Leafs hire Kyle Dubas as assistant GM, Loiselle and Poulin Dismissed

[Kin]

I should have expanded. It's a good indicator to me because I'm assuming the lack of fights had to do with a team structure or discipline that was advocated by the management. By extension, I'm hoping it means the emphasis is placed more largely on skill than toughness and it means the end to having Orr on the team.

I think it's probably important to keep in mind this guy is an AGM. He might have that viewpoint but I don't think his viewpoint on someone like Orr is going to win the day.

 

[cw]

A good GM search takes time. You have to short list, often get permission to talk to the candidate and then talk to folks who know the candidate, set up interviews around busy schedules, etc....

Sure, but he had time. Mid-april gave him almost three months before the draft. I don't think the things on your list really require that sort of time to start making decisions. Especially when it seems pretty likely that Leiweke brought him under the general context of being unhappy with the direction the team was going in.

Anyways, I'm not necessarily saying that firing either Nonis or Carlyle was the right thing to do. I just don't understand the wisdom of doing things in this order. I mean, you're right, there was no rush to get these things done but everything you're saying about waiting a year to get a better handle on candidates available applies just as well to assistant coaches and assistant GMs. If Shanahan wasn't brought in here with an already strong opinion of how things needed to go then those moves look like housecleaning for the sake of the appearance of housecleaning. Especially since, as has been noted with some enthusiasm here, some of these hires seem specifically suited to addressing the loudest, most vocal criticisms of the team.

Again, this isn't intended on a judgment of those moves. Dubas might be good at his job, so might Spott and Horachek but I'm not going to rush to frame these moves to fit a certain agenda in light of the decisions to retain Nonis and Carlyle because to do so, I think, would essentially be making the argument that those two did solid jobs and were simply undercut by incompetent underlings which isn't an explanation for the Leafs' troubles I'm inclined to give any weight.

I see the assistant coaching swap as giving the fans a couple of heads on the platter. And maybe the assistant GMs.

I see the hiring of Dubas differently than that though some credit to the media for pressing the club on their use of analytics is probably deserving.

 

[Fanatic]

I don't know why that's a good thing in and of itself. Last year the top 5 teams in fights were probably, on the whole, better than the bottom 5.

I think that in the pretty near future the number of fighting majors a team has is going to be largely incidental to how they do.

Top 5 in Fights last year - Leafs, Bruins, Flyers, Nux, Habs - 478 points

Bottom 5 in Fights last year - Wings, Canes, Devils, Hawks, Coyotes - 460 points

I would say it is irrelevant.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Top 5 in Fights last year - Leafs, Bruins, Flyers, Nux, Habs - 478 points

Bottom 5 in Fights last year - Wings, Canes, Devils, Hawks, Coyotes - 460 points

I would say it is irrelevant.

I don't think looking at the top 5 and bottom 5 points totals from last season proves it one way or another, or tells much about it's impact one way or another.

 

[Bullfrog]

I would say that's a pretty irrelevant analysis.

It's not about the fights. It's about replacing a fighter with a more skilled player.

 

[Bill_Berg]

I don't know why that's a good thing in and of itself. Last year the top 5 teams in fights were probably, on the whole, better than the bottom 5.

I think that in the pretty near future the number of fighting majors a team has is going to be largely incidental to how they do.

Top 5 in Fights last year - Leafs, Bruins, Flyers, Nux, Habs - 478 points

Bottom 5 in Fights last year - Wings, Canes, Devils, Hawks, Coyotes - 460 points

I would say it is irrelevant.

The real question is which group had more ticket and beer sales.

 

[freer]

I don't know why that's a good thing in and of itself. Last year the top 5 teams in fights were probably, on the whole, better than the bottom 5.

I think that in the pretty near future the number of fighting majors a team has is going to be largely incidental to how they do.

Top 5 in Fights last year - Leafs, Bruins, Flyers, Nux, Habs - 478 points

Bottom 5 in Fights last year - Wings, Canes, Devils, Hawks, Coyotes - 460 points

I would say it is irrelevant.

The real question is which group had more ticket and beer sales.

Ticket sales would be TO, but the beer not sure

 

[Bill_Berg]

I don't know why that's a good thing in and of itself. Last year the top 5 teams in fights were probably, on the whole, better than the bottom 5.

I think that in the pretty near future the number of fighting majors a team has is going to be largely incidental to how they do.

Top 5 in Fights last year - Leafs, Bruins, Flyers, Nux, Habs - 478 points

Bottom 5 in Fights last year - Wings, Canes, Devils, Hawks, Coyotes - 460 points

I would say it is irrelevant.

