Hurricanes hire Tyler Dellow as Assistant GM

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by butterfly

You can belittle me or my curiosity about analyzing hockey if it makes you feel better.

Those crazy takes have got Dellow at least two NHL jobs and led to speaking at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference. I hadn't heard of him until this week but that's a pretty impressive resume for how he's portrayed by some here.

You think?

Guys like Stan Bowman, Treliving, Sutter, Holland, Chia, etc have far more impressive resumes.

You should see how people talk about them. Hell, you should see how you’ve talked about some of them. Is this really about his resume?

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Originally Posted by butterfly

You can belittle me or my curiosity about analyzing hockey if it makes you feel better.

Those crazy takes have got Dellow at least two NHL jobs and led to speaking at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference. I hadn't heard of him until this week but that's a pretty impressive resume for how he's portrayed by some here.

You are way too tuned for someone who proclaims to not be Tyler Dellow.

Any average impartial CPer without personal ties would remember his relentless spiel and just see a glorified troll committing daily time theft under the employ of the Devils who's leveraged his obsession with numbers to con his way into an AGM job.

Curiosity with analyzing hockey doesn't logically equate with defending this dude like he's your brother. Fishy af.

But maybe you're just this committed to being a contrarian.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Or... and stick with me here because this is pretty out there.

Maybe they just have a different opinion than you on it.


They are not wrong, Dellow has gone on to carve out a front office NHL career. Who cares what he wrote on a forum decades ago. He always seemed abrasive but it hasn't gotten in the way of becoming a front office NHL professional.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Decades ago? He was here leading up to and after the TDL going on about how the Devils weren't trading anything of value for Markstrom.

Then the Flames snag a first and a d-man for him.

He certainly was consistent in his time here, I'll give him that - consistently wrong lol.

Don't let your disdain for me blind you from the truth on the matter though.

[gallione11]

N/m

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Decades ago? He was here leading up to and after the TDL going on about how the Devils weren't trading anything of value for Markstrom.

Then the Flames snag a first and a d-man for him.

He certainly was consistent in his time here, I'll give him that - consistently wrong lol.

Don't let your disdain for me blind you from the truth on the matter though.

Whenever someone has a different view than you, you assume because it's because they aren't "impartial" as you've accused Butterfly of or because they have disdain for you.

Sometimes people just have a different opinion. Your opinion isn't always the objective one.

As I said, i find Dellow to be abrasive, including if indeed that was him on this forum a few months ago. But that doesn't discount the fact he has established himself in NHL circles. I don't think he's losing much sleep over how he's thought of on this site.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

Decades ago? He was here leading up to and after the TDL going on about how the Devils weren't trading anything of value for Markstrom.

Then the Flames snag a first and a d-man for him.

He certainly was consistent in his time here, I'll give him that - consistently wrong lol.

Don't let your disdain for me blind you from the truth on the matter though.

If "he" is me (it's actually 'she',) I said the Devils would be foolish to trade anything of value for Markstrom and I hoped for Calgary's sake that they did. I was celebrating it in the Markstrom trade thread. I brought up - multiple times - aggregate GSAE (roughly zero over four years) compared to the $24M we were paying for it.

If "he" is Dellow, when that account was posting here in 2005 I didn't even know about this forum. If Dellow was still posting here about trade offers in 2024 while or after working for the Devils, that seems incredibly unprofessional.

And I'm not defending Dellow personally, I am hoping to promote the continuation of analytical hockey discussion. If you have developed a model that you think can predict goaltending results (to any degree), I'd love to have a look at it. If the backtesting works then I am very open to changing my mind.

My opinion certainly isn't always the objective one, but I want it to be. I think that by using data instead of shying away from it, we can closer approximate knowing what the objective opinion is.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

Whenever someone has a different view than you, you assume because it's because they aren't "impartial" as you've accused Butterfly of or because they have disdain for you.

Sometimes people just have a different opinion. Your opinion isn't always the objective one.

As I said, i find Dellow to be abrasive, including if indeed that was him on this forum a few months ago. But that doesn't discount the fact he has established himself in NHL circles. I don't think he's losing much sleep over how he's thought of on this site.

I think that's all you needed to add if that was your evaluation of the guy. What defense does he deserve?

Sorry I'm not giving the benefit of the doubt to a poster spent his entire existence here trolling and purposefully drawing the ire of the entire board.

It's fascinating who you guys will go easy on vs who you clamp down on.

Maybe he needs to show up here again to give every one a refresher. Given his new role i get he'll be even more humble and "open minded" in his interactions. Lmao.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

I'm sorry. You're allowed to have a different opinion. Maybe a terribly misled one, but one you're entitled to.

Our opinions can co-exist, I promise. Let's not go to bed angry. <3

I didn't make the annoyingest semi finals, i need to start acting like it..

