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Oilers Nation: on player development; on tanking


tyhee

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Readers of canucksarmy.com will be aware that along the top of the page on that site are links to affiliated sites, which include among others nhlnumbers and blogs concerning the Leafs, Jets, Flames, Oilers and Kings. Oilersnation in particular has a few interesting articles. The most interesting to me was the 2nd I'll mention and the long quotation from Ken Holland on developing players.

I hope at least a few people will find the articles at least a little interesting.

ON TANKING

Robin Brownlee has an article on tanking at http://oilersnation.com/2015/1/24/long-way-down. He makes a number of points:

-players don't tank-that is up to management

-he seems to acknowledge that the Sabres are the leaders in the battle for 30th place.

"It’s becoming obvious that if the Edmonton Oilers are going to hang with the awful Buffalo Sabres in the Connor McDavid-Jack Eichel sweepstakes, they are going to need some help from GM Craig MacTavish. So, what can he do to take a run at 30 th place?

As it stands now with both teams having played 47 games, the Oilers are playing well enough under interim coach Todd Nelson there’s no chance they’ll catch the Sabres in the upside-down standings. The Oilers sit in 29 th place at 12-26-9 for 33 points, including a 5-4-2 mark under Nelson. The Sabres are 14-30-3 for 31 points after 11 straight losses."

-Brownlee isn't a fan of tanking and is "not sure more failure heaped on years of futility is good for the young core of the Oilers"

-he doesn't recommend moving "any big pieces before the trade deadline because there are too many sucker deals for weaklings like the Oilers. Those moves, if they come, are best made heading into the draft and during the summer."

-he goes on to discuss moving three players-Jeff Petry (because he'd be crazy not to the test the free agent waters this coming summer,") Andrew Ference and Matt Hendricks. In speaking of Hendricks he makes an interesting comment on player development: "He’s the kind of veteran the Oilers could have used but didn’t have when Jordan Eberle, Taylor Hall and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins were in their first or second seasons."

ON PLAYER DEVELOPMENT

Jonathan Willis, who posts many interesting articles to Oilers Nation, wrote about player development at http://oilersnation.com/2015/1/23/development-and-the-200-game-mark. He makes some interesting points, including:

-"There’s an artificial cut-off that serves as a pretty iron-clad rule as to whether a prospect is of any real value. Basically, once he’s played 200 professional games in North America he’s either in the NHL or he’s a long-shot ‘tweener of no real importance." He goes on to relate the 200 game cutoff to the NHL waiver eligibility and also states "With some exceptions (college and Europe; more on those guys in a moment) there’s a five-year window from the moment a player is drafted to the point where he needs to be in the NHL." The simplest example he gives is in the case of a major junior player-drafted at 18, more years in Junior while his contract slides, then three years to establish himself before he's waiver-eligible."

-on the path of player development and rushing players to the NHL before they're ready (the bold part in Holland's quote was not bolded in Willis' article):

"It’s awfully hard to put together a really strong evidenced-based study of the development path for young players, because better players are ready earlier than lesser players. All one can do is look at teams that have a strong record of drafting and development and see what they do because they’re probably doing something right.

The gold standard for this in the NHL is Detroit, and general manager Ken Holland has made no secret of his approach:

I spent nine years in the American Hockey League, and what impacted [me] there as I got into my third, fourth, fifth year of pro, was that I was a veteran American league player who was kept around to provide leadership and to be a good player to help the team win. Hartford would bring all these kids in – and the organizations that I was with in Detroit and Hartford, they were struggling organizations. The minute a young kid would play well for six weeks, he’d get [called] up and [provide] a little bit of spark [to the parent club,] and then six weeks later they would [be sent back] down and they were just beaten up. The league was too tough. They couldn’t make a difference. It took you another few weeks, few months to get those players back to where they [had been] confidence-wise and playing-wise. So from a player-development standpoint – a personal-development standpoint – [i learned that] people are ready when they’re ready and [i learned about] the importance of building a foundation."

ON THE USE OF POSSESSION STATISTICS

I don't think Corsi stats can be used as a measurement of whether a team is playing well generally because of score effects. (I haven't looked enough to say whether limiting the stats to situations where the game is tied, or perhaps within a goal (Corsiclose) might be useful.

I also think possession stats are of no use in considering whether a team as a whole played well during a particular game.

I think they're somewhat useful for comparing teammates if used with sufficient care (generally that will include at least a glance at zone use, difficulty of opponents and how one's teammates do with the player as opposed to away from the player.)

There's an article on flamesnation that in my opinion was the worst blog article I've seen on use of possession statistics and seemed intended to give possession stats a bad name. The author spoke of surprise that the Flames corsi stats as a team didn't improve from last year despite the team being better and of the corsi stats as a team being poor in games the Flames won. Nowhere in his article does he mention "score effects" nor does he seem to acknowledge that they exist.

The article, probably of little use to most, is at http://flamesnation.ca/2015/1/24/corsi-pdo-and-you.

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I don't think Yakupov was NHL ready when he was drafted. Nuge was also barely there and was undersized. The fact that the Edmonton orginization rushes so many players is evident to why most of their prospects will never reach their full potential, aside from the "big" 3.

