ron wilson – Heroes in Rehab: the blog

Setting and Measuring Expectations: The Leafs Coaching Staff

No Strategy yet HPIM0785 — In search of a clean slate for the X's and O's

For Leafs fans, the upcoming season will be an important one. Though it is (once again) extremely unlikely that the Leafs could win the big silver beer stein on offer at the end of the postseason tournament, fans of the team will be watching very closely for signs that any of the existing questions about the team might be answered. We’ll dig through the statistics like the oracles of old pawed through goat entrails, looking for evidence that augers well for a brighter future ahead. It is pretty safe to assume that Brian Burke and his staff will be engaging in a similar process.

Many of those questions concern individual players: what, for example, can we realistically expect from players like Jonas Gustavsson, Luke Schenn, Tyler Bozak and Nikolai Kulemin, all of whom are approaching their likely peak athletic potential in the next few years. Other questions concern more collective issues: what improvement can we expect from the Leafs’ power-play and penalty killing units?

All of those questions merit discussion, but they all relate to issues about the players; with Ron Wilson entering his third season as Maple Leafs head coach, and keeping in mind that last season in particular represented a disappointing step backwards, it’s safe to say that questions must also remain about the suitability of the current staff for the task ahead.

One of the things I like most about the hockey blogosphere is the very strong tendency to attempt to quantify, measure and make concrete and expressible these sorts of issues. When we speak of “issues” and “questions” about the coaching staff, the reality is that there must be some set of performance metrics against which it is reasonable measure the observed outcome of this season, in an effort to dispassionately judge whether the coaches are making a discernible difference in the team’s play (and whether that difference represents an improvement).

Statistical analysis isn’t my strong suit, and I don’t pretend to have the facility with numbers that many other hockey bloggers have ably demonstrated, but I thought I’d try my hand at attempting to cobble together an answer to this last question. What types of numbers should we look for when attempting to grade Messrs. Wilson, Hunter and Acton at the end of this season. Please accept this analysis for what I hope it is: a starting point for the discussion, and a jumping off point for others with the statistical chops that are absent from my toolkit. Criticisms, comments and refinements are welcome – put ’em in the comments below!

I wish I could figure out a way to embed the tables I compiled directly into this post, but two hours of futzing about with Google, Google docs, WordPress, Excel and Numbers have failed to surrender any such secrets, assuming they exist. Unfortunately, therefore, I have to just insert a link to the table I compiled. All data are sourced from hockey-reference. com.

I thought the most logical place to start in assessing the performance of the coaches would be year over year changes in goals for and goals against. I compiled the goals for and goals against data for all 30 teams in each season since the lockout, calculated the percentage change in each from the previous year. I then tried to normalize the percentage change data by calculating the average change each year and the standard deviation of the data. I then selected out those results that lie between one and two standard deviations away from the mean (classified as “moderately exceptional”), and those results that lie two standard deviations or more away from the mean (classified as “significant”).

Link to Google docs spreadsheet re: YOY data: change in GF and GA

Assuming that the year-to-year changes are normally distributed, if I remember my statistics class correctly, the results that are interesting are those that fall more than one or two standard deviations from the mean. Those are the results I mentioned above, with the moderate desirable increments marked in light green, the significant desirable increments marked in dark green, the moderate undesirable increments marked in pink, and the significant undesirable increments marked in red.

If I’m reading all of the data correctly, it would appear that the standard deviation of the Goals Against data is typically between about 9 and 12 per cent. Thus, an increase or decrease of anything less than 9 to 12 per cent, statistically speaking, represents the mushy random middle, results in the 68% of data that cluster around the mean in a normal distribution. If I am applying the theory correctly, it would be unwise to come to any conclusion that the team’s performance had either improved or deteriorated based on data of this nature. To make that sort of judgement, I would suggest that to even make a weak judgment about significant differences in performance, we would need to observe an increment (or reduction) of between 9-12% and 18 to 24% (these would be the results between one and two standard deviations from the mean). Variances of more than 18 to 24% from last year’s data could confidently be said to represent a clear indication of differential performance.