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

I'm sorry. You're allowed to have a different opinion. Maybe a terribly misled one, but one you're entitled to.

Our opinions can co-exist, I promise. Let's not go to bed angry. <3

I didn't make the annoyingest semi finals, i need to start acting like it..

All good!

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by TrentCrimmIndependent

I think that's all you needed to add if that was your evaluation of the guy. What defense does he deserve?

Sorry I'm not giving the benefit of the doubt to a poster spent his entire existence here trolling and purposefully drawing the ire of the entire board.

It's fascinating who you guys will go easy on vs who you clamp down on.

Maybe he needs to show up here again to give every one a refresher. Given his new role i get he'll be even more humble and "open minded" in his interactions. Lmao.

I'm just drawing a distinction between his online presence and his career success.
Frankly if he is the one posting on forums including this one, it's pretty dumb because the teams he works for probably wouldn't appreciate it.

But beyond that I don't see how what he posts here should minimize his career successes - which are impressive.

[Roughneck]

I miss the mid-oughts when it comes to the wild analytics takes.

Whether it was Conklin is better than Brodeur, or Shawn Horcoff being a more efficient use of cap space than Sidney Crosby, or Denis Seidenberg is a Norris caliber defenseman, there was always going to be a wild take with ample 'data' proving it from somebody hoping to be hockey's Paul DePodesta.

Guys trying to sift through hours of game footage to determine if a Kyle Wellwood secondary assist could be considered a significant data point for a properly adjusted Points/60 was just a good excuse to watch a lot of hockey to be fair.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

I miss the mid-oughts when it comes to the wild analytics takes.

Whether it was Conklin is better than Brodeur, or Shawn Horcoff being a more efficient use of cap space than Sidney Crosby, or Denis Seidenberg is a Norris caliber defenseman, there was always going to be a wild take with ample 'data' proving it from somebody hoping to be hockey's Paul DePodesta.

Guys trying to sift through hours of game footage to determine if a Kyle Wellwood secondary assist could be considered a significant data point for a properly adjusted Points/60 was just a good excuse to watch a lot of hockey to be fair.

Hah, yeah. I would say the takes were wild because the quality of data available was a bit poorer than it is today, not necessarily because the analysis was wrong.

Hockey is still miles behind baseball on making the actual data publicly available so fans can use it to better understand the game and just make cool things. That's sad. I blame the NHL for depriving us of that, not the teams themselves - all of whom I hope have proprietary systems.

There was a part of me that didn't want to see analytics because I knew I'd get into it and thought it would ruin the fun of the game for me, but I was wrong. When something happens in a split-second during a game I still cheer like I'm a little kid. Appreciation and understanding of analytics improbably deepened my appreciation for the game and the fact that completely unexpected outcomes can occur at any time.

[Oil Stain]

One thing for sure, is that all the "idiot" analytics guys won the day because there was a lot of people laughing at them 20 years ago, and now every NHL team has invested in having analytics departments. Many of them very heavily.

It was never about whether one individual argument was right or wrong. Anyone who thinks like that completely misses the point. It was always about using data to attempt to improve decision making over time. If you use statistical data and it gives you the wrong outcome, you can go back and adjust how you weigh the data.

If you make a wrong call on a player based on "watching him play", how are you going to learn from that? Watch the next guy harder?

A fair bit of hockey knowledge based on "intuition" ended up being dead wrong. Remember Don Cherry always railing about defencemen trying to get their stick on the puck when opposing forwards were shooting? "Get out of the way and let the goalie see it" was always his mantra. Well it was wrong. Every defender now tries to get his stick in the lane to deflect an incoming shot. Surely someone just did the math and discovered that the benefit of deflecting the puck out of play far outweighed the risk of deflecting the puck into your own net.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

One thing for sure, is that all the "idiot" analytics guys won the day because there was a lot of people laughing at them 20 years ago, and now every NHL team has invested in having analytics departments. Many of them very heavily.

It was never about whether one individual argument was right or wrong. Anyone who thinks like that completely misses the point. It was always about using data to attempt to improve decision making over time. If you use statistical data and it gives you the wrong outcome, you can go back and adjust how you weigh the data.

If you make a wrong call on a player based on "watching him play", how are you going to learn from that? Watch the next guy harder?

A fair bit of hockey knowledge based on "intuition" ended up being dead wrong. Remember Don Cherry always railing about defencemen trying to get their stick on the puck when opposing forwards were shooting? "Get out of the way and let the goalie see it" was always his mantra. Well it was wrong. Every defender now tries to get his stick in the lane to deflect an incoming shot. Surely someone just did the math and discovered that the benefit of deflecting the puck out of play far outweighed the risk of deflecting the puck into your own net.

This is such a great post. Thank you.

