The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 72: You Look Like You've Seen a Ghost

Episode Date: March 28, 2016

Arik Parnass joins the show to discuss what he saw and heard at the Sloan Analytics Conference. How far has the NHL come over the years, and how big is the gap it still needs to fill to catch up with all of the other major sports? We also check back in with his Special Teams Project, looking at how Shayne Gostisbehere has rejuvenated the Flyers, whether drop passes in the neutral are effective, and how the Ducks are firing on all cylinders. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 1:40 Sloan Analytics Conference 15:00 Teams integrating analytics 18:00 Gostisbehere's remarkable run 26:40 Best ways to enter the zone 29:00 Anaheim's special teams dominance *Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed from our website. Make sure to not only subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new shows as they’re released, but also take a minute to leave a glowing review. *Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl defensive end, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and of course the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's non-stop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. It is literally made to chill.

Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Before we get started with today's HockeyOcast, I want to give some quick love to our sponsor, Seekek. If you've never used it before, it's as good a time as any to start, considering the playoff season is just around the corner.

C-KKK is a service which makes buying and selling tickets easier than it's ever been before. They pull all the tickets available on other sites into one handy location for you, even going so far as to ensure that you're getting optimal value by alerting you once the prices fall. The best part of it all is that they don't try to sneak in those random fees at the checkout, which means that you know exactly what you're paying for when you're choosing your tickets. C-keeks providing my listeners with a $20 rebate off their first purchase today, and all you've got to do is follow a few easy steps. Just download the free C-Kkeek app,

then go to the settings tab and click add a promo code and type in PDO. Once you've done that, Seekek will send you your $20 rebate. Download the free Seek app, enter the promo code PDO, and you could start saving yourself a bunch of time, effort, and money as you get your hands on whichever tickets your heart desires today. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PDOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich, and joining me as someone who's been on the show, I think,

twice so far now. This is his third appearance. It's Eric Parnas. Eric, what's going on, man? I'm good, man. Yeah, the hat-trick appearance. The hat-trick appearance. And conveniently enough, it's the second time we're having you on,

and you're going to give us a sort of recap of a hockey analytics conference you visited. You're quickly staking your claim to becoming our, or I guess, at least part-time beat reporter for such events. Yeah, well, I enjoy them a lot, so, you know, I will appreciate that role whenever I can get it because they're great times. So we're of course discussing the Sloan conference, which happened, I think, two weeks ago now in Boston, and it's the most high profile of the bunch to take place.

Obviously, that's not to diminish what the one in Vancouver that's coming up in a few weeks will be like, and the one that happened in Ottawa a few months ago was like. But the Sloan one just sort of has the most cachet in terms of how long it's been around and sort of the names that are involved, not just in hockey, but in all sports. And you were there.

So I don't know. What was the most intriguing panel to you? And honestly, it doesn't even necessarily need to be about hockey because I know you're interested in other sports as well. And there was such sort of progressive minds there from all those sports. So I don't know. What kind of caught your eye the most, I guess? Yeah, well, the cool thing about Sloan is just, I mean, first of all, bringing together people from all sort of different sports and different places around, I guess the continent and even beyond in terms of everyone having sort of like minded views, similar skill sets, stuff like that. So just to be able to talk sports, talk analytics with people is something that we don't generally get on a day-to-day basis.

So that's always really cool. And I mean, you know, the involvement of hockey each year gets a little bit bigger in terms of NHL teams sending people and the media sending people and just generally people going. But, you know, the panels in terms of hockey are few and far between. There's usually the one hockey panel, which, you know, they have their sort of template of, you know, a couple of guys who work for teams that are scared to say anything. and then, you know, the token NHL player who doesn't really know why he's there. And so, you know, it's fine. It gets better every year. Craig Custins was the moderator this year, and I thought he did a really good job trying to get some good nuggets out of people and get some good content.

