LMAO. Therrien got his teams to play to their potential and even over-achieve. IMO the difference between Therrien's pens and Bylsma's, is Chris Kunitz. What a player he is. Let's not forget the best player in the world(IMO) at the time, Datsyuk, being hurt at the end of the playoffs.
The main problem is thinking that making the playoffs on the back of good special teams happens as often as it did even just three or four years ago. It doesn't.
Correct. In addition, even 3-4 years ago, the vast majority of the game was played 5-on-5, and this is even more true now.
Teams that are good 5-on-5 usually draw more penalties and take fewer as well, so they get more milleage out of their PP and tax their PK less.
If Kunitz made that difference then he must be the God.
I also see that while both Crosby and Malkin were already great offensive players, as they grow up, they become much better hockey players as a whole. It's one thing to be an offensive star, it's another to develop into a great hockey player in the league. Also, let's add that that change of coach was a good wakeup call as it usually is for every team. A team who woke up and realize that they were playing in the finals the year before and the next step had to be the cup itself. Again though, I didn't wan Therrien to coach this team. There were by far 3 better candidates, maybe 4. But I love how depending of who we like, again, people just use what they want to create a theory and totally disregard what doesn't make sense in their theory. From Therrien sucked with our team, while Julien and Vigneault also sucked. To Therrien sucked in Pittsburgh, while taking a Olczyk team and improving it the year after. And some Penguins players, to this day, will have great things to say about him despite what happened. Not the best coach of the world, of course he's not. But let's discuss all the facts please.
I also see that while both Crosby and Malkin were already great offensive players, as they grow up, they become much better hockey players as a whole. It's one thing to be an offensive star, it's another to develop into a great hockey player in the league. Also, let's add that that change of coach was a good wakeup call as it usually is for every team. A team who woke up and realize that they were playing in the finals the year before and the next step had to be the cup itself. Again though, I didn't wan Therrien to coach this team. There were by far 3 better candidates, maybe 4. But I love how depending of who we like, again, people just use what they want to create a theory and totally disregard what doesn't make sense in their theory. From Therrien sucked with our team, while Julien and Vigneault also sucked. To Therrien sucked in Pittsburgh, while taking a Olczyk team and improving it the year after. And some Penguins players, to this day, will have great things to say about him despite what happened. Not the best coach of the world, of course he's not. But let's discuss all the facts please.
I'm not pulling "Kunitz is God" theories out of thin air. I took a look at the available facts which point to Bylsma being a better tactical coach than Therrien. The facts also show that in recent history the Habs have been a poor possession team - getting outshot game after game. Therrien's NHL coaching history does not show evidence that he's going to rectify that situation. But, perhaps in his time away from coaching he's looked at teams with good possession records and studied their tactics. One can only hope.
Please show some respect to posters. You may not like reading short posts. Others do.
By the way, not a fan of Therrien here. But some players have said that he's a pretty underrated tactician. The Wild's head coach thinks so. And I know he manages a game bench pretty good. Contrary to the likes of Martin and Cunneyworth/Gauthier (hehehe), his best players during a game get more ice time. He's more the Torts-school of mind.
Thanks for your support. Very good of you. I post from Hong Kong so all of my replies pile up while you're all in bed. It's a little embarrassing.
He also slams Dudley saying that if he called Roy for a follow up interview it's probably because they weren't interested in Roy. He adds on that Roy doesn't give a crap about Dudley, just like the rest of the candidates.
Just usual Raymond BS.
What is funny though is he names this piece ''Lack of Respect'' when he's the one disrespecting both Dudley and Bergevin for no reason really..
He wasn't part of the interview process yet makes all these assumptions. Really, how did this guy ever become involved in journalism is beyond me.
Mark me: If Therrien fails, all of these guys, and tons of guys on this board, will whine that we should have picked Roy. It will never ever end.
thats one thing I don't mind at all, and I agree with you most of the time. If ryan white deserves more icetime than lars eller, im willing to throw him on the 4th and play white top 6 minutes. every night is different, but you DO need 4 lines. take out NJ's 4th line and they are NOT in the stanley cup final...same with a majority of finalists in the last few years.