And it's not a criticism of Don Cherry - he wasn't misleading people. He was telling people what he knew to be right at the time. As time passes we learn more and we should adapt strategy accordingly.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

One thing for sure, is that all the "idiot" analytics guys won the day because there was a lot of people laughing at them 20 years ago, and now every NHL team has invested in having analytics departments. Many of them very heavily.

It was never about whether one individual argument was right or wrong. Anyone who thinks like that completely misses the point. It was always about using data to attempt to improve decision making over time. If you use statistical data and it gives you the wrong outcome, you can go back and adjust how you weigh the data.

If you make a wrong call on a player based on "watching him play", how are you going to learn from that? Watch the next guy harder?

A fair bit of hockey knowledge based on "intuition" ended up being dead wrong. Remember Don Cherry always railing about defencemen trying to get their stick on the puck when opposing forwards were shooting? "Get out of the way and let the goalie see it" was always his mantra. Well it was wrong. Every defender now tries to get his stick in the lane to deflect an incoming shot. Surely someone just did the math and discovered that the benefit of deflecting the puck out of play far outweighed the risk of deflecting the puck into your own net.

I get what you're trying to say, in that analytics is a good thing, and anyone who thought better analytics couldn't help, was missing the point. Of course there are analytics teams in every organization. And those teams will continue to grow in size and influence, as the analytics improve.

However, you are also missing part of the point here. The reason most people were calling these guys idiots isn't because they were trying to use analytics, it's because they were using a little bit of data, and drawing terrible, sweeping conclusions from it. They were being idiots. They assumed that gathering some data points into a pile meant that they had automatically discovered something useful or intelligent. And that is foolish.

Trying to push on a string, simply for the sake of using analytics, accomplishes nothing. Analytics are a tool, and you have to understand what the tool is, and isn't, and how to use the tool properly, or you are just a fool making bad conclusions.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by butterfly

Hah, yeah. I would say the takes were wild because the quality of data available was a bit poorer than it is today, not necessarily because the analysis was wrong.

Hockey is still miles behind baseball on making the actual data publicly available so fans can use it to better understand the game and just make cool things. That's sad. I blame the NHL for depriving us of that, not the teams themselves - all of whom I hope have proprietary systems.

There was a part of me that didn't want to see analytics because I knew I'd get into it and thought it would ruin the fun of the game for me, but I was wrong. When something happens in a split-second during a game I still cheer like I'm a little kid. Appreciation and understanding of analytics improbably deepened my appreciation for the game and the fact that completely unexpected outcomes can occur at any time.

What more do you want in terms of analytics? Teams are not going to share what they have, its pretty secretive.

[EldrickOnIce]

Dude was a pioneer in using data when there was nothing but #### data available. Good on him for continuing to turn something he has a keen interest in/love for into a pretty exclusive career. I remember laughing so hard at 'The Value of Outscoring: A primer', which has been alluded to here in a couple places. But it turns out it is about the best objective measure of a good team - 5v5 goal differential. And Yeah he had a lot of misses toi, but he's working for the Devils now and I'm not.

[united]

Some of his Greatest Hits in addition to the Ty Conklin laugher. And who can forget his love for sure thing multi-time Rocket Richard winner and perrenial 50-goal man, Nail Yakupov:

May 2017
Dellow: Don’t believe the Roman Josi hype. P.K. Subban is better
Since writing that Subban was better than Josi:
- Subban finished third in Norris the following season, never being nominated again and out of the league entirely in five seasons.
- Josi has won the Norris and finished runner-up twice while finishing top-10 in 5/7 seasons in which he also finished top-10 in Hart voting three times. Josi continues to play over 24 minutes per game.

June 2017
Dellow: Why the Calgary Flames hit a home run with the Travis Hamonic trade
...we all know what happened next.

June 2017
Dellow: Maple Leafs should table huge offer sheet for Blues defenceman Colton Parayko
Since writing that the Maple Leafs should offer sheet Parayko for either $9.81 MM (4 x 1sts) or $9.80 MM (2 x 1sts, 1 x 2nd, 1 x 3rd), Parayko signed an 8-year $6.5 MM AAV contact with the Blues that has regularly been regarded as one of the worst contacts in hockey.

January 2018
Dellow: No, Auston Matthews shouldn't get more time on the Maple Leafs top power-play unit
Since writing that Matthews reduces the efficiency of the Maple Leafs' powerplay and is fit for the second unit, Matthews is fifth in powerplay goals-per-game, behind Draisaitl, Stamkos, Pastrnak, Ovechkin.

Very strange move by the Hurricanes as Tulsky is legit. Dellow is good at data mining and building presentable databses, though, so perhaps it's just like David Johnson with the Flames but with a superior job title: get us the data but do not under any circumstance provide us analysis.

[TrentCrimmIndependent]

I'm glad someone did the digging.

On one hand, a passion paid off and that's cool regardless of who it involves. On the other, objectively he probably doesn't help the Hurricanes given the long and enduring history of incorrectly evaluating players.