But overall, I mean, that's not really the highlight of it. As you said, you know, there's, in other sports, it's so much more developed, and you can get really cool just sort of ideas from how analytics are applied in other sports. And I think you really see that in other sports, sports, we've gotten to a point where people are more comfortable talking about it. Maybe not specific metrics or specific ideas, but just the

overall applicability of different uses of analytics. So, I mean, one of the panels that stood out for me was there was a panel that had, I believe, I think it was like five general managers from different sports, and two of them are from the NBA, one from baseball and one from football,

I believe. And it was just great seeing those guys go back and forth because, I mean, first of all, most of those guys aren't competitors. So they don't really, you know, care that much about, uh, divulging things to each other. Although obviously there's, you know, lots of people watching, but they, uh, you know, they had some really interesting things to say about how you build a team and in an analytics era and, and managing, you know, delegating to people, having your own analytics department, you know, how you, you know, um, how you use analytics, um, in cooperation with other, other things with personality with, uh,

you know, locker room issues and things like, that. And, you know, you just saw, the GMs are just so comfortable at this point that they have fun themselves. I mean, at one point there was a question that was asked from the audience that was, does your best player have to be your hardest working player in order to win? And the question was, you know, I think mostly delegated towards the NBA guys. So Bob Myers, who's the general manager of the Golden State Warriors, sort of answered it and was like, oh, well, we have Steph Curry, and he's our hardest working player. And he talked about how great that is for his team and sets a great example. and everyone and sort of trickles down the food chain and everyone buys in.

So then Darry, who's the GM of the Rockets, who was sitting across from him, chimes in and goes, well, what if your best player isn't Steph Curry? To which everyone starts dying. And, you know, Bob Myers' response was basically, well, then you got to get rid of that player. Which everyone was suddenly like, oh, was that a live sub-tweet of Darrell Mori's issue with a guy like James Harden, who's generally seen as, you know, not a particularly nice guy, definitely not. the hardest working guy, something of a controversial figure. So you get interactions like that that you wouldn't get on a hockey panel

where it's a couple of guys who just recently got hired by teams. They don't want to say anything controversial. So I'm hoping eventually we'll get to the point with hockey teams where the GMs and the coaches will be there and it'll be ingrained enough in the culture that it won't just be, okay, is analytics important or is coursey important? It'll be, you know, how do you use this on a day-to-day basis what are the best ways to avoid some of the traps that can come from paying too much attention to numbers that are imperfect?

And questions like that that are actually useful to people like you and me who sort of know what we're doing, but, you know, maybe don't know it as much from the inside out or can always hear other perspectives on it. So that's what I'm hoping we'll get to eventually. But obviously, it's still a great time. Actually, the one other anecdote I'll give you is one of the, probably maybe the highlight for me was I was standing at one point with Scott Cullen and Scott Cinson. two of sports writers and looked over Scott Collins's shoulder and I saw a guest who I didn't expect to see there who was the one and only head of analytics for the Green Bay Packers won Mike Hallbach. Oh, no way.

So that was pretty hilarious. So I pointed that out to the two of them who were freaking out. I know Scott Collins seen the series and he couldn't believe it. And then probably other hockey guys later were laughing about it when I told them. And I was thinking about like, should I go say something? But I was like, listen, the guy probably the last thing you want is people coming up to it and being like, hey, you were that guy everyone hates and making a murder. Yeah, it must be crazy because I know he's had that job for a few years with the Packers

and he must have attended these sorts of events all the time. And I'm sure people that knew him personally knew that, you know, his sister was killed and were sensitive to that issue. But obviously, in the past year, since last year of Sloan Conference, for example, like his life must have changed so much in terms of just the way people might approach talking to him. I'm sure you guys weren't the only ones that were just kind of like staring at him, dumbfounded. Well,

I didn't actually notice other people staring at him. I mean, he was talking to people, but I didn't get the sense that there were other people who had the same reaction as me because I was kind of looking around a bit for it. And at one point, I think he probably could have told that I was staring a little bit at him. And I was like,

oh, no, he's going to call security on me or something. But, yeah, no, it was interesting because, you know, it's one of these things where, you know,

the guy had a terrible tragedy happened to him and his family. And what he got out of it was basically everyone's thinking he was the bad guy or one of the bad guys in the series when really, you know, all he did, even if you totally buy into the series, the worst thing he did was maybe being a little close-minded. So it's too bad. Yeah, no, it is. I just remember, like, you're right. It's a very unfair situation to kind of even judge anyone based on how they're acting in such circumstance when they're dealing with tragedy like that. But I remember just watching that show and thinking, like, wow, this guy's