Two thoughts come to my mind: first, it’s important to keep in mind the (perhaps obvious) but important point that increases or decreases in a team’s goals for or goals against are not solely attributable to coaching. In fact, it’s probably a live question whether coaching can be said to have a demonstrable effect upon the results at all. Certainly, the old saw is that “you can’t teach scoring,” though it is generally believed that coaches and their systems can and do have a more pronounced effect upon the defensive side of the game (and, by extension, the goals against ledger). If anyone has any thoughts on how to examine the evidence in that regard, I’d love to hear about it.

Second, the numbers involved are fairly large. I think the data seem to be telling us that wide variances in the numbers may be expected from year to year for purely random (or at least statistically uninformative) reasons.

If that last conclusion is correct, unless there is an enormous change in the Leafs goals against totals this year (more than +/- 20%, which in practice would translate into about a 54 goal change either way), it seems that we ought not to make any judgements about the performance of the coaching staff based upon these numbers.

Thoughts?

Primer for Young Leaf Fans

Chapter One

Look at the men. They are wearing blue and white. Why are the men wearing Blue and White? They are Toronto Maple Leafs hockey players. They are teammates playing a hockey game. They wear blue and white shirts. They wear blue and white pants. The blue and white shirts and pants are called uniforms. Why do the Maple Leafs hockey players wear uniforms? If they did not wear uniforms, they could not be sure that the player they are passing the puck to is on the other team.

Look at the men’s feet. The men are wearing funny shoes. The funny shoes are called skates. Why are the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey players wearing skates? Judging by the way the Toronto Maple Leafs are playing against the Florida Panthers, no one is really quite sure.

Look at the man at the end of the rink. He is wearing lots of extra padding. Who is the man wearing lots of extra padding? His name is Vesa Toskala, and he is the Toronto Maple Leafs’ goalie. What is a goalie? A goalie stands in the way when men from the other team shoot the puck. A goalie stops the puck and makes a save. Doesn’t that sound scary? Let’s watch Vesa Toskala. See the man with the puck? Shoot, man, shoot! Okay, that one went in the net. It is not a save. Let’s watch again. See the man with the puck? Shoot, man, shoot!. Hmmm, I’m sure Vesa Toskala will stand in the way of one of these shots soon. Maybe we should come back later.

See the man at the bench? His name is Ron and he is a hockey coach. He is the coach of the Toronto maple Leafs. Coach, Ron, coach! What does a coach do? When the players on the team make a mistake, the hockey coach must fix it. The hockey coach must tell the players what they did wrong. He must teach them never to do that again. Doesn’t that sound interesting? Would you like to talk to Coach Ron? That would be fun, but Coach Ron is a VERY busy man.

Look at Vesa Toskala again. See the man with the puck? Shoot, man, shoot! Well, that was not a save either. Let’s watch one more time. See the man with the puck? Shoot, man, shoot! No, still not a save. Yes, I know, I said that Vesa Toskala is a goalie. I know I said that a goalie makes a save. But Vesa Toskala has not made a save. How do I know he’s a goalie? He has a very nice mask.

See the man scowling? His name is Brian. Scowl, Brian, scowl. Brian is the General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. What is a General Manager? The General Manager’s job is to make the team better. The General Manager’s job is to make the team win. Do you hear Brian talking? Brian says bad words. Brian says filthy words that you must never repeat. Brian is angry. Why is Brian angry? Why is Brian scowling? Why does Brian say bad words?

Wouldn’t you?

Revolution: The Storming of the Gondola Continues

One of the things I didn’t know about Ron Wilson is that he is, and has been for some time, a bit of a tech nerd. Here’s a link to an AP story from four years ago, when Wilson was still coaching the San Jose Sharks.

“I’m the type of guy who’s always got to have the new thing,” he said.

And Wilson’s technological savvy is all over the best season in franchise history for the San Jose Sharks, who have reached the Western Conference finals in Wilson’s first full season as their coach.

Wilson and his assistants, Tim Hunter and Rob Zettler, constantly invent new ways to make the Sharks better and smarter. They compile obscure databases, dissect game tapes and preach strategy with rinkside computers, personalized scouting reports and a wealth of digital, wireless gadgetry.

