This is an old timey chart from January 2012 ranking Oilers forwards in Corsi Rel. I still use it, never talk about it because there are other metrics (Puck IQ is the gold standing with ‘binning’ levels of competition) have come along and bettered the Corsi Rel. As an aside, isn’t that a dandy graph? David Johnson is a genius.
Still, if you’re looking for a quick and easy way to gain insight into a specific player on a roster, this is a mighty helpful tool. Since we rarely ever ever let Corsi Rel out to play, and we have some time, let’s have a look at last year’s Oilers and some of the new hires, to see what we can see.
THE ATHLETIC!
- Lowetide: What Oilers’ Jeff Jackson hire could mean for front-office’s future
- Lowetide: The 5 most impressive NHL offseason moves and what they mean for 2023-24
- Lowetide: Oilers sign forward Ryan McLeod to 2-year extension: What it means for Edmonton
- Lowetide: Connor McDavid, the Art Ross and challenging Wayne Gretzky’s record
- Lowetide: How Oilers’ pro scouting upgrade helped elevate team in 2022-23
- Lowetide: Projecting Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard’s points for 2023-24
- Lowetide: Oilers’ graduate a strong group of prospects to pro this fall
- Lowetide: Oilers’ late-summer options intriguing with cap crunch and lingering UFAs
- Lowetide: What are the Edmonton Oilers’ keys to success in 2023-24?
- Lowetide: How Oilers’ veteran roster, cap issues could impact Raphael Lavoie
- Lowetide: What the Oilers are getting in 2023 NHL Draft pick Beau Akey
- Lowetide: Oilers’ baffling 2016 draft takes another hit
- Lowetide: Jay Woodcroft is (still) the right man to coach the Edmonton Oilers
- Lowetide: Oilers’ roster utility for 2023-24 could use a final tweak
- DNB: The Oilers roster is improved but evolution must continue into next season
- Lowetide: Edmonton Oilers top 20 prospects, summer 2023
- DNB: 10 questions with director of amateur scouting Tyler Wright
OILERS BLUE CORSI REL 2022-23
- Mattias Ekholm 7.85 Pct in 355 mins
- Evan Bouchard 6.88 in 1235 mins
- Philip Broberg 3.37 in 534 mins
- Markus Niemelainen -0.72 in 210 mins
- Darnell Nurse -1.17 in 1524 mins
- Tyson Barrie -1.37 in 901 mins
- Ryan Murray -1.98 in 160 mins
- Cody Ceci -3.11 in 1319 mins
- Brett Kulak -4.07 in 1252 mins
- Vincent Desharnais -5.05 in 403 mins
The rel numbers for Edmonton’s defensemen in 2022-23 paint an interesting picture. Now, we aren’t paying any attention to the quality of competition, so Philip Broberg shines like a diamond. Always always always beware of the third pairing defender looking ‘too good’ with Corsi Rel. If you look up to the Johnson graph, and under the header “Corsi Rel QoC” you will see Shawn Horcoff shining like a diamond. If you’re able, would you slide back to January 2012 and help me defend him? I was stone alone at the time.
We also see that Darnell Nurse is slightly underwater in Corsi Rel. We also see Cody Ceci is well underwater and Brett Kulak is even lower. Huh. We have some things we can use to drill down a little that were not available in 2012. For instance, Nurse away from Ceci was 3.01 Corsi Rel; Ceci away from Nurse was -1.52; Together, they were -3.03. As a pairing, it didn’t work in 2022-23. They were slightly below par (-1.0 pct Rel) together in 2021-22 as well. What did the defense rel look like before Ekholm? Glad you asked.