just like a really weird dude. And like, what's his deal? And then when someone passed it along to me that he was, I think he's like the Green Bay Packers video guy or something like that or like some, I forget what his title is, but I was like, holy crap, he works in sports. And he actually has like a high profile gig. Like he's right there on their, on their employee list on their website. And I was like, this is mind willing right now. Yeah, no, I mean, he's the head of analytics right now. I think at the time he was a video intern or something. But yeah, that's, that's what, that's what Green Bay, the Packers are doing with analytics. He's that guy. No, but circling back to your point about the sort of dichotomy between hockey and the other sports, I think that it's really telling because you mentioned that it's a bunch of guys who are sort of uncomfortable with discussing and divulging certain things, whereas in basketball and football you have these GMs who have been doing this for so long now, they can kind of talk about it in a more relatable, casual way without fear of saying something that's going to

totally rocked the boat. And I think it ties into this idea of kind of the next frontier for hockey. And we discussed this last time when you came back from the Ottawa conference where we both agree that tracking is the next thing, the next shoot a drop for hockey analytics, right? Where I'm not sure it's necessarily going to discredit a lot of the work that's happened because in my limited work with tracking micro stats personally myself, a lot of it kind of supports the overarching themes we already work with on a daily basis, but it could potentially shift our attention to certain trends and maybe make us think differently about the sport. And we don't really have information like that readily available, whereas in basketball, for example,

they have sports view and football. They have all this tape that's available that breaks things down in much more palatable sizes. And it's a shame, right? It's sort of encouraging because there's a reason to believe that we're going to learn so much more about the sport in the next couple of years, but at the same time, it just seems like the process and getting there has been slow, slow, and painful. Yeah, and there's just something about hockey that makes it, I don't know what it is about the culture of people involved in hockey from inside and out, but there just seems this resistance to everything that's new that isn't really that present in, I mean, it definitely was in baseball at the beginning, but I don't think it's been as president in basketball or in football because, I mean, football is a sport. Sure, you know, you can break things down a little more easily into play by play, but it's such a complex sport.

And they've done so little comparatively in terms of analytic findings and in terms of teams using it, especially in terms of on-field stuff. And yet, you know, I went to the football panel. They had at Sloan and they had some really interesting discussions between, you know, guys who are in the public, a guy like Brian Burke, not the hockey Brian Burke, but the football Brian Burke, who's done some good work online, between him and a GM and Sandy Wheel,

who now does work for cranky sports, but who was the head of analytics for the Ravens for a while, like guys like that, and then they had John Urshel, who's a lineman for the Ravens, who, you know, everyone's probably heard of in passing, who's basically the guy who's, you know, a certified genius,

but is alignment for the Ravens and who is, you know, completing his doctorate or whatever it is. in the offseason at MIT. And they'm just having fascinating discussions on that panel about both implicit and explicit analytics and, you know, guys using it and what's stopping some people from buying in.

And it was, you know, such a fascinating discussion. And it seems like it's become, you know, despite the fact that we're getting a little more buy in hockey, it's still tough to see those discussions in public without people recoiling into, well, it's not everything. And we have to be careful about it. It's like, you know, everybody knows that. Like, you know, the percentage of people out there who are taking analytics too seriously and buying in too much is so minuscule compared to the amount of people who just don't think it's important, as important as it should be.

So we really shouldn't need to have those kind of conditions placed on everything we say, and it's kind of exhausting. Yeah, it's so frustrating. You see it all over the place at these conferences and on TV where even people who are more open-minded and willing to kind of listen and integrate some of this stuff into the, analysis, like feel the need, uh, because they know that they're just going to be skewered in the comments sections or, or by people on Twitter, just, just had, feeling the need to preface everything they say by, listen, analytics isn't everything. And it's like, who are these, who are the, like it seems like a sort of a straw man at this point. I'm sure there's, uh, a few people that probably just sort of discredit every sort of, uh, feeling base thing and just solely look at the

numbers. But for the most part, people like you and I and, and everyone else out. there really kind of integrates all these different means of analysis into painting a bigger picture. So I just think that once we finally get to the point where we need, where we just stop feeling the need to preface it with analytics aren't everything but will be, I think, in a much better place. And it also goes back to the difference between analytics as a concept and specific metrics. Because I would definitely agree that there are still people who, let's say, overvalue coursey as a standalone metric, things like that.

