This is an important day for the Arizona Coyotes, the NHL, and hockey in general.
It is rare, in the conservative NHL, that anyone makes a move that shocks anyone. The NHL management ranks and mainstream analysts are filled to the brim with ex-Players, in what is the very definition of an "old boys club."
Apparently, you can only really know the game if you've played it and there in lies the biggest discrepancy/grudge/sticking point between what we will have to call, for lack of a better term, the "Analytics Community" and the "Mainstream NHL Community."
John Chayka is the perfect guy to cross this divide then, because he is a guy who played hockey to Junior A and then started his own analytics company that led to him being hired to the NHL to head up the Coyotes' analytics department.
The reason I say this is an important day for the NHL is because it's been obvious for a long time now that recycling the same old executives and coaches is a really bad way of doing things. It is asinine to think that the best minds for running a team and evaluating players is limited to people who used to play in the NHL. Not to trot out an old cliche, but professional athletes do not tend to have higher education and are not trained in critical thinking, risk/reward management, logical fallacies, game theory etc.
They also get hit in the head a lot. So, it makes sense to leave the playing to the players and the managing to people trained to do it. One of the reasons analytic people are often agahst at the suggestion of people brought up on the dogma of any particular sport is because analytics are basically just science: they universally make everything better. So ignoring this makes no sense, while at the same time, people brought up on the dogma of a sport have basically been indoctrinated into thinking about their sport unquestionably, like a religion, and as such both groups clash.
But no real person does everything just one way. And just because Chayka is an analytics guy first, doesn't mean he isn't open to other ways of thinking.
There will be the usual criticism from the usual dinosaurs. The media, many of whom are dogmatic, NHL-management sycophants, will hate this with the same passion they hate bloggers, so this ought to be fun.
It's a real victory, this hiring is, to those of use who get mocked en masse for trying to look beyond the traditional beliefs about our sport that are ingrained in all of us and the way we think. You'd think this would end the mocking of things like Corsi, but I doubt it. Who cares anyway though, I guess. The important thing is that the Coyotes just did a really cool thing.
What follows is just be overcoming some objections to the hiring that people are already having. Enjoy.
Why not make him an assistant GM and let him “get his feet wet” before taking such a big risk?
The Coyotes didn’t take as big a risk as it seems. They are a team that doesn’t/can’t spend to the cap, who have been doing things by the book for the last decade. For instance: Don Maloney, an ex-player, was making decisions based on hockey dogma , while leading a group of advisers who all failed when given an opportunity, but who get recycled because they “know the game,” guys like Darcy Reiger, Claude Loiselle. Basically they were doing what every other team does and they were losing while doing it. So it makes sense to take a shot at getting an edge by doing things in a way no one else is, and giving a chance to the kind of person no one else would.
The Coyotes are in a situation where they have everything to gain and nothing to lose. If Chayka is a disaster, then who cares? It’s not like they were already killing it and tore down everything good just to make a change.
Furthermore, Chayka started a company whose proprietary way of tracking hockey games was good enough and far enough beyond the basic analytic tools I use to evaluate players that he was hired by an NHL team so that they could potentially be the only ones with access to his methods. This makes him essentially a #1 overall draft pick of management guys. Arguably a good manager is more important than a good player, so if you have him, and the wind happens to be blowing very hard in the direction of analytics anyways, it makes sense to lock him up, while you can.
“Aren’t you concerned that he won’t be able to negotiate contracts, trade with other GMs etc.?”
No. First, one has to consider that giving Dave Tippett an “expanded role” is partly to address this. (Although, it should also be because having Dave Tippett and not giving him input is just stupid in and of itself. If you don’t want input from your coach, you need a new coach or a new way of doing things).
Second, all teams have a contract point man and I doubt it’s ever the GM. They also have capologists and lawyers.
Third, as far as trades go, a lot of teams have multiple people who work on negotiations, probably depending on who on the other team they want to talk to, and specific to each situation. There also isn’t going to be a situation where some old-school GM acts like he’s five and doesn’t take the guy's calls.
It is entirely reasonable to think that a guy who could start his own company and be hired to the NHL at 25 and then be a GM at 26 is smart enough to learn what he currently doesn’t know and to surround himself with people who have the experience he doesn’t have.
“If he’s so good, how come the Coyotes weren’t any better under his watch.”
I have had enough people tell me that Don Maloney almost always completely ignored the information/suggestions that Chayka and his team were bringing him, that, when coupled with team Maloney put out there this year, leads me to believe that it is true.
So we can’t really judge him based on anything the Coyotes have done yet.
"Why would "Analytics" be a big deal anyway?"
The reasons to believe going further than anyone else has yet to go with analytics might give you an edge over other teams are as follows 1) Analytics are essentially the observation of a thing, recording what happens and then applying that knowledge to form theories about how something works. It is essentially just science. It is also something that is so universally successful and inherent to the way our society runs, and yet for some reason in sports it is scoffed at. 2) Since sports are so loathe to accept new ways of doing things, it seems obvious that there are areas to exploit. 3) There are lots of ways to apply analytics, not just to player evaluation. You could also analyze how badly other teams are run and once you've identified which teams those are, you could try to steal their players. 4) Anything that is a mixture of chance and skill (like managing a hockey team) is improved upon by having more information. You won't always win if you do things right, but over time, you if you always make better decisions than your competition because you have more/different information, you will succeed eventually.
“This is just a way for the Coyotes to be cheap.”
Non-sense. The Coyotes might not be the kind of team that pays Mike Babcock seven million dollars every year, but if they don’t pay their guys in the same ballpark as other GMs, then they won’t be keeping anyone good for very long. Sure, since he wasn’t getting this job on any other team, Chayka may have been a cheaper option, but it makes sense to get the cheaper option if there is value built in, and there is definitely massive up side here.
So, cheap isn’t automatically a negative. Sure, if the Coyotes were in a different situation, they might not go with Chayka, but that is the kind of situation that always leads to innovation. It’s not always best to just hire the most expensive guy. I wouldn’t rather have Peter Chiarelli or Bob Murray than John Chayka.
“He has no experience”
If you don’t think experience is overrated, then ask yourself why three teams are apparently looking to at least consider Randy Carlyle for a job? Bob Murray just fired Bruce Bourdreau.
The experience of Don Maloney gave you a full season of Klaus Dahlbeck, Zbynek Michalek and Nick Grossmann as half an NHL team’s defense.
So who cares about experience?
“Stats don’t tell the whole story”
Obviously. That is why Chayka won’t fire his scouting department, and why he will surround himself with people who are also smart. If you’re smart enough to get where he has gotten himself, you’re smart enough to realize that you don’t know everything.
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