Happy New Year from BBP
Some notes on what I am working on & what I would be working on in a different life
It’s 2024 already. The last 12 months went pretty quickly (unless you are anyone still left standing in the Flames’ front office, that is). I neglected this space for a time because, frankly, pro hockey in Calgary wasn’t interesting enough to write about for a good spell.
And while the club is still frustratingly mediocre, circumstances are conspiring to force the Flames to be interesting again sometime soon. In the face of their impending crash upon the rocks, my new mission will be to convince everyone who will listen that the organization needs to finally, properly rebuild. And, in fact, that they have never actually rebuilt during the salary cap era, an oversight that has paved the midpoint path upon which they have tread for the better part of my lifetime.
To this end, some of my thoughts are now being shared via Post Media. I began life as a filthy blogger *spits*, a known enemy of the mainstream media back in the day, so it is surprising and ironic that my writing career (such as it is) would somehow end up in the pages of the biggest mainstream media conglomerate in Canada.
Of course, I still have a day job trying to convince friendly Americans to upgrade their RV with a product my family made up, so I’m not coming back to hockey writing full-time or anything.
But, since it’s New Year’s Day, I figured I’d play a little “what if?” and share what I would be going after if I still had to work 60+ hours a week covering the sport.
#1.) Draft pick development - variables, causality, prediction, etc.
Aside from draft year results, the single biggest determinant of prospect success is the steepness of their development after they get picked. But what determines post-draft year development? Is it a personal variables, like talent or mentality? Is it environmental variables like coaching or mentorship?
This topic fascinates me because there are so many potential avenues of study and factors to investigate. It’s also important because a fruitful prospect pipeline is the major contributor to building a contender.
#2.) Goalie evaluation, coaching, and management.
The NHL still stinks at this in general. I was the original “don’t draft goalies in the first round” guy because it was pretty clear even 15 years ago that decision makers have a lot of problems predicting goalie performances.
Most years if you graph SV% vs cap hit, you’ll get a random scatter plot. No one seems to have cracked this nut (unless it’s the Boston Bruins, who seem to have great netminding pretty consistently). 0
The importance of this one is obvious. Bad goaltending can completely undermine anything else a GM and coach can do. I’m not even saying you’d need to find a way to identify the next Hasek or Lundqvist, but an analysis that helps make goaltending as predictable and stable as possible would be a cheat code.
3.) Player type matching and micro stat tracking to understand chemistry better.
I used to look down my nose at chemistry arguments because they always seemed like folks just not understanding regression to the mean. However, it’s clear now that some combinations of players are better than others (and some are awful *cough* Huberdeau in Calgary *cough*).
So you can someone develop a science of chemistry that helps coaches and GM’s more purposefully build lineups and tactics? Now maybe this will be like trying to turn lead into gold, but then again, maybe it’s possible in an era of highly accessible, granular statistics.
4.) Better intermission content.
I consider this the biggest opportunity for ambitious creators in the NHL space. Broadcast intermission content tends to be rather drab most nights. I personally gave up watching it years ago, and it seems to be a constant complaint amongst the passionate hockey fans I know.
Because so much attention is intensely focused during game time, any publication or independent creator that can crack the between-period code could likely do well with that alone. A blend of in-depth stats packages, highlights, and X’s and O’s commentary would be the place to start.
5.) Organizational and team building theory.
This is the area I am personally most interested and invested in. Received conventional wisdom about team building still mostly holds sway in NHL front offices, even though we’ve seen “advanced stats” and analysis start to wend their way into front offices recently.
Even so, we’re two decades into cap budget management, and GM’s have spent a lot of that time finding new, unique ways to step on landmines. Canadian franchises, in particular, have been seemingly stuck on a treadmill, running harder only to make no apparent progress.
As 2024 progresses, I may come back to some or all of these topics. Keep an eye here, or on the Calgary Herald if you prefer me in 800 -1,200 word chunks.