But analytics, I mean, obviously people can define it in different ways. I think of it as a process. And to me, you know, analytics can't be wrong or an analytic can't be wrong because analytics is just the process whereby you're analyzing information. And you want to have as much information as you can. And you need to know, you know, the fallbacks and the weaknesses of every type of statistic and every type of eye test and every type of input you have into your whatever that process is. And so, you know, analytics, good analytics involves taking everything into account and, you know, you know, know, boosting your evaluation based on things that are important and, you know, accounting for different factors. So when people say, you know, analytics aren't everything, to me, that's kind of a fallacy because analytics are everything. It's just certain metrics can't be overused or you run into dangers. Yeah. No, it's, it's the numbers don't lie, the people using them do, right? It's very easy to misapply information or use it incorrectly. And then all of a sudden, people that might have otherwise been willing to listen to you, but now they see that you were incorrect,

and then all of a sudden they sort of blame the numbers instead of the person who recited it incorrectly, right? And so it's kind of a catch-22 situation that way. Yep, exactly. All right, let's, I feel like we'll cover the Sloan comments pretty well there. Okay, well, actually one final thing before we get out of here. So spinning it forward, I mean, we just discussed how hockey has a long way to go, but there's reasons to believe that we'll get into a better place,

in the next couple years as more information becomes available. But would you agree that it's getting better just in the regard of more teams paying attention? Like from what I saw nearly 20 teams or so had representatives there. And while I don't necessarily think that having someone there means you're all of a sudden going to be incorporating the stuff that's being talked about or the thought process into all your decisions, at least it means you're willing to devote some resources to it and kind of listen to it or acknowledge its existence. but I don't know like do you think that it's going to keep getting bigger and bigger or do you think we're sort of at a little bit of a plateau here until we get more of that information where more teams will buy in?

Yeah, I think we're moving from the point. I mean, there's sort of stages of this. I think we're moving away from the stage where every or most teams, I would say every team sort of had somebody in their front office who paid attention to what was going on and can kind of, you know, if the GM wanting to know someone's own entry numbers wanted to know their coursey, that person would be able to come up and make that argument. And I think we've been at that stage for quite a while.

It was only a matter of how much the GM was asking for that and how much they were weighing that in their evaluation. I think we're starting to move to the point where teams are hiring people to do original analysis to the extent that they can, bringing on people under the original people to do original analysis. And that's sort of going to lead to a little more differentiation probably between the teams who are paying big attention to this and who are really buying into it and those who are just sort of dabbling in it. So yeah, I agree. I think in a few years we'll see it get closer to the point where we want to see it. I think that before, the point where we'll really make a big step will be the point where there will be, you know, GMs who aren't necessarily stats guys, but who really buy into, you know, that side of it. So, you know, any of the guys who have been hired or some of the guys who are a little younger and can buy into it more, when those guys start becoming the prime decision makers, that's the point I think where everyone will be a little more comfortable with this.

Everyone is sort of knows that most other teams are doing something with analytics and it won't exactly be a secret and it won't be, you know, guarded as, as heavily. And then, you know, the public and the media will start seeing that and start buying in more. Yep. I look forward to that day. Okay. So speaking of original analysis, people that have listened to you on the show before, follow you online, know that you've been doing some really great work in terms of paying attention to power plays, which sometimes get lost in the shuffle because we spend so much time thinking about five-on-five play and justifiably so, but there is a lot to be gleaned from this stuff and you've done some great work recently in terms of looking at the

Flyers, for example, and how Shane Gostis-Barre coming into their lineup, what, sometime in mid-November or so really kind of helped change their season, obviously on 5-15 as well, but particularly in the power play, where last year they were such a dominant unit in that regard. And at the start of this season, they just really were, I remember they were, I remember they were, surprisingly low on both in terms of shot generation and goal scoring. And I wondered what was up there. And then Strite got injured. And I thought that it would be just sort of a total death knell for them. But it really wasn't. And in fact, they've got back to what we kind of expected from them in the preseason. So I don't know, like, how much of that do you credit to Gostis Bear? And how much of it do you

give credit to either the coaching staff making changes or just it would have happened eventually. And Gossus Bair has just kind of been there to reap the rewards. I think Gossus Fair was huge. I mean, I think the issue they were having, I mean, first of all, that unit was so good last year, which is what made, you know, very surprising, even with those same five people in that first unit to see them struggle so much at the beginning of this year, I don't think they changed very much. And I think that, you know, one of the issues with it, they were relying a lot on Jacob Voracek early in the year in terms of serving that sort of Ovechkin role, and they would get pucks over to him from strife.