There is no doubt that you need four good lines to win but the thing is that I doubt that Ryan White would actually deserves more icetime than Eller (to use your example) or any of our more skilled player in any scenario that doesn't involve said skilled player playing injured and being inneffective as a result (or some damn heavy regression) or Ryan White suddenly develloping a top 6 level skill set.
I can, however, easily see a scenario in wich, to the eyes, Ryan White looks like the hardest working player on the team. But that doesn't make him a top 6 player, skilled player don't always look like they're working as hard as the grinders (some do, some don't, I'd guess it heavily depends on the type of game they play), even when they are more effective.
People tend to evaluate grinders by how hard they work and the skilled players by how many points they have. But sometimes a skilled player is having a streak of bad puck luck but is actually effective, in such a scenario, we need a coach who'll make the difference between being actually inneffective and being effective but unlucky.
For example, I don't think dropping Kostitsyn to the fourth line for 20 games for a bad period to promote Mike Blunden ended being a great idea no matter how hard Blunden works.
And NJ's fourth line as been pretty good but they are actually playing as a fourth line. I don't think NJ would be in the finals if Deboer played them as the second line either.
Quote:
Originally Posted by deandebean
The stat I want to know is: if puck possession teams are more inclined to have a better PP-PK ratio.
MathMan has already answered that but yes they tend to. I would guess it's because teams who have the puck alot will naturally draw more penalties and teams who don't will naturally take more. That usually works for individual players too.
Now days, people rely too much on stats and not enough on hockey IQ. While stats can show some trend, it certainly doesn't tell the whole story.
For example, the best goalies don't necessarily have the best goals against average, or the best saves percentage. The best hockey players aren't necessarily the ones scoring the most goals. There are also tons of crucial elements that cannot be measured statistically, such as leadership, work ethics, personality, maturity or chemistry with other teammates. So CORSI, SUCHI or YOSHI my butt, I'd rather look at the entire picture than relying solely on statistics to make a point, or to determine the true value of a player, a coach or a GM on a team.
If Kunitz made that difference then he must be the God.
LOL, you stick to your numbers. I'll actually watch hockey games, thank you very much. That's like me saying something like "The biggest difference in Price's game over the years has been his focus and conditioning" and you countering with "LMAO the biggest difference is his SV% and GAA". Well gee, thanks for the astute observation Captain Corsi. I obviously agree that they've been a better team under Bylsma, just that there is much more to factor in than simply "Therrien was a crap coach". Wasn't he extended the offseason before he was fired? Must've been doing something right!
Sure Bylsma is a great coach, but you bet your ass Kunitz, Guerin, Gonchar being healthy, and a young team simply growing up had more to do with them winning the cup than Bylsma being "God" as you put it.
Therrien laid the foundation for that team, no doubt. He took them from being last place for however many years, to 105 points the very next year, to the Stanley Cup finals a year later, only to lose to the powerhouse Red Wings, and then his team won the very next year. Let me remind you that Pittsburgh has choked ever since. Looking at the data in front of me, I'd say that Therrien coaches playoff style hockey, and gets the most out of his players. He was stuck in a very bad season without Gonchar, and like always, a good coach got fired.
Looking at the 2007-2008 Pens in more depth, trying to figure out more about Therrien's coaching style. Found an interesting tidbit, and thought I'd be remiss, after foaming at the mouth so much here, not to bring up a positive sign I found.
(I know I focus a lot on the 07-08 Pens team, but it's the only year I have full data about that Therrien coached in full).
It's about offensive zone starts. I was trying to chart player usage and found out that Therrien does indeed play close attention to where a faceoff occurs and sends out following this, which is a very good sign. He's not quite as keen on this as Alain Vigneault, but he does so as much as Martin, if not a bit more.