The real question is which group had more ticket and beer sales.

Ticket sales would be TO, but the beer not sure

Yeah,  the top 5 group probably had way more ticket and beer sales. Because people are going to see the fights. 

 

[bustaheims]

I would say that's a pretty irrelevant analysis.

It's not about the fights. It's about replacing a fighter with a more skilled player.

Yeah. With a few exceptions, teams that regularly dressed guys whose only contribution to the team was a willingness to give and receive punches to the face did not make the playoffs last season. In almost every case, on playoff teams, the guys that fought and played regularly also contributed on the PK or had respectable offensive numbers. They were hockey players that could and would fight, not straight up face punchers.

 

[Frank E]

I would say that's a pretty irrelevant analysis.

It's not about the fights. It's about replacing a fighter with a more skilled player.

Yeah. With a few exceptions, teams that regularly dressed guys whose only contribution to the team was a willingness to give and receive punches to the face did not make the playoffs last season. In almost every case, on playoff teams, the guys that fought and played regularly also contributed on the PK or had respectable offensive numbers. They were hockey players that could and would fight, not straight up face punchers.

That's what I was hoping for in Devane.

 

[bustaheims]

That's what I was hoping for in Devane.

Yeah. I'm not sure how he's been used by the Marlies, but his production numbers don't give me much hope in him being more than that, though.

 

[Kin]

It's not about the fights. It's about replacing a fighter with a more skilled player.

I agree that, in general, a team should dress its 12 most skilled skaters. I also probably agree that a relatively talent poor team like the Leafs should probably put a premium on doing so.

That said, I don't think it's really possible to sum up how overstated the difference between Orr and a run of the mill 12th forward and the effect it would have on the team has been here at times. My point wasn't about the relative value of fighting vs. skill, it's about the relative importance of the 12th/13th forwards to a team.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

That's what I was hoping for in Devane.

Yeah. I'm not sure how he's been used by the Marlies, but his production numbers don't give me much hope in him being more than that, though.

I'd say Broll is more likely since he had a fairly big role in Junior already (hey Dubas!) and did have 54 points in 67 games as a 19-20 year old.

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

From Michael Grange with really interesting comments from Soo coach Sheldon Keefe on how they integrated a more statistical approach into their traditional coaching:

How much can Dubas influence Carlyle?s style?

The OHL is a long way from the NHL and it goes without saying that coaching the Soo Greyhounds bears little resemblance to coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs.

But Sheldon Keefe has an interesting perspective on what impact Kyle Dubas, the Leafs stats-friendly newbie executive can have on a hockey coach, and as far as he?s concerned, it?s considerable.

?The biggest thing on our staff was that it created daily discussions and debate,? says Keefe of the spreadsheets he?d be given to review after games and the more in-depth breakdowns he?d look at during various points in the season. ?What did we see in the game and the video compared with what the numbers said?

?We were constantly looking for solutions to try and make everything make sense. Instead of going just with the numbers or just what we thought we saw on the ice, we tried to go through everything to make it all compute so we could come up with a solution and a direction.?

There was enough success to turn Keefe from being curious about so-called ?fancy stats? to a believer.

...

Analytics or advanced statistics weren?t a big point of the interview process when Keefe was hired by Dubas to take over the Greyhounds midway through the 2012-13 season. Dubas didn?t hire Keefe from the Central Canada Hockey League?s Pembroke Lumber Kings ? the Junior A franchise Keefe owned and led to five league titles and the 2011 national championship ? because he was versant in Corsi or Fenwick or PDO. Keefe had nothing more than a passing knowledge of advanced stats and most of what he knew he?d gleaned from following Dubas and others on Twitter.

?He began to build an interest,? says Dubas. ?And then he began to see the synergies between what the theory was and what the numbers were saying and the value in altering our strategy a little bit. It just takes time. It?s slow and you have to slowly present the ideas and they might be rejected or they might be wholly accepted or it might be somewhere in between.?

...

?I look back at what I valued and how I coached in Jr. A and I don?t even recognize myself,? Keefe said while taking a moment to talk about his old boss while on vacation in Arizona. ?I believe I have an understanding of the game now that works for me and our organization that I just did not have previously before getting introduced to this.?

Now, how much impact a 28-year-old, rookie assistant general manager can have on the likes of Leafs coach Randy Carlyle, who was playing in his 10th NHL season the year Dubas was born, is a matter of debate.

...

When Leafs president Brendan Shanahan talked Tuesday about those in the organization who were ?afraid? of certain terms and concepts, it was hard not to imagine general manager Dave Nonis or more significantly, Carlyle as foremost among those who recoiled at the idea of ?spreadsheet hockey.?