- Evan Bouchard 7.28 Pct in 890 mins
- Philip Broberg 3.77 in 425 mins
- Darnell Nurse -0.16 in 1148 mins
- Markus Niemelainen -0.72 in 210 mins
- Tyson Barrie -1.37 in 901 mins
- Ryan Murray -1.98 in 160 mins
- Brett Kulak -3.16 in 955 mins
- Cody Ceci -3.69 in 1001 mins
- Vincent Desharnais -6.13 in 152 mins
Once again we see the third pairing rule (in this case Broberg and Bouchard) coming into play. Despite being below sea level, Darnell Nurse is the best option here. Niemelainen is third pair, and not exactly strong in third pairing rel. Tyson Barrie is next best among those who played top-four minutes, Brett Kulak, Cody Ceci not so much. Desharnais is interesting, just 21 of those minutes were against elites, with 55 against mid-level comp. So, he’s not third pair but did play about 75 minutes on the third pair (or about 50 percent of his five-on-five time). I thought he’d show a little better.
Finally, here are the numbers, for the entire season, versus elite competition. Please pay special heed to the numbers by defensemen over 200 minutes. Less than is not reliable, beyond telling you the defenders coach Jay Woodcroft and coach Dave Manson trusted.
- Mattias Ekholm 16.7 pct in 93 mins
- Evan Bouchard 3.9 in 247 mins
- Tyson Barrie 2.0 in 210 mins
- Darnell Nurse 1.9 in 529 mins
- Cody Ceci 0.3 in 493 mins
- Brett Kulak -2.9 in 290 mins
- Markus Niemelainen -4.5 in 31 mins
- Ryan Murray -11.50 in 28 mins
- Philip Broberg -11.80 in 62 mins
- Vincent Desharnais -11.80 in 58 mins
I know you’re going to run ahead and say things based on the players under 200 minutes, but don’t do it. As good as Ekholm was, and I believe will be, regression was guaranteed after that incredible early run. Evan Bouchard did well but much of what he delivered was post-Ekholm.
Nurse and Barrie are the best of the veterans. Cody Ceci just hanging on there in the positive, I think he’ll have a better year in 2023-24. Kulak was strong in the postseason but these numbers suggest he is correctly slotted on the third pair.
All of this to make the point I wanted to make all along. David Johnson recently left the employ of the Calgary Flames. He had been there for about six year iirc. The graph at the top has qual comp and a rel number that factors in the qual comp. Which is to say he was doing this stuff in 2012. He’s wicked smart. The Oilers should consider hiring him. Other names include all of the PuckIQ group and Michael Parkatti. I’ll bet my house Jeff Jackson hires a bunch of analytics people and I bet he hires someone who can explain those numbers ala Eric Tulsky or Tyler Dellow.
I don’t know the names involved, I’ve pushed people I know to do it and they all make too much money and love their wives too much to spend 400 hours a week on helping the Oilers win. Selfish bastards if you ask me, so I’m putting Johnson’s name out there. He’s had a few weeks off to relax. Call the man, Edmonton Oilers.
A smiling Jesse and his dog.
https://twitter.com/LonnbergMari/status/1687849800601882624?s=20
At a celebrity tournament in Finland.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cvj_Jw8skLv/?igshid=NjZiM2M3MzIxNA%3D%3D
Analytics needs to be thought of and talked about as a set of tools and not as a framework or vision. The later tends to make analytics too near and dear to the heart to be questioned. The former keeps the focus on what should be the core tenet of evaluating hockey: does it work?(or is this tool useful?)
Is it helpful to reduce the size of our data by only looking at 5v5 when power play goals count just as much as even strength?
Why be so negative towards secondary assists when non(necessarily)point producing stats like zone exits and entries are praised?
Shouldn’t events (such as secondary assists) be individually evaluated rather than lumped together as if all are created equal?
How much value should we place on stats that tell us something that happened while a player was on the ice but don’t tell us what that player did (plus/minus or corsi: which is just plus/minus for shot attempts)
I hope the Oilers use “analytics”, but I don’t understand an almost reverent awe towards a set of tools that need to always be refined (and are always being refined).
Solid post.