At the low end, focussing players with 50+ games with the Pens, the guy with the lowest offensive zone start was Jordan Staal (anyone surprised?) who took 5-on-5 faceoffs in the defensive zone in a 37.5-62.5 ratio. At the high end, skipping Laraque, Malkin took 5-on-5 faceoffs in the offensive zone much more frequently, a 52.7-47.3 ratio. Even Laraque is telling, because Therrien had the good sense not to use him in the offensive zone too much!
Likewise with the defensemen, where Therrien employed Gonchar in a tough-minutes defensive zone role similar to Subban while using Letang (a rookie at the time, remember) in as much of a soft-minutes offensive role as he could manage given the Pens' chronic inability to move the puck towards the O-zone.
Which brings me to the downside to this finding though: going from 37.5 at the low end to 52.7 at the high end implies a team takes a staggering proportion of its faceoffs in the defensive zone which is, needless to say, the sign of a team that spends a lot of time near its goalie and a lot less at the offensive end. But we knew that already...
Nevetheless, it looks like Therrien can manage personnel, at least in the puck location sense. He didn't seem quite as keen at spreading his matchup difficulty, except for Gonchar and Staal getting the tough minutes and Letang and Laraque getting sheltered, and this is really a bit of a "well he didn't fail coaching 101" thing. But it will be interesting to see how he handles the Habs' personnel in the detail.
Personally, I know that if Therrien fails (and % of failure is quite low, considering anything above 13th will have to be considered a success...), I would think that they should have picked Groulx (or Jon Cooper, but let's not go there....) instead.
Looking at the 2007-2008 Pens in more depth, trying to figure out more about Therrien's coaching style. Found an interesting tidbit, and thought I'd be remiss, after foaming at the mouth so much here, not to bring up a positive sign I found.
(I know I focus a lot on the 07-08 Pens team, but it's the only year I have full data about that Therrien coached in full).
It's about offensive zone starts. I was trying to chart player usage and found out that Therrien does indeed play close attention to where a faceoff occurs and sends out following this, which is a very good sign. He's not quite as keen on this as Alain Vigneault, but he does so as much as Martin, if not a bit more.
At the low end, focussing players with 50+ games with the Pens, the guy with the lowest offensive zone start was Jordan Staal (anyone surprised?) who took 5-on-5 faceoffs in the defensive zone in a 37.5-62.5 ratio. At the high end, skipping Laraque, Malkin took 5-on-5 faceoffs in the offensive zone much more frequently, a 52.7-47.3 ratio. Even Laraque is telling, because Therrien had the good sense not to use him in the offensive zone too much!
Likewise with the defensemen, where Therrien employed Gonchar in a tough-minutes defensive zone role similar to Subban while using Letang (a rookie at the time, remember) in as much of a soft-minutes offensive role as he could manage given the Pens' chronic inability to move the puck towards the O-zone.
Which brings me to the downside to this finding though: going from 37.5 at the low end to 52.7 at the high end implies a team takes a staggering proportion of its faceoffs in the defensive zone which is, needless to say, the sign of a team that spends a lot of time near its goalie and a lot less at the offensive end. But we knew that already...
Nevetheless, it looks like Therrien can manage personnel, at least in the puck location sense. He didn't seem quite as keen at spreading his matchup difficulty, except for Gonchar and Staal getting the tough minutes and Letang and Laraque getting sheltered, and this is really a bit of a "well he didn't fail coaching 101" thing. But it will be interesting to see how he handles the Habs' personnel in the detail.
Good post.
My point with all this, Mathman, is that underlying stats in hockey have got to be taken for what they're worth. As a math wiz myself, I am extremely interested in the numbers, and the facts, but unlike baseball, hockey has too many variables. So, while stats are useful, it's all about the context. Corsi, and the like, are incredible at telling us what is happening, but we must take much more than the stats into consideration when trying to discern why these things are happening.
My point with all this, Mathman, is that underlying stats in hockey have got to be taken for what they're worth. As a math wiz myself, I am extremely interested in the numbers, and the facts, but unlike baseball, hockey has too many variables.
