wirtz opened up his wallet and put them back in contention. It remains to be seen which way the Hawks will go under the current generation of ownership.

The Oilers were in contention from the moment they brought Gretzky into the league, and remained so until 1990, when the NHLPA began publishing players' salaries and the Oilers' players realized how badly Glen Sather had been ripping them off. They've been a make-up-the-numbers team ever since, although Sportsnet tries mighty hard to pretend otherwise.

The Flames came into the league as a make-up-the-numbers team, but Cliff Fletcher put them in contention because his bosses wanted so badly to beat the Oilers. After he left, they reverted to a make-up-the-numbers team and have pretty much been one since.

It's going to take a major change of direction for the Flames to decide to be in contention. Bottoming out and drafting high won't do it. The trouble is that being a contender (even in a cap league) costs a lot of money, and the business case just isn't there to make it profitable in a market as small as this. I believe it will take an owner who is willing to risk large amounts of his own money for the glory of building a winner – and Canada is not well known for producing such people.

Note that ‘in contention’ is about organizational philosophy and management. It is not the same as being ‘a contender’, which is about having a really good roster at a particular time. Teams that are not in contention may happen to ice contending rosters for a year or two now and then, but it doesn't last.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

It's going to take a major change of direction for the Flames to decide to be a contender. Bottoming out and drafting high won't do it. The trouble is that being a contender (even in a cap league) costs a lot of money, and the business case just isn't there to make it profitable in a market as small as this. I believe it will take an owner who is willing to risk large amounts of his own money for the glory of building a winner – and Canada is not well known for producing such people.

Based on what can you say that?

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

No I didn’t why do you continue to make stuff up . I said it’s the most logical and best way , supported by stats from winning teams

86% of the last 15 winners did it this way

That’s does not equal the only way - just the best strategic way

But you haven't supported that at all. All you have done is show that 86% of the winners come from a pool that includes about 86% of the teams.

You really don't get the concept of correlation, do you? You have never once addressed that question yet.

[Pellanor]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Here's the graph with the actual data from that article:



That there is what statisticians like to call ‘a cloud of dots’. I'm blest if I can see any strong correlation there. If anything, there is a weak negative correlation – teams with the most playoff wins tend to have fewer than average top-10 picks, whereas the teams with the most top-10 picks have had very little playoff success.

So that particular set of data does not at all support the case that the article tries to make. The author actually looked at the numbers and then rejected them in favour of the narrative he wanted to push.

That's a fascinatingly bad graph. By definition a team that wins a playoff game is not going to draft in the top 10 that year, so of course there's going to be a negative correlation in it. Teams that win a lot of playoff games will not draft in the top ten. The fact that its a cloud of dots, instead of a downward line actually implies that there is some correlation between drafting top 10 and winning more games, enough so to somewhat counter the really obvious negative correlation. So there's a hint that there might be some useful information is this mess.

To actually get a graph that shows high drafts leads to more playoff wins you need to massage the data more. Maybe look at number of top ten picks in non-playoff years compared to wins in playoff years? That could get iffy for teams that only have a few playoff years, making sample sizes even smaller. You also need to remove teams that got their wins at the start of your sample, and then went into a rebuild after, since those drafts can't have caused past success. Don't forget to remove the two expansion teams since they're special, and the Oilers since they're no good to learn from. Once you've massaged the data that much, you can probably get the graph to show whatever you want, so it's not going to show anything actually valuable.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Spurs

Based on what can you say that?

Based on the fact that so many teams in the past have tried and failed. Having a bad team gives you high draft picks, but having high draft picks, all by itself, does not give you a consistently good team. For recent examples, look at Edmonton and Buffalo; a bit earlier, Mad Mike Milbury's Islanders and several others.

Detroit remained in contention for over 20 years, despite not having any top draft picks after 1990, because Jimmy Devellano built an entire management system that was superbly competent at every facet of the job. They drafted shrewdly, developed well, and used trades and free agency to improve their talent base and not squander it. They went on doing this even into the cap era, making back-to-back finals in '08 and '09.