The myopia around secondary assists is something I’ve bemoaned before, just the same as people proclaiming xGF as the next shining light. Not all shots are created equally, nor are they taken by similarly effective players (or even against similar quality goalies), so why should they be counted the same? Sometimes secondary assists are more pivotal to creating a goal than primary assists, yet the community seems to want to banish any level of importance to non-primary assists. Weird.
That not all events are created equal needs to be understood. If the game sheet says Bill scored a goal, that doesn’t tell us if Bill 1v5’d the NY Rangers like McDavid and scored or if he didn’t even know where the puck was and someone bounced it off his bum and in.
I suppose a statistician would hope that a large sample size would prove repeatability, but evaluating each event is a better path.
The Chiarelli era, and what seemed like the apparent lack of interest in analytics reminds me of Sparky Anderson, and how when the Tigers hired him, he was shocked to find out that they were woefully behind the leading teams to the extent that they didn’t even have a VCR for going over game tapes.
The Hlinka’s are over now. Canada won 🇨🇦 🥇
I wonder how long it takes to get Bouchard’s deal done? By reports they’re very close.
I’d still like to see a 4C added before camp. My current list is:
1) Jonathan Toews (I know)
2) Pius Suter
3) Paul Stastny
4) Eric Staal
Here’s a question.
Who among the above could shift to 3C and maintain, or thrive, in the event of injury/slump/chemistry?
I think Toews leads that list if he’s near full health.
Agreed but health is the big question mark.
Toews himself hasn’t yet said he is or is not playing this season so I presume he’s still “figuring it out” – likely recovering and training and seeing if his body (and mind) are ready for the grind.
I suspect he wants to play and is trying to figure out if his body will let him.
Good question. Both Toews and Suter played 2nd/3rd line TOI and competition last season, so they would be the best candidates (Stastny and Staal both played 4th line).
I would think the Bouchard deal is done by mid-week/
I presume you would be looking to add one of those guys as 12F/4C in a 21 player set-up with Lavoie and Pederson both waived (presuming team health)?
Yeah hopefully his deal is in place soon. It would be nice to have all the main business taken care of.
Yes, for Toews and Suter in particular I would definitely take the risk that Lavoie might end up being waived. Less certain for the other two, but I think there’s an argument for adding them as well.
I’ve not read a better template about how an analytics department should look than the one Eric Tulsky explained is alive and breathing in Raleigh.
https://theathletic.com/3171453/2022/03/08/how-do-the-hurricanes-blend-analytics-and-scouting-what-was-chicagos-gm-search-like-ask-eric-tulsky/
Great interview. Thanks for the link.
X2!
I was curious about the continuing success of VGK so took a gander at their analytics department.
As it turns out, it’s headed by Dustin Wolf who was a founding member and manager of Stathletes.
https://www.stathletes.com/
Its a pretty good bet there is close connection between the team and Stathletes.
Vegas does a lot of things right no matter who runs the analytics. The key is they listen and they are aggressive.
“We don’t know what we don’t know”, but here are few couple of things that key Oiler personnel have said – so we know them:
Brad Holland in the summer of 2022.:
“But we have two people, Justin and Shaun Mahe who’ve been here a long time, they have been working with this, doing the numbers, advancing this internally.
And straight from Jeff Jackson in his media availability this week:
“We used analytics, and I know the Oilers do. I’m going to look at all those things and try to best in class. It won’t happen overnight, but I’m going to dig in on all of the things that I know.”
“As far as negotiating contracts, I’m not going to be doing that. That’s Bill Scott, that’s Kenny, that’s Brad Holland contributing and the analytics people contributing, but I’m going to be here.
Jeff Jackson will want to evaluate how the Oilers are using analytics, but to read what people on here post, you’d get the impression the Oilers do almost nothing. Is there room for improvement? – almost certainly, but that is always a goal. Are they way behind most of the other teams? – well that brings us back to LT’s title of today’s blog and no one who posts here actually knows the answer to that question.