Constructive criticism: for those of you unfamiliar with the term, this is the kind of criticism that does not necessarily require use of either the word “suck” or “douchebag”. It is to be encouraged, if only because in these troubled economic times, there has been a significant decline in research into innovative methods by which one might insinuate that a person is physically unable to distinguish his ass from his elbow; as a result, non-constructive criticism can tend towards repetition and monotony.

As the Glorious Revolution continues, here’s my attempt to offer a little constructive criticism about the local mittenstringers’ coverage of the Toronto Maple Leafs organization: instead of writing every other column about how the team’s fans are a bunch of gullible assholes whose offensive output, defensive liabilities and startling body odour have apparently produced, through natural forces too overpowering to resist, an Inevitable Vortex of Fail™ magically resulting in on-ice disappointments, columnists like Messrs. Berger, Cox or Simmons might want to consider mashing out a few monosyllables on the subject of the Leaf coaching staff’s use of computer technology.

According to a recent story by Mark Zwolinski, Ron Wilson, Tim Hunter and Rob Zettler are playing a leading role in the integration of this type of technology into NHL coaching:

Tablet PCs, hard wired into a Sling Box streaming device, will be mounted at both ends of the bench, lending a bit of Bill Gates wizardry to Leaf games.

“It’s all about getting information into a player’s hands quickly and efficiently,” Leafs assistant coach Rob Zettler said, making it sound easy.

Zettler, along with fellow assistant Tim Hunter, and head coach Ron Wilson, integrated the technology into their bench area while all three formed the San Jose Sharks coaching staff between 2002-07.

Zettler and Hunter are able to access real time video replays and real time stats from the Tablets, and relay them to players during games. The information is basically quick hit knowledge – the kind of live information flow common to a stock market trading floor. But under this new Leafs coaching regime, there’s much more to the high tech approach than bench monitors.

The coaching threesome utilizes the OS-X computer operating system for their laptops. Much of the video and stats streaming they do is also available on a Smart Board – a large, touch-controlled screen – built into the video room, coach’s room, and dressing room at the Air Canada Centre.

The real cool tool, though, is a vast stats database compiled by Wilson over his 15 years as an NHL coach.

The database contains everything from where the most goals are scored from, to individual players’ on-ice tendencies.

The point is that Wilson, Hunter and Zettler seem to be blazing a bit of a trail in this way, continuing a process that the three of them began while with the San Jose Sharks. Evidently – unless the trio are personally ponying up for the new hardware – MLSE has embraced the idea and is financially supporting its implementation.

Zwolinski’s story is good, as far as it goes, and it’s not my present purpose to criticize his article, but I would love to know more about exactly how and when the technology is used. I would love to hear from either a current Leaf player or a former Shark, someone who has experience receiving the tutelage that Wilson, Hunter and Zettler are trying to provide. I’d like to be given a concrete example about a specific situation in which the technology was employed and whether the immediate access to the information in question had an appreciable effect upon the outcome of a game. Do the players find it useful, and if so what limitations do they see in it? Tech nerds like myself would also love to see some discussion with the software developers and IT nerds who are physically implementing the system to get a sense of what they were asked to provide, where they feel they fell short, and what developments they foresee in the future as the hardware used to do the job improves in performance and accessibility.

It occurs to me, though, that these technological developments are the kind of thing that the brilliant columnists might want to consider. They might want to discuss the fact that the Maple Leaf organization is taking steps to install the necessary electronics and to ensure that the coaching staff has the twenty-first century tools necessary to give them whatever competitive edge they can thereby obtain. They might attempt to evaluate what results, if any, were produced by this approach when the same coaching trio used this technology in San Jose.

They might examine the larger context within which this particular development is occurring and consider whether such initiatives are reflective of the way that – in a salary-cap environment – wealthy organizations can attempt to employ their resources to maximum advantage; obviously, rich teams can’t just spend their way to success in the modern NHL by simply putting expensive players on the ice, but there is no limit on the amount of money that an organization can spend on other off-ice, management or player support and training issues. They might see parallels between this method of trying to gain the upper hand on more impecunious rivals and efforts that a team might make to build and staff a professional, effective and co-ordinated scouting organization. They might wish to examine what efforts, if any, have been taken within the Maple Leaf organization to pursue objectives such as these.