To paraphrase Gilbert Shelton, good management will get you through times of bad draft picks better than good draft picks will get you through times of bad management.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Pellanor

That's a fascinatingly bad graph. By definition a team that wins a playoff game is not going to draft in the top 10 that year, so of course there's going to be a negative correlation in it. Teams that win a lot of playoff games will not draft in the top ten. The fact that its a cloud of dots, instead of a downward line actually implies that there is some correlation between drafting top 10 and winning more games, enough so to somewhat counter the really obvious negative correlation. So there's a hint that there might be some useful information is this mess.

Um, no, it doesn't. The graph takes data over a 31-year period, which is enough time for multiple generations of players to have been drafted by bad teams, develop into good teams, and win in the playoffs – if that were the normal pattern. But it isn't.

To actually get a graph that shows high drafts leads to more playoff wins you need to massage the data more. Maybe look at number of top ten picks in non-playoff years compared to wins in playoff years?

All the top-ten picks were assigned to non-playoff teams, except for the 9th and 10th picks in 1992 (when only 24 teams were in the draft). All the playoff wins were in playoff years. Done.

You also need to remove teams that got their wins at the start of your sample, and then went into a rebuild after, since those drafts can't have caused past success.

That's a valid criticism, and one that occurred to me, too. But it isn't my graph, and I don't have the raw data handy. Scraping the data off the web by hand would take an inordinate amount of time, and I've wasted too much on this already.

Ideally, you would take the draft picks from a period starting and ending (say) about 10 years earlier than the playoff wins, and correlate those: assuming that the average age of players on a winning playoff team is about 28, which seems to be in the ballpark. Of course you would use the actual number, which, again, I haven't got the data handy to calculate. (It would be a long job to get the average age of every winner of every playoff game over 30 years!)

Don't forget to remove the two expansion teams since they're special,

Those are the extreme outliers at the bottom left. The negative correlation actually gets stronger once you remove them.

and the Oilers since they're no good to learn from.

As long as it's possible for an NHL team to be like the Oilers, they are good to learn from – if only to learn what not to do. They belong in the sample set.

Once you've massaged the data that much, you can probably get the graph to show whatever you want, so it's not going to show anything actually valuable.

You've removed three dots from the graph (Oilers, Vegas, Seattle), and precisely zero of the picks or playoff games from the other 29. This doesn't change anything, except, as I said, to make the weak negative correlation slightly stronger.

I'm not saying this graph is the be-all and end-all; it's hardly even a beginning. But it is at least an example of the kind of analysis that would need to be done to establish a correlation between high picks and winning. The people yawping loudest about the need for top picks haven't done anything of the kind.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Based on the fact that so many teams in the past have tried and failed. Having a bad team gives you high draft picks, but having high draft picks, all by itself, does not give you a consistently good team. For recent examples, look at Edmonton and Buffalo; a bit earlier, Mad Mike Milbury's Islanders and several others.

Detroit remained in contention for over 20 years, despite not having any top draft picks after 1990, because Jimmy Devellano built an entire management system that was superbly competent at every facet of the job. They drafted shrewdly, developed well, and used trades and free agency to improve their talent base and not squander it. They went on doing this even into the cap era, making back-to-back finals in '08 and '09.

To paraphrase Gilbert Shelton, good management will get you through times of bad draft picks better than good draft picks will get you through times of bad management.

So if they have good management and bottom out they can't succeed? Isn't that exactly what Colorado and TB did (to counter the Edmonton and Buffalo examples)?

If Edmonton with Lowe, Mac-T and Chiarelli had decided not to bottom out do you think they would have done well? Competed for anything?

They need good (or great ideally) management but even the top GM's can't do anything if they don't have talent.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Spurs

So if they have good management and bottom out they can't succeed? Isn't that exactly what Colorado and TB did (to counter the Edmonton and Buffalo examples)?