and he would shoot and Borchek was on this run of incredibly bad shooting luck and you know there were hard if he was one of the last big players to score a goal this year he just couldn't buy it and he was getting chances if you watch the power plays he was getting good looks and just couldn't find the finishing touch and it's something that's followed him a little bit all year but especially early on and the issue is that strite you know has an okay shot but he's really more of a puck mover he's not as much of a score so he was reluctant to take any kind of shots when Drew had the puck on the left so they would try and filter it over to Voracek, and as I said, Voracek was particularly snake-bitten. So what happened was Gostis Bear stepped in when Strait went down, and suddenly Gostis-Bair

is this guy who's willing to shoot at every opportunity and has, you know, a ridiculous shot where it's accurate, it's low, it's poised, it's hard, you know, it's ridiculous. And he started just shooting at every opportunity off those short one-timer passes. And they have a guy, Wayne Simmons, who's maybe the best, you know, net front player in the NHL in terms of screens. I mean, you know, I started tracking screens halfway through the season, and it's incredible. Almost every shot they take on the power play is screened by Simmons, and it makes such a big difference when he's a guy who's that big, but has the hands to be able to put rebounds in the net and make plays close in. And, you know, he's such a big mover for them in terms of powerplay

success. So with him in front and just hammering shots with Gossus Bear, and you can even add, you know, double screens with Shen sometimes. You could tip the puck up from the slot. And that was, you know, an incredibly difficult ask for goalies to try and cope with that, whether it was the original shot or the rebound. So that started to help a lot. And now they've struggled a little bit recently. And, you know, a lot of that has to do with entries as well. I don't really like what they do on entries generally.

And I think that most of their success just comes from what that first unit does once it's set up in the zone. But lately, I think, you know, they've sort of come to rely on Gosses Bear a little too much. And Voracek is hardly involved in the offense at all. and I think it would serve them a little better if they got him more involved. And even if Gossus Bear was still the primary option, just filtering the puck over to Boracek a little more, whether it's on cross-size passes or plays download of Simmons and then backdoor passes, things like that that sort of kept the defense honest

because now they're cheating almost too much towards that side. Yeah, no, we discussed this last time you were on in terms of whether you can have too many cooks in the kitchen and how much you, of power play success you attribute to having all the right pieces, and it seems like for the flyers, they just have like the ideal guys for a lot of those kind of trigger man positions, whereas, as you said, Gosses Bear's shot is incredible from the point, and Jureu, maybe he's not quite Nicholas Baxter, but he's right up there in terms of guys you'd want making decisions from around that half-wall area, and then Simmons is the net front.

And it's not even, the screens are one thing, and of course that's incredibly valuable, but watching him, we don't necessarily describe sort of positional awareness much for forwards or particularly guys that are around the net. But he seems to always just be like amazing at setting up passing lanes where he like pivots quickly on a dime and has his stick down in the right position where he can tap in an easy, easy pass. And it seems kind of obvious and intuitive and you think that everyone would be able to do it. But from watching the league, it's certainly a trend that he's mastered than not too many guys

can actually do it in the NHL. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, power plays are a jigsaw puzzle. They really are. You have to take guys and they have certain roles. One guy is a passer. One guy is a shooter. One guy is good at screens.

One guy is, you know, shifting and has a quick release. And you have to take that into account. You have to take into account their handedness, which is a factor that obviously I harp on a lot and that teams really, for the most part, don't take into account enough. At least that's my feel. And you have to put all that together

and try and stick guys in positions where it will succeed. And you can run into problems if you have, let's say, two-star players who don't fit into those perfect roles. I mean, we've talked about the penguins before, but, you know, Crosby is ideally served as a passer and Malkin is ideally served as a shooter, but they're both left-handed. So you can't put them in the same positions and you put Ovechkin and you put Baxter if you want them in those optimal positions where the defense can't cheat one way or another. So then it's a matter of, you know, how do we playing around with different things, how do we work the rest of our roster around to get,

of us the best possible power play. And I don't think there's quite enough of that in the league in terms of trying to fit players into the rules that are best for them and then trying to stay consistent with what those rules are. Well, okay, so you mentioned the carry-ins for the flyers. And I know you've done a bunch of work in terms of tracking the success that comes from dump-ins and carry-ins and drop passes and pretty much any sort of zone entry you could possibly think of.