I would have much rather seen a team of plugs in the NHL and a team of elite snipers in the AHL for 2 years. Wouldn't have made a difference standings wise, and by now their prospects would have been more NHL ready. Take a guy like Draisaitl, He was most certainly NOT NHL ready at the beginning of the year. Yet Craig McTavish waited until the end of December to decide to trade for at least a serviceable center, and to burn a year on Draisaitl's contract. How ownership has let these mistakes continue for years and years is bewildering. Is there not one scout, trainer, whoever in their orginization that is seeing this? Absolutely embarrassing to have so many highly touted prospects and still be a perennial bottom feeder. Islanders figured it out, Florida, Tampa, Dallas, Montreal, Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh all figured it out. Virtually all the teams that were in a rebuild when the Oilers started theirs have succeeded in developing a playoff team today.

The Oilers should NOT be given the chance to draft McDavid, Eichel or even Hanifin for that matter. They should not be rewarded with perennial mediocrity.

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As a hockey fan with their track record giving a team like the Oilers MacDavid or Eichel is frigging criminal.

Imagine taking a top tier potential generational talent like one of these kids and actually having them be THE REAL DEAL and then...destroying him by tossing him in against the likes of John Scott Jordan Nolan etc or some of the head hunters in this division.

3 seasons in and they've ruined like absolutely Brule'd a generational talent because they expected him to be the game changer when the last 4 top overall picks haven't.

As a hockey fan, not a team fan I think one of them going to the Oilers should be met with a conditional clause that they not be allowed to enter the NHL until 2 years of AHL service have been established so as to not ruin their development.

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If the Oilers get McDavid or Eichel, I give up. I just give up. They've ruined so many careers by rushing these kids to the line up. Yakupov is the perfect example. RNH wasn't ready either. Schultz should have spent another year in the A too. Not only have the Oilers ruined kids careers, but the way Edmonton is managed is just downright embarrassing. Sending Draisitl down to the minors after rushing him to the line up and not letting him go to the WJC, the fact that Lowe and MacT refuse to make a necessary deal and ship out part of their failed core, heck just the fact that Lowe had a job proves how badly run Edmonton is. If they get Mac or Jack, I will be furious.

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I don't think Yakupov was NHL ready when he was drafted. Nuge was also barely there and was undersized. The fact that the Edmonton orginization rushes so many players is evident to why most of their prospects will never reach their full potential, aside from the "big" 3.

I would have much rather seen a team of plugs in the NHL and a team of elite snipers in the AHL for 2 years. Wouldn't have made a difference standings wise, and by now their prospects would have been more NHL ready. Take a guy like Draisaitl, He was most certainly NOT NHL ready at the beginning of the year. Yet Craig McTavish waited until the end of December to decide to trade for at least a serviceable center, and to burn a year on Draisaitl's contract. How ownership has let these mistakes continue for years and years is bewildering. Is there not one scout, trainer, whoever in their orginization that is seeing this? Absolutely embarrassing to have so many highly touted prospects and still be a perennial bottom feeder. Islanders figured it out, Florida, Tampa, Dallas, Montreal, Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh all figured it out. Virtually all the teams that were in a rebuild when the Oilers started theirs have succeeded in developing a playoff team today.

The Oilers should NOT be given the chance to draft McDavid, Eichel or even Hanifin for that matter. They should not be rewarded with perennial mediocrity.

technically they burnt 2 years of draisaitl's contract, as his contract can no longer be pushed next year either since it didn't slide this year.

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There should be a general rule that whoever got the 1st overall pick one year is ineligible for the lottery the next.

So with the new rules starting next season, if you win the lottery one year, you can't pick until at least 4th the following season.

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There should be a general rule that whoever got the 1st overall pick one year is ineligible for the lottery the next.

So with the new rules starting next season, if you win the lottery one year, you can't pick until at least 4th the following season.

i agree, and to add to that, i think the team that finishes 30th overall should automatically get the 30th overall pick.

additionally, i think the lottery should be restructured so that the 17th place team overall (the best non-playoff team) should have the best odds in the lottery, with the odds getting smaller as you head down the list towards the 29th overall team.

edit: so, if hypothetically the team with best odds win the top 3 picks, draft order would look like:

1 - 17th place

2 - 18th place

3 - 19th place

4 - 20th place

...

13 - 29th place

14 - 16th place playoff team

15 - 15th place playoff team

...

29 - stanley cup Champs

30 - 30th place

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There should be a general rule that whoever got the 1st overall pick one year is ineligible for the lottery the next.

So with the new rules starting next season, if you win the lottery one year, you can't pick until at least 4th the following season.

I definitely agree with this. Even if it's just not getting the first overall pick the following year. It's crap and it's just not right.

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I wonder how badly all of you would want to change the draft order if it were the Canucks (insert your favourite team here) who were in the same position as the Oilers are right now?

none, but that doesnt mean the current format is fair or equitable.

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none, but that doesnt mean the current format is fair or equitable.

But the argument (in the thread not the OP) is that the Oilers suck and can't develop prospects, therefore they should be denied another high pick.

You don't change the system because one team can't figure out how to get out of a hole they dug themselves into yet other teams have thrived doing the same thing.

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I want the Oilers to get McDavid and I don't even like the Oilers, I'm just so tired of them being so ???? crapty and I don't want another top Canadian player going to an Eastern US team.

I hate the oilers and they are the absolute last team I want to see get McDavid. They don't deserve the opportunity to ruin a generational talent. If you don't like them I don't know why you're sick of them being a crappy team, I love it. It can go on until the end of time for all I care.

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