Sometimes I think the biggest difference between baseball analytics skepticism and hockey analytics skepticism is that back when baseball analytics were starting out, there wasn't an already heavily-analyzed sport X that Sabremetrics skeptics could point out and say "yeah, but baseball is completely different from X".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Twi2teD
So, while stats are useful, it's all about the context.
There are context stats. Lots of them, in fact. I'd say at this point the main thrust of hockey analytics research is about refining context stats as the idea of puck possession being the main driver of 5-on-5 results is pretty much settled. Analytics people are well aware of the importance of context and are quite far along in measuring it.
Heck, my post up there was all about context -- basically, which contexts does Therrien like to use player in. Picking the contexts in which players are used is one of the main ways a coach can affect the game.
Sometimes I think the biggest difference between baseball analytics skepticism and hockey analytics skepticism is that back when baseball analytics were starting out, there wasn't an already heavily-analyzed sport X that Sabremetrics skeptics could point out and say "yeah, but baseball is completely different from X".
There are context stats. Lots of them, in fact. I'd say at this point the main thrust of hockey analytics research is about refining context stats as the idea of puck possession being the main driver of 5-on-5 results is pretty much settled. Analytics people are well aware of the importance of context and are quite far along in measuring it.
Heck, my post up there was all about context -- basically, which contexts does Therrien like to use player in. Picking the contexts in which players are used is one of the main ways a coach can affect the game.
You who are always using maths to prove to try to your points... Tell me how come we have in the Finals a 8th place vs a 6th place teams, not the best of the year, nor with th best stats, and so on...
The game is played on the ice, not in a computer nor a hockey-table game.
Sometimes I think the biggest difference between baseball analytics skepticism and hockey analytics skepticism is that back when baseball analytics were starting out, there wasn't an already heavily-analyzed sport X that Sabremetrics skeptics could point out and say "yeah, but baseball is completely different from X".
There are context stats. Lots of them, in fact. I'd say at this point the main thrust of hockey analytics research is about refining context stats as the idea of puck possession being the main driver of 5-on-5 results is pretty much settled. Analytics people are well aware of the importance of context and are quite far along in measuring it.
Heck, my post up there was all about context -- basically, which contexts does Therrien like to use player in. Picking the contexts in which players are used is one of the main ways a coach can affect the game.
Both have valid points. I think your counterpart was more about the 'human' factor playing a role in defining the stats. Did I get it? It's the same thing as always. It's like going to a doctor and he tells us: well, you got the flu. That's the stats. But what caused the flu cannot be measured in stats. It's the 'human' factor. I'm guessing that's what he meant.
I do believe that a puck possession team wins more games on the long term. Doesn't take Einstein to realize that. The more you have the puck, the more you control the game, the more you CAN score. Maths don't tell us that: common sense does. lol
45% of drivers caught drunk are under the age of 21 years old. That's the stat. What is the reason? That's the 'why', the 'human factor'. And if govmts knew the 'why' they would apply the appropriate measure. But they really can't get a grip of the 'human factor'. Thus, we still can measure the stats to tell a story. Same with hockey: Corsi and other stats tell you that puck possession teams win more games and score more. That's pretty easy. It confirms what EVERYBODY thinks. But WHAT causes that is a much more difficult thing to answer.
Depends on the players and their experience. Also, I believe a puck possession team BECOMES that after more than 2-3 seasons of a STABLE lineup. They develop what we call in french 'des automatismes'. That's why the Soviet teams were good, and had superb puck possession stats (I assume).
I wonder what is the 'puck possession' factor in the US Under 18 program. These players play together all the time and develop great 'chemistry' (and 'automatismes).
You who are always using maths to prove to try to your points... Tell me how come we have in the Finals a 8th place vs a 6th place teams, not the best of the year, nor with th best stats, and so on...
Those two teams actually had some of the best stats. Both had strong underlying stats, especially LA which was one of the top-5 teams in puck possession. If anything, these Finals are a stark demonstration of the value of possession metrics over straight record!