And I know you've found interesting results in the sense that I guess they're, maybe not that interesting, they might just be more intuitive where obviously carrions are still sort of the desired thing you'd want to do, but dumpins aren't as harmful just because it makes sense that you'd have the extra guy and you'd be more likely to retrieve the puck. But I don't know, it's weird. From your actual kind of raw data, I thought the success from dumpins was still slightly higher than I would have thought just because it seems like you're sort of wasting unnecessary time in those puck battles, even though you're ultimately going to win them. Yeah, and that, I mean, that was something that I didn't really account for in that.

I mean, that was a very sort of simple first level study in terms of just how many shots you get from each thing. But I would totally, I mean, the difference between power plays and even strength is just you're not only working against the other team, you're working against the clock. And that's something that people forget sometimes in the sense that, you know, you have two minutes and any second that isn't spent in a dangerous position is a second wasted. and just because you're preventing the other team from getting a chance by having the puck deep in their zone like you would have even strength on the power play that's not really an advantage. So definitely, you know, in terms of raw just shots from each entry, let's say, dumpins aren't as damaging on the power play as they already been strength. But as you mentioned, you know, you're wasting often six, ten, 15 seconds, not only just getting the puck back, but then you have the puck back and your guys are in haphazard places around the ice. And if you're a team like the caps or the flyers that has a very strict structure in terms of where they put guys, you have to take the time to get those people into those places while you keep control of the puck,

which isn't always an easy thing to do if it hasn't been, you know, carefully practiced. So that kills another, let's say, 10 seconds. So, you know, you could end up just, you can have a dump in that you end up recovering. But by the time you get set up and are in position to have any kind of a dangerous chance, you might have wasted 25, 30 seconds, and that's a quarter of your power play. So that's definitely something to keep into account. So, I mean, my view on Dumpins is still, I would probably only use them in cases where nothing is going right on that particular day and you just want to avoid killing the momentum

and try to get something out of it because, you know, if you're developing a zone entry scheme, like you have an extra person. I mean, we've talked about this before, but there isn't really any excuse to not be able to come up with something that you can do fairly consistently. And, you know, let's say be successful on it, you know, even if you're not. it's 50% of the time, but still, you know, once you're, when you're successful with it, you're set up in formation in three or four seconds, like the caps often are, and then you're ready to do your damage. Yeah. Okay, so where do you stand on drop passes, though? Because

I think they're the perfect storm for people's, I guess, cognitive bias or inherent risk aversion where when it doesn't work out and it winds up going back the other way and potentially even costing the team a short-handed goal against, it looks really bad and people can sort of subconsciously latch onto that and just think that it's the worst play in the world. But I don't know, does the data sort of support that? Or do you think that in the grand scheme of things, it's a perfectly fine strategy depending on the personnel you have? Yeah, well, unfortunately, the data was kind of, you know, unclear in terms of didn't reveal

any true answer to whether drop passes are good. And I think it depends a lot on team. I mean, one of the interesting things with that study I did on drop pass was the fact that for the flyers, it was actually had a really good payoff in terms of doing the drop passes. And the reason for that is because you have guys like Drew and Vorichek coming up to claim those passes. And, you know, you get those guys coming at your defense with speed. Even if you stack the line with three or four guys, they can find ways to weave in. So it's not going to be a disastrous play, even if it's, you know, not the best.

And maybe on occasion it might result in a pass that's picked off. but, you know, it's going to work a decent amount of the time. The issue I have with it is a team like the Flyers, you have a Giroux and a Voracek and a stright when he's on that unit is a pretty good puck handler. You should be able to craft an entry scheme that isn't a drop entry scheme and still get that, you know, that advantage you would get in terms of approaching the line with speed. But, I mean, you know, some of that is more of a philosophical thing on my point in part in terms of watching what the caps do and liking some of the entry schemes that they have.

and it's hard to know without seeing teams without that exact mix of personnel trying that kind of thing. But I just generally feel like there isn't enough structure when it comes to zone entries on the power play. And drop passes are one of the only avenues we see for a lot of teams where there is that structure. They come up and the one or two guys trail and then the pass is dropped and they come into the zone. And it's fairly structured and it works an okay percent of the time and it kills a couple more seconds, which isn't ideal. but, you know, it works a decent amount, and, you know, it kind of shows you that if you can do that, you can probably set up a slightly more complex entry scheme that if you practice it enough, that'll be even more successful.