Of course it’s hard to discuss things like this technology initiative in the course of unwinding another cookie-cutter yarn about how management at MLSE is only interested in maximizing profit by minimizing expenditures and in serving up slop to the foolish sheep who shamble through the turnstiles year after year like characters from a George Romero film. An angle like this doesn’t fit the narrative and the caricature of the penny-pinching suits cackling over their gold-plated success at selling tin-covered mediocrity to the local slackjaws like you and I. It is confusing to them, because it doesn’t fit the conclusions they have already drawn.

It also takes some thought and a little hard work, so they don’t tell you about stuff like this.

Now THAT’S a Minibus

Spouse and I went for some lunch to a little burger and sub shop in St. George yesterday. I took a picture of the sign out front (depicted in the photograph below):

I’m not sure what utility there is in a mass transit vehicle that is twelve inches in length; but you really can’t beat the price.

The work continues here in Juniorvania; we have completed our work on the eastern front, and have begun focussing our efforts to the north (the front of the house). My entire body aches, and as soon as I am done at the keyboard, I am going to go put a bottle of Motrin in a bowl, pour some milk over the pile of tablets, and eat them like Rice Krispies. I spent the better part of today’s work session cutting out the numerous stumps from various trees and shrubs in the eastern portion of the front garden (most, if not all, of which were cut down long before we got here). As a result of these labours, I am now prepared to swear an affidavit to the effect that the reciprocating saw is, without a shadow of a doubt, the greatest of man’s inventions. The wheel, though sporty and sure to attract a lot of buzz, runs a distant second to the blessed miracle of the reciprocating saw.

On an unrelated note, I must again marvel at Mike‘s diligence and industry: though he is on vacation and travelling afield, he has nonetheless managed to continue to post daily. I think I will excuse myself now and go make myself a dunce cap and sit in the corner for a while; he makes me look very, very bad by comparison.

Tomorrow night, we are off to see the Ticats/Stampeders game at Ivor Wynne. It’s the Cats’ last home game of another lost season. I am getting used to a lot of losing – Spouse and I (courtesy of Joe) were down to the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Tuesday night to see the Leafs defeated (in a shootout) by the Anaheim (don’t call us Mighty) Ducks. It was an interesting enough game; the Leafs were awful in the first period, so awful that we witnessed one of hockey’s greatest rarities: George Parros scored on a breakaway. No, that’s not a typo. The notably mustachioed habitual pugilist was the benefactor of a communication breakdown between Leaf defencemen Tomas Kaberle and (rookie) Luke Schenn. Still, getting the breakaway is one thing, but actually putting the biscuit in the bucket is quite another. I don’t think George’s mom has ever seen him score on a breakaway, even in road hockey. Anyway, I suspect some choice profanities were uttered by Ron Wilson in the Maple Leaf locker room during the first intermission, as the team was wholly different in the second and third stanzas. Antropov tucked a rebound home in the second to draw the Leafs to within one, and they pressed throughout the third for the tying marker, failing to click on a 38-second 5-on-3 advantage. When the Ducks iced the puck with about a minute to go, though, I turned to Spouse and said I felt the Leafs were going to tie the game. Not fifteen seconds later, they did. Overtime solved nothing, so the game went to a shootout, unfortunately for the Leafs (they’ve been terrible at this aspect of the new NHL since its inception). Curiously, Wilson chose to pull Toskala (who’s 0-2 in shootouts already this year) and insert Curtis Joseph. Tough assignment for Cujo; he had to have had more than a little trouble getting ready to face the first shooter, having sat on the bench and opened the door for his mates for the previous two and a half hours. The first Anaheim shooter? Teemu Selanne (gulp). CuJo whiffed on Teemu’s quick wrist shot and got beaten by a Corey Perry deke, while both Leaf shooters missed the net; game over.