Have you learned why that happens yet, now that I've explained twice.? I'd appreciate an apology from you.
The multi quote function doesn't work in Hong Kong? I'm not trying to be an ass, it's just really hard to read others comments when it looks like you when on a rant.
I'm sry, I didn't mean to offend you, I tried to ask politely.
I do believe that a puck possession team wins more games on the long term. Doesn't take Einstein to realize that. The more you have the puck, the more you control the game, the more you CAN score. Maths don't tell us that: common sense does. lol
Actually math does tell us that as puck possession metrics are strongly correlated to winning in the long term. And it is not intuitively obvious; some people may claim, for example, that allowing lots of low-percentage shots and pouncing on mistakes for odd-man rushes might be a very useful strategy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by deandebean
Depends on the players and their experience. Also, I believe a puck possession team BECOMES that after more than 2-3 seasons of a STABLE lineup.
There may be something to that, except that, in this particular case, it goes against the nigh-instantaneous change in puck possession observed when Therrien was replaced by Blysma. The Pens went from a very bad possession club to a very strong one in a matter of weeks. Anecdotical in the general sense, obviously, but it does suggest that in this particular case, it wasn't "2-3 seasons of a stable lineup" that was the main factor.
Hiring Therrien is a bold move by Bergevin. If in fact it came down to Therrien and Crawford then I think the right choice was made.
I don't think Crawford would do well with our mix of Vets and young guns. I would have loved to see the open ice offence that he ran in Vancouver here, but lets face it we don't have Markus Naslund or the twins. Like it or hate it the road to success in this league with it's parity is defence and that's not Crawford. I also think
Doug Gilmour, who was near the end of his career when he played gave praise to him. This tells me he'll probably listen to his veterans more than JM did. He's also got plenty of AHL and junior experience, which will be good for the young guys. He won't last 3 full years, but he may put us in a position to succeed down the line. Crawford might be the guy in 3 years but not today.
Sometimes I think the biggest difference between baseball analytics skepticism and hockey analytics skepticism is that back when baseball analytics were starting out, there wasn't an already heavily-analyzed sport X that Sabremetrics skeptics could point out and say "yeah, but baseball is completely different from X".
Hehe, in your opinion, sure!
Baseball is much simpler to analyze with pure numbers because it is a situational and repetitive game. 1 vs 1(for the bulk of the sport), and most everything is measurable to the bone. Hockey is a free flowing game with much more dynamic and varying skill-sets that are impossible to translate into numbers. They are observable, and their basic influences can be recorded, but they can't be explained by simply looking at the stat-sheets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MathMan
There are context stats. Lots of them, in fact. I'd say at this point the main thrust of hockey analytics research is about refining context stats as the idea of puck possession being the main driver of 5-on-5 results is pretty much settled. Analytics people are well aware of the importance of context and are quite far along in measuring it.
Yes, but why is puck possession that big indicator for the best teams? Is it because the best players are generally best at it and the best teams generally have them, or how about the best coaches having the best systems and generally being on the best teams? How does 5-on-5 stats tell me my coach is incredible as opposed to telling me that my players are great a handling the puck? How does it account for nagging injuries, puck luck, goaltender performance, slumps and other confidence issues?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MathMan
Heck, my post up there was all about context -- basically, which contexts does Therrien like to use player in. Picking the contexts in which players are used is one of the main ways a coach can affect the game.
Yes which is why I liked the post. Where a coach starts his players is easily quantifiable and has always been something coaches monitor. Good coaches are good at telling who is worthy of offensive or defensive starts. I think Therrien is good at this.
As an assistant coach or gm, underlying stats are incredibly useful as a tool for adjustments or grading purposes, but as an outsider, there's no alternative for watching the games. You can use metrics to back up what you've seen or to lend credence to a certain opinion but you'll never change someone's mind who's been watching the action. We can't say Therrien is not a good coach simply because his results weren't there. Let's see what he can do in the right situation. I would've rathered Crawford, but you won't see me waving a white flag any time soon.