Here is a good article about the use of analytics in the NHL:
https://thehockeynews.com/news/secret-formula-analytics-in-the-nhl
These excerpts right from the start of the article might explain some of why what some teams do on analytics isn’t well known:
“Is the first rule of analytics that NHL teams cannot talk about analytics? Ask too many questions on the topic and employees begin to get dodgy.
“Every NHL team today has an analytics department, and each team protects its statistical secrets as though they belong in the giant warehouse where Steven Spielberg stashed the Ark of the Covenant.”
I think you make a good point that the oilers do actually leverage analytics. I believe they outsource most of the data part of it, the interpretation and application of it (ie strategy) would be done in house and no one for sure knows to what extent its used. What Id like to see (and I assume many others) is it brought in house and made a competitive advantage. Edmonton has weather and tax disadvantages to overcome. This should be an area they lead the pack in. The goal isnt analytics its improved decision making (which should translate to wins). There has been a welcome change in policy on this since Chiarelli left and with Brad Holland getting more say. Lets see more!
I’m sure this was already discussed, but I noticed the Holland had a chuckle with Jackson about the Oilers slow playing Bouchard. Holland said something like, “I guess we should have given him more ice time, eh?”
Regarding an analytices department, what do the Oilers need beyond a computer and three guys?
A company that watches video of every game in the league and extracts numbers for all the info that the Oilers ask for and you can probably cut those three guys down to one. Data collection is the labour intensive part.
While data collection is laborious, it is the easy part.
The hard part is determining what is important and refining it in an easily digestible fashion.
Note, in the Tulsky interview Lowetide linked to, Tulsky mentions you can slice data so finely that it becomes meaningless.
I agree. That was my point. You don’t need an army to do that though. Just a computer and a guy that knows what he is looking for and how to find it.
The one indicator in favour of this thinking is the improved pro scouting since Brad Holland arrived. DNB’s interviews with Holland show that he knows his stuff and he could easily tell the Mahe’s what he wanted in terms of raw numbers.
I still think the Carolina system is stronger.
Agreed. I think Carolina found the right guy long before Edmonton got there.
You sure about that?
Dellow and Parkatti aren’t lightweights; problem was they didn’t have anyone to take heed of their messages at the time.
I don’t know anything about Parkatti but Dellow was a staple on HF for a long time as well as here.
I remember that he was convinced and insistent that Corsi was the answer to everything you needed to know about hockey. (Poor Jim really did get his name taken in vain.)
Or that he once ‘proved’ with math that the Oilers were better off spending money they used to run an AHL team to sign a better 3rd line winger.
His lack of social skills were legendary.
I know our host is a friend of his but for those of us who were around from the beginning of the analytics revolution I think you will forgive us for being skeptical about why his message didn’t always find acceptance.
That encapsulates things pretty well.
He wouldn’t even consider patently obvious shortcomings in raw Corsi.
Yeah there’s a hive mind or blinders effect that happens across the spectrum with folks deeply embedded in various shades of research. Not just hockey analytics.
You’ve touched on something I’ve been meaning to bring up today, and that’s resilience and detachment.
Is someone posed with the task of investigating the numbers detached enough to see that they’re in a silo, and resilient enough to further pour over the numbers and suss out what they’ve been missing?
An example that comes to mind is a blind devotion to P/60 in some corners as a measure of latent ability. Sure it’s useful information, but not without proper context. Much like Corsi and Corsi rel, one could be convinced that the Jujhar Khairas and Matt Bennings of the world were due a prime time role at any point.
Yet we see from other stats, like TOI & OTF Shifts, how coaches deploy folks. Usually there’s a strong reason for doing so, which we on the outside aren’t always privy to.
BTW (and I’m hardly a Dellow devotee), I believe OTF Shifts was a measure largely championed by Dellow. So I’d take that as a measure of flexibility on his part.
