AB Analytics Conference

I'm in Palm Springs and while I sure cant complain, unfortunately I am unable to attend the AB Analytics conference in Calgary going on right now. The event is organized by Rob Vollman and is a great place to learn first hand from some of the innovators in the hockey analytics space. I particularly enjoyed the conversations between sessions. Its hockey nerd bliss! Kudos to Rob for organizing. Since I cannot attend I thought it would be fun to make a social media summary (below) which will live update during the event.

My best memory of Ryan Smyth

It was 2006.  I had planned the trip of a lifetime to go to the world cup.  That year I had also decided it was a good idea to buy playoff tickets to the Oilers.  Back then you could only buy all the games or none.  So I had tickets to the finals during our trip through Europe.  As an Oilers fan whose first memory of hockey was pretty much when Wayne Gretzky got traded, I've suffered through a lot and didnt want to miss the finals. I believe we left for London and it was 2-0 Canes.  We watched a couple games in London and Amsterdam, by fluke seeing several of the same people each game.  The only night I didn't watch the game was game 5, I fell asleep at a hostel in the red light district in Amsterdam that night.  It was OT, I said to a buddy "If the Oilers win I'm happy, if not I cant stand to watch.  If they win, I'm going to Brazil vs Australia in a couple days.".  The extra game meant I could sell another ticket on Kijiji and afford to go.  Fernando Pisani scored in OT and the girlfriend (now wife) and I were able to find scalper tickets.  The picture here is of our last night in Munich which was also game 7.  Its myself and some dude I never saw again.  Our train left Munich at 7am the following morning, and as a barely out of school newb to the workforce budget was a priority. The natural choice was to watch soccer all day in the fan zones and stay up to watch Game 7.  That day we met a ton of Canadians who wanted to watch the game as well as a crew of 8ish Aussies who came along. The Aussies all day sang this song, that always started out with the word 'Aussies' ... and it was to the tune of the song go west.  After a while, I noticed that the words were never the same. I asked him how he decided the words. He said, they are several staples but for the most part we just make them up kinda like the ole Chicago store song. I told him we needed to make an Oilers one and he was on board the process.  He said tell me something about the Oilers.  Our first story was about Ryan Smyth and how he lost his teeth from a shot by Pronger and how he picked his teeth up off the ice and didn't miss a shift.  I dont remember the words to that song.  I wish I did.  All I remember was 'Ryan Smyth he has no teeth' (to the tune of go west).  That stupid song was stuck in my head as well as our 2k6 travelling crew's head for several days.  What a great memory for a suffering Oilers fan.  Ryan Smyth was front and center, not the best player but the heart and soul of the team.

Off to the game tonight.  You'll be missed Smytty.

Draft a center

The Oilers lost 3-2 to the Ducks last night. It was a good game last night despite the result. As Lowetide points out, Taylor Hall is on a nice run with 17 shots and 5 points in the last 2 games. Its nice to see the kid line dominate despite it being almost all Taylor Hall. He sure makes Ebs and Nuge better but they compliment him nicely. Last night, I spent some time comparing Edmonton to Colorado. I'm still at a loss to explain the Oilers this season and the general idea behind my thoughts was to figure out what it would take for the Oilers to have an Avalanche type break out season. The obvious answer is luck. The Avs are riding good goaltending and thus their percentages will likely cause them to regress next year. This has been covered by others like MC79Hockey so I wont go into that. But the fact remains, 102 pts vs 61 pts is night and day especially given that the Avs drafted Mackinnon first overall last year. I'm gonna start with identifying areas that the Avs have done better at compared to the Oilers.

1) Goaltending

 As mentioned, the obvious difference between the Oilers and Avs is goaltending. Varlamov has been great and the Oilers goaltending was horrible until recently. That appears to be somewhat resolved now with Scrivens and Fasth.

2) drafting outside the first round

The Avs have drafted and developed O'Reily and Barrie in recent years as well as Stastny and McGinn prior to that. The Oilers deserve some credit for drafting Eberle but Musil, Lander and Pitlick dont appear to be impact players while other teams that have worse picks are getting better value. This is something that cant be fixed instantly.

3) Number of 2 way players in the top 6

Yakapov is a work in progress and Sam Gagner is a liability defensively. The gap between Gagner and O'Reily or Stastny is pretty large 5 on 5. O'Reily is one of the more underrated players in the league. Statsny is overpaid but still highly effective.

4) Strength at center

Nuge, Gagner, Gordon vs Mackinnon, Duchene, O'Reily, Stastny is a daunting difference.  Gordon was a great add by MacT. I like him a lot but he doesn't deliver a ton offensively. The really good teams have 3C who can deliver points and are effective 2 way players. Both Gordon and Gagner are fairly one dimensional. Nuge struggled this year and I still expect big things. One a side note, if Paul Statsny becomes available as a UFA, the Oilers should go after him. The end result is likely an overpay but he'd cost nothing to add.

5) Eric Johnson

As a 1st overall he's been a bit of a bust but he is still playing top pairing D in Colorado. Despite the missed season due to the golf injury he is still a 2006 draft pick who has finally become an impact player in the last couple years. The Oilers are going to need Darnell Nurse to arrive prior to the 2018 season. The other top pairing defender in Colorado is Jan Hedjda who I don't consider a huge upgrade on Petry.  Oilers lack a clear top pairing D.

 

Overall, I think the biggest gap between the clubs is the center position. The defense also needs to be addressed but they do have cap space and assets required to land one via trade. The Oilers pipeline is also full of dmen. There are no top 6 forwards ready to challenge for minutes while the d pipeline has Klefbom, Marincin (who is here to stay), Nurse and Simpson. If I'm MacT, I'd be looking at drafting Lion Draisaitl. He has decent size and his scouting report reads as a 2 way C. This type of player I think would compliment Yakapov well. Yakapov did will last year with Horcoff on his wing and I think he will be most effective playing with 2 guys who are responsible defensively who look to get him to shoot in the offensive end. As a likely top 3 pick, Draisaitl will bring a lot of offense as well. The other argument for drafting a center instead of say Ekblad is that D take a lot longer to develop. Eric Johnson is likely the high end in terms of development length but even the shorter term (3 years) is too long given that Taylor Hall is ready to lead the team. He was probably ready last year. He just needs a supporting cast.

The quickest way for the Oilers to improve is to draft a center. Its also the Oilers biggest need.

Draft a center.