On the Ticat front, as mentioned above, it’s been another lost season. The Ticats were only recently officially eliminated from the (highly egalitarian and scrupulously inclusive) CFL playoffs, but in reality it’s been a foregone conclusion since around the August long weekend. Cat fans are focussing on the new QB in town, Quinton Porter. He’s shown some poise and a great arm while standing in for an injured Casey Printers. Porter seems to have developed some chemistry with his wideouts, something Printers has seemed unable to do. Suddenly, Prechae Rodriguez seems all-World at times and Scott Mitchell has also managed to make some great catches with Porter on the field. The young QB has played well enough to set up a bona fide QB controversy brewing by the time training camp starts next summer. I am hoping to take my camera, and my 800 mm lens to the game tomorrow night. I’d like to try to get some good close-up shots of the players, and try my hand at sports action photography. As for the outcome of the game, I anticipate watching a lot of Stampeder touchdowns tomorrow – as well as Porter has gotten the offence going at times, the Cat defence, especially the secondary, seems prone to coughing up huge passing plays. I am sure that Calgary QB Henry Burris is grinning like a Cheshire cat in anticipation this evening, and has found that he just can’t stop rubbing his hands together.

A Place Of Its Own

Mike posted this in my little article about Gord Kirke’s busy, busy schedule:

Hello Mr.B.Burke.

Am Mr.G.Kirke, I work with a HOCKEY TEAM here in CANADA as an SEARCHING officer. I have just found out that a foreign customer with us WAS FIRED last year without leaving a next of kin to his PLAYERS and he has no known family. The HOCKEY TEAM will keep the PLAYERS if it remains unclaimed which will only favor the HOCKEY TEAM, so I decided to look for a foreigner that will agree to inherit the PLAYERS while I prepare grounds for the claim.

I deem it important to assure you that this is legal and genuine and will be carried out officially too. The claim itself is overdue and will be given prompt attention by the HOCKEY TEAM upon your payment request while I’ll give you exclusive details and support from here. I am ready to give you 25% of the HOCKEY TEAM for your support and I also guarantee the safety of your name and details.

I’ll furnish you with more details upon getting your immediate response.

Thank you.

G.Kirke.

Obviously, this is waaaay funnier than what I wrote. It deserves a post of its own. Voilà.

Stanley Goes to Motown. Again.

Mike: You can exhale, uncross your fingers and toes, uncover your eyes, put down the four-leaf clovers, and – for heaven’s sake – let the rabbit have his feet back. The Wings’ Cup championship was well deserved; they outlplayed their rivals from Steeltown, and it would have been an unjust result had they not prevailed. There had to be a few million Maalox consumed in the Motor City, though, following the harrowing final seconds of the game, with Osgood down and a loose puck bouncing – like deja vu – to the right of the goal and a Pittsburgh attacker whacking away at it with his stick as the clock. Ticked. Slowly. Down.

In other hockey news, the Leafs have apparently made Ron Wilson an offer. The guy has put up some decent numbers with teams in the regular season, he was at the helm of the Capitals (failed) run to the final in 1998, and he coached the U.S. team to victory in the 1996 World Cup, but it’s somewhat troubling to me that the Leafs – professing a desire not just to qualify for the playoffs each year, but to actually win the Stanley Cup – are hiring a guy that was just fired for, at least in part, not being able to get that job done. I worry too that much of Wilson’s success came in the obstruction/holding era of the late 90’s. On the other hand, Wilson’s teams have tended to be pretty good on both power play and penalty kill – two areas that were absolutely woeful for the Leafs this year.

Again I say, it’s almost impossible for an outsider – someone outside the dressing room – to really know whether a hockey coach is “good” or not. So only time will tell, assuming Wilson takes the job, whether this was the right decision. But Messrs. Peddie and Tanenbaum need to look over their blue and white clad shoulders – with 11 Cup championships now, the Wings are fast catching the Leafs in the “number of championships won” category. I spent the early part of my life hoping that Mike Palmateer and Darryl Sittler would propel the Leafs past the hated bleu, blanc et rouge to the top of that list at some point in my lifetime; now I just hope we don’t get passed by the likes of the cephalopod-waving juggernaut from Hockeytown.