BTW (and I’m hardly a Dellow devotee), I believe OTF Shifts was a measure largely championed by Dellow. So I’d take that as a measure of flexibility on his part.
==================
Dellow was always good to hop on the wagon of the next big thing.
Did analytics show that an injury to their opponents number one goal tender would tilt the series in their favour or was that a given?
So sorry for the loss of your soul mate! You handle all things with class! Having personally dealt with great loss your handling of same is exemplary! It is easy to talk the talk! “Semper Fi” and God Bless!
Thank You for all you do!
The goalie switch has to be filed under luck I think. What a devilish turn.
And thank you. I miss her so much, but believe I will see her again.
Preach Lowetide! I have a hard time believing the business case isn’t justified given you can build a pretty good analytics dept for 1m. Its a billion dollar team and a single playoff game or buyout costs less.
Hockey is a challenging domain to get right. This isnt marketing where you can send out thousands of experiments weekly and continuously iterate/learn. You get 1 draft, 1 free agency period and 1 trade deadline. You have to get it right so you have to rely heavily on your eyes too. When it comes to value, i think an analytics dept would help more and be easier to implement on a tactical level. Much more opportunity to innovate and iterate. Also hard to not just ignore it and say “just play McDavid more” 😀
In my experience irl “doing analytics” (not in hockey) is easy – the challenge is separating signal from noise. And knowing how much to rely on the data vs question it. Building an analytics dept is the start of the journey – not the destination. And from what Ive heard, teams that have these departments have quite a varying degree of buyin. I wish them well. Early success will be key.
Your last paragraph is exactly it. I’ve been told by more than one analytics person that the data is there as far as the eye can see. Drilling down, finding the key, that’s where the valuable people work.
The key to make the final correct decision is evaluation of the data! Like weather forecasts and a number of other professions the key is the correct evaluation of the math! If I had a NHL mteam I would be highly inclined to employ you. Your passion and number of year’s experience observing data and results make YOU an ultimate candidate! You have both the experience but also the knowledge of who are the best sources to recruit!
This is a good segue to recommend two books on this topic: “The Signal and the Noise” by Nate Silver (of ‘538’ fame) and “Noise” by the absolutely brilliant Daniel Kahneman.
Thanks for the suggestion! 👍
Oilers are trying to procure young talent to boost thier prospect pipeline. This is outside the box.
The black sheep Mitch Miller is unsigned and heading to Europe. Somebody will sign him sooner or later.
He screwed up, he paid the price several times over. Too much opinion to get into.
Hockey wise, I’d sign him and keep him on the back burner in Europe for a time. He’s good at hockey.
The Bruins had signed him, he wasn’t eligible to play in the NHL, so they had to pay to release his contract. I just don’t see the point in wasting one of the 50 spaces on him.
I think the last story i read is the young man’s son said Miller still hasn’t reached out. Until that happens, until he has probably shown remorse, I don’t believe anyone will touch him.
Bouchard had a rough first third of the season.
He made some “highly visible mistakes” that led to bad results and left lasting memories. It cratered his confidence to the point where he could barely handle and pass the puck – it was wild considering how skilled he is in that area.
Hot damn if he didn’t recover and that recovery started WELL before before placed with Ekholm.
Don’t get me wrong, Ekholm changes the look of the entire group but I think the opinion that Bouchard only played well at evens because of Ek is a disservice to Bouchard.
A full year of Ekholm teaching Bouchard the ropes is going to do wonders at both ends of the rink. We all knew Ekholm is a leader, good defensively and is physical without much injury but the most surprising aspect for me is his offence. He has a nice slapper knows when to join the rush and is probably believe it or not our most creative thinking D-man. He could also easily be the D-man on PP1 or PP2 if the need arises. From all accounts him and his family love Edmonton and you know he wants that Cup badly. I could see him on Edmonton’s back line for another 5 years. Holland’s best move along side the Kane venture.