But Keefe says change can come quickly to those open to them, and Dubas is the right kind of teacher.

?He has a very articulate way of explaining how these numbers can help and the theories behind them versus saying ?hey, look at these numbers?,? says Keefe. ?He presents them in a way that?s a lot less intimidating.?

In the beginning, Keefe says his implementation of advanced stats wasn?t very advanced: It was the basics ? Corsi, Fenwick and PDO ? which taken together capture how much each team has the puck; how often they shoot it and how much ?puck luck? and goaltending are reflected in goals for and against.

Last season Keefe said he began incorporating data ? more as a guideline or a support ? in how he deployed his lineups.

But the real breakthrough came when he found himself developing his own data to test his theories about how to play and coach the game.

?I ended up being hungry for the numbers and what they could do as far as helping develop a system of play that could possibly influence those numbers,? said Keefe.

The biggest revelation, he said, was finding the relative risk of a turnover in the defensive zone by over-handling the puck in their own end was far out-weighed by the benefits of exiting the defensive zone in control of the puck, which in turn allowed the Greyhounds to enter to offensive zone in position to make plays.

Chipping pucks out or rimming them off the glass became taboo. Instead the emphasis was on making as many passes inside their own zone as needed to leave the zone with control.

With a small, young, skilled team battling on the wall wasn?t conducive to the lineup he had, and by doing his own analysis ? ?I don?t have a fancy name for it? ? he found that there was strong correlation between having the puck exiting the zone and keeping it in the other team?s end.

...

?Just like anyone else I valued size and strength and toughness and physicality ? and I still do,? says Keefe. ?However at the Junior level and Kyle feels the same way ? we weren?t prepared to sacrifice skill and ability in order to get bigger or tougher.?

There are risks ? ?we looked kind of chaotic at times,? said Keefe ? but upon review the damage caused by the inevitable turnovers in their own zone were minimal compared to the benefits of making the plays needed to control the puck.

Full article

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

Also interesting from a piece by Scott Cullen:

On other topics, we talked about employing four forwards on the ice at times. He said the Greyhounds were experimenting with it, adding a top-line forward when the other team put their fourth line on the ice, figuring that there was a potential mismatch available, with minimal downside because other teams' fourth lines weren't necessarily a big threat. Merely thinking that little bit outside the box qualifies as creative in hockey circles and it's the open-minded approach to try it that makes Dubas such an intriguing hire. He's not stuck on the same old, same old because that's the way it has always been done.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=457789

Hopefully we'll slowly start to see the Leafs employing some different ideas.  I bet there are a number of 4th lines in the league you could attempt that against from time to time.

 

[Arn]

Also interesting from a piece by Scott Cullen:

On other topics, we talked about employing four forwards on the ice at times. He said the Greyhounds were experimenting with it, adding a top-line forward when the other team put their fourth line on the ice, figuring that there was a potential mismatch available, with minimal downside because other teams' fourth lines weren't necessarily a big threat. Merely thinking that little bit outside the box qualifies as creative in hockey circles and it's the open-minded approach to try it that makes Dubas such an intriguing hire. He's not stuck on the same old, same old because that's the way it has always been done.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=457789

Hopefully we'll slowly start to see the Leafs employing some different ideas.  I bet there are a number of 4th lines in the league you could attempt that against from time to time.

McLaren - McClement - Orr ?

 

[Corn Flake]

One of the best things I've heard from his interviews: "our team had the lowest number of fights in the league."

They also had one of the highest PIM's in the league.  Soooo...

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

One of the best things I've heard from his interviews: "our team had the lowest number of fights in the league."

They also had one of the highest PIM's in the league.  Soooo...

They had the 2nd lowest PIM's in the league: http://www.ontariohockeyleague.com/standings/show/ls_season/49/subtype/1

 

[Coco-puffs]

One of the best things I've heard from his interviews: "our team had the lowest number of fights in the league."

They also had one of the highest PIM's in the league.  Soooo...

They had the 2nd lowest PIM's in the league: http://www.ontariohockeyleague.com/standings/show/ls_season/49/subtype/1

Harder to take penalties when you have the puck most of the time

 

[Corn Flake]

One of the best things I've heard from his interviews: "our team had the lowest number of fights in the league."

They also had one of the highest PIM's in the league.  Soooo...

They had the 2nd lowest PIM's in the league: http://www.ontariohockeyleague.com/standings/show/ls_season/49/subtype/1

:-[ I stand corrected then.  Swear I read that in one of the articles on the day Dubas was hired.  I did work 16 hours that day so might be me.