Before we get out of here, I wanted to talk quickly about the Ducks because I hadn't really noticed it until you brought it up on Twitter, but they're leading the league in terms of both power play and penalty kill, which seems like, I don't know, do you know when last time that's happened? I can't think of every recent example. Yeah, so I actually saw this on the Ducks broadcast when I was watching them the other day, so thanks to them for this nugget. But the last time that happened was the 1984-85 New York Islanders. So it's been a while, and granted, that is penalty kill and power play percentage. It's not goals 4 per 60, which they're first in and penalty kill, but their third in power play behind the caps and the blues.

But still, I mean, if you consider how good of an even-strength team they've been this year, especially with the changes Boudreau made, and then you add on the fact that they have, really a really solid power play. You look at what they do, and bringing in a guy like Peary will help as well. And then their penalty kill is a really good unit, too. They rotate all their D, who are all really solid. They have a first unit in Kessler and Silverberg

that is both dangerous, short-handed, and are very sound positionally. And they just have such depth in both those positions that they can just kind of roll guys out there, duos that they like, and get it done. It's interesting because, looking ahead potentially to a second round matchup between the ducks and the Kings, there's not that much separating them at 5 on 5,

especially this year where the ducks have just elevated their game from a puck possession perspective, and those are two of the kind of premier teams in the league at this point in that regard. And potentially that special teams play could wind up making all the difference in the world, especially in a short four to seven game series where if they get a couple easy goals in that regard and maybe prevent a couple the other way, all of a sudden that could really swing that. and it hasn't gotten much attention or much traction because a lot of the stories have been

about how they've redefined their game at 5 on 5 into a more possession style or possession-oriented approach. But that's crazy to me that they're leading the league in both of those categories. Yeah, you know, it pains me to say this is somebody who's studying special teams so much. But if you look at the last few years and, you know, how some of these teams have done, it just seems like year to year there's so much variation in how teams perform. because we always think of like the Hawks and the Kings especially as two teams that are so good on the penalty kill and have struggled with their power play in the playoffs in particular. And this year the Hawks and Kings have two of the best power plays in the league and both of their penalty kills haven't been very good.

So, you know, you ask these questions of, you know, as I've, you know, said before and written about, you know, there isn't a lot in this stuff that's particularly predictive. And I mean, I've been looking at a few other metrics that I've been developing and going through some testing with the last few weeks. and it's really hard to find anything in terms of special teams that's predictive. And a lot of it just has to be sort of microanalysis and looking at just things that they do on a play-to-play basis and essentially the inputs rather than the outputs because the outputs are just so unpredictable. So I agree.

I mean, if you have a power play or a penalty kill that's at the extremes of the league, that's definitely something that's going to be an advantage come to playoffs. But it's also so hard to tell beyond just looking at, you know, some of the particular players they have and the things they do, what is going to work and what isn't? Yeah, well, I'm glad you're doing all the heavy lifting here because it's cool. It's fun to kind of read about this stuff, even as you sort of bring that caveat in where it might not be that predictive and we still don't know how important it is. That doesn't kind of diminish the fact that it's interesting stuff to read about and think about because we discuss in analytics all the time, how you're, it's incremental gains and you're looking for little advantages where so many teams

are stacked together in the hierarchy that anything could put you over the top and potentially finding something here could be really beneficial. So I'm really excited to see where you, where you take this project. And I don't know, this is the opportunity for you to kind of plug the work you're doing where people can find you online and what they can look forward to moving forward. Yeah, definitely. So the website is NHLS special teams.com. The pace of articles has slowed a little bit, but I'm still trying to publish stuff as often as possible. And I often have insights at my Twitter feed at Eric Parnas. And I will be at the Vancouver Hockey Analytics Conference in April presenting on something

of which I'm not sure yet. But hopefully it'll be something particularly influential. I promise it will at least be interesting, if not practical. So I hope to see many of the listeners there. Well, how about let's promise. I guess maybe not promise. Let's preliminarily plan to record an in-person show while you're here and we'll see what you're kind of getting up to at that time

and maybe we'll just take them from there. Yeah, that would be awesome. Cool, man. Okay, we'll talk then. Great. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. At soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.