Ekholm is 33 so I’m not sure 5 years is in the picture – we’ll see though.
For me, I’m happy his contract isn’t longer than it is.
He’s been all but injury free he Plays D and the most important factor he’s Swedish.
If I recall there was a players only meeting where it was said to a few younger guys, Bouch included, that they were here for a reason, they are skilled, and they should use that skill, no matter the mistakes. Something like a mental reset.
Can’t know for sure what was said or if that was the difference but I agree the turnaround for Bouch particularly was real and spectacular before Ekholm’s arrival. The jump from there only served to enhance what was already a sharp turn north. I remember a split, probably from WG that his numbers were in the gutter ~30% goal share but by new year was around 50%.
Absolutely, Broberg’s CorsiRel number likely needs alot of QoC context but I would note that his QoC deployment was not much different than Deharnais – 11% vs. 14% TOI vs. elites and apx 50% vs Grits for both.
Does this provide any context to seperate the two given how much better Broberg’s relative Corsi was?
I’m of the opinion that Broberg’s defensive zone defence is just as good, if not superior to Deharnais – they defend in different ways of course.
————————-
Nurse/Ceci “didn’t work” but they were 18-14 goals vs. elites (although 14-23 vs. Grits).
You were not alone in 2012. (Shaking fist angrily) The management of this organization around that time still boggles my mind. What was the mindset behind jettisoning all those solid NHLers? They just decided they needed to go and shipped them all out because they had young players that they wanted to have the kids be the stars.
I actually wrote that to get the exact reaction you provided. Of course I wasn’t alone, and it was only the louds who were screaming. I’m pleased you reacted as you did, hopefully no harm to cups or furniture at your house. 🙂
I can’t say on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.
Death by 1000 paper cuts era
One man army to build an analytics department. Love the soapbox mentality LT.
I seem to remember Pouliot would shine like a diamond by these metrics but can’t recall. What a weird signing that turned out to be. Surprisingly good then bad then gone. Changes in coaching, leadership, and probably injury, the usual suspects. Seemed like an absolute analytics hire at the time.
And of course analytics was certainly used in amateur procurement with the 2013 trade down. Man I wish one of those players would’ve popped and had a Cleary, Brodziak, etc. type career to justify some of the decisions made.
We know the team dipped their toe in the scene but never had that wow factor move to build upon it. Although, that’s not really the point of analytics. It’s helping make consistently better bets based on math and empirical evidence. Poker, except there’s 32 players and they all have 10 people in their ear with Tambellini always telling us to fold and Burke trying to fight Lowe cause he bluffed him on a 7, 2 off.
Coffee rant at the lake over, enjoy the long weekend, always enjoy reading.
The key to me is less about an Analytics Department per se, but an Analytics Function in decision making. Whether it is sourced internally or externally is less important than whether they have the organizational actors and culture to use the information effectively. THEN we can quibble about the volume and quality of information. On that front, having a PHO who values and uses analytics properly is a great starting point.
The crazy part here is that the Oilers were extremely early adopters of analytics.
They had hired Dan Haight from Dark Horse analytics in the dawn before time. That’s going back to circa 2008 or ‘09. After that, they brought on Sean Radcliffe who had a stats and comp sci background.
Michael Parkatti was next on board. He had won one of those wacky prediction competitions the Oilers used to run.
If Marco Roy, who was Parkatti’s pick, had turned out, who knows what would have happened. Not that it was reasonable to use a “n” of 1 for trialing analytics at the draft.
Marco Roy was from the 2013 draft. Recall, it wasn’t until late 2014 that the capitals hired Tim Barnes, aka Vic Ferrari.
Yeah, the Pouliot bet was the first time that Dellow didn’t lambast the Oilers management for a free agent signing. He was later hired too.
Oh those puck possession days.(when Corsi kings were lauded for being “puck possession players.” Certainly worked out in some cases like Anton Stralman who was a Corsi darling.