That's not what I said.

If they have good management and bottom out, they can succeed. If they have good management and don't bottom out, they can also succeed. If they have bad management, bottoming out won't make them succeed. Tampa Bay bottomed out hard after the team was bought by an idiot, and recovered quickly after the next owner brought Steve Yzerman in as GM. That's nice work if you can get it; but it's not a good bet to fire a good GM and hire a bad one just in order to tank. You never know how long it will take to find a good GM again – to say nothing of all the other front-office and scouting people.

What complicates matters is that teams don't usually get multiple top-2 or top-3 picks in rapid succession unless they were put in that position by bad management. At that point, the hole is so deep that the same or similar management can't fix it.

If Edmonton with Lowe, Mac-T and Chiarelli had decided not to bottom out do you think they would have done well? Competed for anything?

They never decided to bottom out. They did their very best according to their very dim lights to build what they honestly believed would be winning hockey teams, and they failed utterly.

They need good (or great ideally) management but even the top GM's can't do anything if they don't have talent.

The top GMs know how to identify talent and how to develop it. The bottom GMs get high picks and waste them on Nail Yakupov or Griffin Reinhart.

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

That's not what I said.

If they have good management and bottom out, they can succeed. If they have good management and don't bottom out, they can also succeed. If they have bad management, bottoming out won't make them succeed. Tampa Bay bottomed out hard after the team was bought by an idiot, and recovered quickly after the next owner brought Steve Yzerman in as GM. That's nice work if you can get it; but it's not a good bet to fire a good GM and hire a bad one just in order to tank. You never know how long it will take to find a good GM again – to say nothing of all the other front-office and scouting people.

What complicates matters is that teams don't usually get multiple top-2 or top-3 picks in rapid succession unless they were put in that position by bad management. At that point, the hole is so deep that the same or similar management can't fix it.

Luckily we have that in place for us already.

They never decided to bottom out. They did their very best according to their very dim lights to build what they honestly believed would be winning hockey teams, and they failed utterly.

Just like what is happening here.

The top GMs know how to identify talent and how to develop it. The bottom GMs get high picks and waste them on Nail Yakupov or Griffin Reinhart.

Its weird that they aren't doing that without top picks.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Spurs

Luckily we have that in place for us already.



Just like what is happening here.

Still think a couple of top draft picks will fix what's wrong with this team?

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Still think a couple of top draft picks will fix what's wrong with this team?

A couple of top draft picks and the pieces that we get from trades, yes I think it will give us more than what we currently are seeing.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Spurs

A couple of top draft picks and the pieces that we get from trades, yes I think it will give us more than what we currently are seeing.

Maybe it will even get us back to perpetual mediocrity!

[Spurs]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Maybe it will even get us back to perpetual mediocrity!

It could at this point I would take mediocrity with new fun young players over mediocrity with the same old guys.

But the organization has lowered expectations so much that we can't hope for nice things any more.

[Jay Random]

To make my own position clear: At this point, the Flames might as well flush the season and rebuild. But getting a top-2 pick is totally out of their control, because those picks are decided by lottery. And they need someone to step up and manage the team with his cerebral cortex instead of his gluteus maximus.

In too many areas of life, I've found, the people in charge think good intentions are an adequate substitute for competence. And some of them are so incompetent they can't even figure out which intentions are the good ones.

The Flames have too often been run by nice guys who didn't know what they were doing. The Oilers are run by jerks who don't know what they're doing, but probably think they are nice guys.

[St. Pats]

I mean I know they only rarely pop up but would be nice to add some size coming back in one of these trades. By size I mean a guy who can actually play, skate good enough to keep up with the play and pound the snot out of somebody if needed.

[Vinny01]

Tanev going down the tunnel was scary. I do think they should be shopping him the hardest and make that move before he gets legit hurt