Logical Fallacies, Taylor Hall And Edmonton Fans

Alright Brain, you don’t like me, and I don’t like you. But lets just do this, and I can get back to killing you with beer.

- Homer Simpson

If after nine more games, Taylor Hall has shown he’s good enough to play in the NHL, keep him here.

If not, send him to junior.

If you send him to junior after he’s proven to be good enough to play here, he and his people will be rightly insulted and perturbed by the obvious team money grab (trying to delay his NHL entry in the hopes of getting a more productive, low cost year out of him down the road).

Who knows how the future will play out with this kid, but if the Oil gets off on the wrong foot by demoting a kid who is capable of being an NHLer — thus fulfilling his lifelong dream — that would be most imprudent and ill-advised move.

I think the appeal to authority is a bit of a stretch Zona. The discussion in that thread was centered around evidence regarding development. Bruce pointed out that there is proof as there is no acceptable test for such claims anyways. He didn’t claim that past decisions proved anything, but he did say they all came to the same conclusion. Scott countered, and it was left at that – I didn’t see anyone throwing themselves on a “but how could Waddell be wrong” sort of bombshell.

Your second chart is kind of rendered a moot point by your first one. Teams that finish DFL or win the lottery tend to be in bad shape, and the GM takes the fall shortly after. There isn’t much there. If you wanted to show something, show a chart comparing how other lottery GM’s fared. Did these magical geniuses sending their 2nd overall down outlast their counterparts. Did the picks fare better? Can anything show that it mattered?

Taking up the argument is fine, but you didn’t add much to this except try to center an argument around one comment from Bruce instead of around the concept. If you’re going to do that then this place is going to feel a lot more like Dellow’s than a place of discussion.

But have any of the advocates of sending Hall back to junior provided any evidence that he will develop just as well or better there? I get that you save a year off the ELC, but what makes you think he’ll play like a 2nd year NHL player after another year in the OHL? I would suggest there’s just as much chance that all your doing is delaying his apprenticeship by a year. You might suggest that is a good thing since the Oil might be more ready to compete when he’s cheaper, but frankly I doubt your crystal ball is any better than those who want Hall to stay in the NHL.

Frankly, both arguments (as they relate to this hockey player and this team) can be filed under “an absence of evidence does not imply evidence of absence.” And while Tyler did a good job explaining his point, it’s a debatable point and I don’t think the case is anywhere close to a slam dunk like you present it.

More specifically to your post. I don’t think Bruce was appealing to antiquity, merely stating that those in charge have historically kept #1s in the NHL. Just stating a fact. Also, suggesting that NHL GMs aren’t authorities on hockey because they get fired is frankly stupid. Honestly, a man who gets hired to one of the most influential positions in an NHL franchise isn’t an expert because he eventually gets fired or his team misses the playoffs? If the iPad bombed and Steve Job gets fired tomorrow, does that mean the there is no basis to recognize him as an expert in his field based on the bulk of his work? I get that the general tone of the Oilogosphere is primarily self-promoting group think with a dash of condescension for the masses and the moronic cronies who actually run the NHL franchises, but I’d still argue that most of the guys making these decisions were qualified to make an “educated guess” on what developmental path was correct. Just because mistakes can be identified in hindsight does not mean they weren’t qualified “experts” when they made the call.

I’m not certain Tambellini is a good GM. I don’t know if the Oilers will be better able to compete in five years with this decision. I don’t think Tambellini does either. I’m also not certain having the three amigos in the NHL is the best plan…but I haven’t seen a conclusive argument otherwise, and given that these decisions aren’t made in a vacuum it’s really difficult for me to see it as the wrong call….and I see a whole bunch of logical fallacies and specious arguments on both sides of this debate.

In the absence of data that can be examined in statistically meaningful and objective ways, we frequently must defer to experts. Given that we have small sample sizes and we cannot run experiments without time travel (the Sundin twins would have been a great opportunity) we are left with case studies and expert opinion.

In a free market, the experts should rise to the top positions of their fields. Now the selection system is not really a ‘free market’, but at least there is a selection process in place. The fact that 1/2 of the GMs in the league are below average does not mean that they are not experts, but rather when compared to other experts, they are not the best of the best. Compaired to bloggers they have much more experience in running NHL teams. There are probably few, if any, people with more formally recognized qualifications (by position) to evaluate player development processes than scouts and GMs.

So, there is no problem with Bruce referring to the past decisions of experts in making his point.

This is a better year to break in Hall, because Hemsky and Penner are still around to face the oppositions best defenders. That might not be true next year.