Jonathan Willis recently penned an article on the Detroit Red Wings' development model and how the Oilers could reshape their model to match Detroit's success. One passage caught my eye:

The really interesting thing is that Detroit really hasn’t found a lot of NHL’ers in the draft. Since 1997 (the year Ken Holland was named general manager) the Red Wings have turned just 14 of their draft picks into full-time NHL’ers in Detroit (this number excludes a few, like Tomas Fleischmann or Kyle Quincey, who left the organization before becoming NHL’ers). For the sake of contrast, the Oilers have grabbed 23 players during that same span who would turn into full-time NHL’ers while with the team.

14 full-time NHL players doesn't seem like many, but two traits of Ken Holland's Red Wings impact their draft:

• They finish near the top of the league every year and have lower draft picks than the rest of the NHL. In fact, the Wings have been the best team in the league since Holland took over, meaning that they've had the lowest average draft position in the league since 1997.
• In the pre-salary cap days, Holland used draft picks as chips to acquire real NHL talent.

With that in mind, I wanted to see how Holland stacked up to the rest of the league when it came to draft acumen.

Continue reading this post »

The Edmonton sports media, as is their custom, leaked word of a possible extension for Steve Tambellini to continue as General Manager of the Edmonton Oilers. The local boys originally leaked a four-year deal, while Bob McKenzie countered, saying that a two-year deal was on the table. The media take was that Tambellini should be allowed to finish what he started, bring closure and success to his meticulously planned rebuild.

Certain portions of the fanbase concurred with the media and believe that Tambellini is the man to finish the rebuild, while other portions recoiled in rage at the specter of an extension for the man who caused the rebuild in the first place. Still others agreed with an extension, but for a completely different reason: that finding a better GM would be difficult or that a new GM might be worse.

Triumph, our newest contributor, took up their cause in his "Defense of Steve Tambellini" article:

Owners do not seem particularly adept at choosing general managers and/or team presidents. It's difficult to understand why this is, but the best general managers typically stay employed for a long time, and the rest of the league tends to shuffle people around hoping to find a great GM

The argument seems to be "There's a possibility his replacement might be worse, so the Oilers should accept current performance, no matter what."

The notion that viable candidates are hard to come by is wrong-headed and should be rejected. After the jump, I'll explain why.

Continue reading this post »

When it comes to the Leafs, every move and every storyline is amplified and magnified. Toronto, being the centre of the hockey universe (Yes, I know, but let's just let them think this) means that personnel moves make national news, slumps become prayer-worthy, and breakout seasons mean hall-of-fame predictions.

Though Ron Wilson's mug is a constant fixture on TSN and CBC, and his job review is never-ending, a deep dive into Wilson personnel deployments is a worthwhile endeavor. After the jump, we'll break down his bench management strategy.

The horizontal axis shows qualcomp, specifically Corsi relative quality of competition taken from the venerable and terrifying Gabriel Desjardins' behindthenet.ca. The vertical axis shows percentage of percentage of faceoffs taken in the defensive zone, again from the venerable and terrifying one. The bubbles are color-coded: blue means the player in the bubble has a positive zonestart-adjusted Corsi, red a negative. Finally, the size of the bubble indicates absolute value zonestart-adjusted Corsi.

Continue reading this post »

And if Fenwick is too confusing for you, how about shots percentage?

Continue reading this post »

Click here for the high-res image

Each bubble in the graph above represents the the possession metrics of an NHL rookie. This chart is limited to rookies with a minimum of 25 games played. Those players include Gabriel Landeskog, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Sean Couturier, Adam Henrique, Matt Read, Cody Hodgson, Craig Smith, Colin Greening, Luke Adam, Ryan Johansen, Carl Hagelin, Nick Johnson, Marcus Kruger, Andrew Desjardins, Matt Frattin, Roman Horak, Brett Connolly, Cody Eakin, Kaspars Daugavins, Cory Emmerton, Dale Weise, Harry Zolnierczyk, Devante Smith-Pelly, Anton Lander, Zac Rinaldo, Andrei Loktionov, Maxime Macenauer, and Nino Niederreiter.

The horizontal axis shows qualcomp, specifically Corsi relative quality of competition taken from the venerable and terrifying Gabriel Desjardins' behindthenet.ca. The vertical axis shows percentage of percentage of faceoffs taken in the defensive zone, again from the venerable and terrifying one. The bubbles are color-coded: blue means the player in the bubble has a positive zonestart-adjusted Corsi, red a negative. Finally, the size of the bubble indicates absolute value for zonestart-adjusted Corsi. All of the caveats about comparing these numbers between teams stand, but the chart is still a useful jumping-off point for analysis and discussion.

Continue reading this post »

In the comments of my morning article on the assignments faced by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog and Sean Couturier have faced, Woodguy wondered what impact the defensive pairings behind the kids has on their results:

I wonder how the defensive pairing playing behind the forwards affect the possession metrics.

Renney’s been running 3rd pair with RNH and his Ozone starts all year. Lots of Sutton, Peckham, Tuebert and Barker when he played.

You would think with the QC that Landeskog is getting he has Johnson or Quincey behind him.

Which is more important for driving possession, QC or QT. Chicken or egg?

Continue reading this post »

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog and Sean Couturier were three of the four most highly-ranked forwards in the prospect pool for the 2011 NHL draft. Hopkins went first overall, Landeskog second and Couturier mysteriously lasted until the Flyers selected him eighth overall. The three all stuck with their teams through 10 games in the NHL and will likely be linked and compared for the early part of their careers, at the very least.

So it's worthwhile to see exactly how each player is being used and the results they've managed in each situation. For that, we go to our trusty bubble charts.

Continue reading this post »

Earlier this season, I introduced the Clear Victory Standings, which appear on the right-hand sidebar of the blog. The concept is pretty simple. Because there's almost no correlation from season-to-season in a team's ability to win one-goal games, and because the official standings are such a mess thanks to the number of games that go into overtime, I find it helpful to look at how teams do in games decided by two or more (not including empty-net goals-for) to help suss out each team's true talent level.

Good teams do, of course, win their fair share of one-goal games, but those teams that win a disproportionate number of games by a single goal are often headed for a fall. After the jump, we'll take a brief look at how teams have done so far in games decided by two goals or more, and how each division has done against the others.

Continue reading this post »