So while we’re all pining for the Oilers to get a proper analytics department, it’s easy to forget that they used to have one, with a very good cast.
Pop has ruined everything. I mean Chiarelli. He fired everyone except Justin Mahe.
That Chiarelli guy, man.
Using analytics forward teams as a template, how many new hires would we reasonably expect the Oilers to make if they were to get to par?
Here’s a rundown although it might not be totally up to date.
http://behindthebenches.com/NHL/Analytics.html
Toronto. 😎
I imagine Sam Ventura in Pittsburgh is about to get a lot of help.
Interesting how teams like MIN and TBY list one staff (similar to EDM) and have seen different shades of success.
MIN because they so vastly out performed expectations last year, and TBY due to recent Cups and Pennants.
So the takeaway may be that it’s not necessarily the size of your analytics department that matters most. Effectively communicating the crucial numbers to management, and management’s willingness to use the data as a guide informing decisions are probably the biggest factors to the successful implementation of an analytics department.
It is an interesting question. There are companies that can be hired to do specific work as well. I still think that watching video and tabulating that info such as zone entries etc. doesn’t require much expertise – just lots of time to watch games.
When I look at the link posted by HH I don’t really see any correlation between on ice success and the number of people listed doing analytics.
Success for some and dismal outcomes for others.
Yeah we know a big part of the the Mahe brothers’ role is to analyze and present third-party analytic data to management.
I think having the right data presented in useful fashion is a fundamental pillar of having the department. Another, which we seemed to lack during the DoD, is having a champion in management who will ensure that the data is incorporated in a meaningful way. That voice would seem to be Brad Holland.
So it’s all well and good to go on a hiring spree, but it’s another thing entirely to incorporate them into the team with purpose.
I agree with this. I guess my time in government at the political level soured me on ‘experts’ in general.
What you need is somebody who can present facts without their own agenda or personality mixing in with it and can unentangle the questions of the decision maker so that he gets the answers he needs presented in a way that is logical and transparent.
It goes back to some things said here the other day. If you really understand what you are talking about you can explain it so that anybody can understand it. The problem isn’t always the guy listening so much as the guy doing the talking.
I thought the Tampa listing was off kilter so checked their website.
They actually have 7 people working in analytics.
https://www.nhl.com/lightning/team/hockey-staff
Perhaps you should have noted the footnote at the bottom of the first link that said it was dated 2020. And that type of information is based on what teams choose to put on their website and not necessarily reflective of how many staff they have performing analytics.
Minnesota is likely a bit deceiving.
They hired Judd Brackett away from the Canucks a few years back.
He’s listed as Director of Amateur Scouting but he was heavily involved in analytics when he was in Vancouver and it’s likely he still is although under a different management structure.
Are there any scouts left in the league who don’t use analytic data collection to some degree?
It was 20-25 years ago when I was first introduced to HFBoards by a company my employers asked me to investigate. They were considering going public and the guys I worked for were thinking of taking them down that path.
They were developing software for the Oilers for their scouting staff at that time. The HFBoard intro turned out to be peripheral to my investigation but that was how I first stumbled into this discussion.
The info is there and has been collected for at least that long. The only discrepancy is the extent to which it dominates decision making.
One again, I’ll refer to the Tulsky interview above.
He explains that there are still scouts driving to watch games live who then complete traditional scouting reports which he then marries to analytics.
But, as you say, it’s quite likely that those scouts might be looking at things with new eyes,
The software the Oilers bought some 20 odd years ago was extremely nuanced and detailed. It even allowed input to travel in real time to every other scout in the organization and input data with one key push for every function they wanted to record so they could watch the game and record as they watched as well as a longer synopsis between periods and after the game.
I don’t know what they were doing in Carolina but this is what Edmonton had. Over 20 years ago.
In fact they offered me the job of selling the software to other NHL teams but I turned it down. I didn’t like the management of the company and I was busy enough.