Wednesday's FTB: Everyone is doing offseason work now

First the Leafs and their executive search:

What to make of buzzy Maple Leafs GM target Sunny Mehta

Sunny Mehta is a hot name that’s popped up among the Maple Leafs general manager search. Luke Fox dives in to see what he could potentially bring to Toronto.

Sportsnet.caLuke Fox

Of note:

Potential conflict of interest surfaces in Philadelphia Flyers’ executive search

Should someone who represents coaches and executives as an agent also be tasked with consulting on searches to fill those…

Daily FaceoffFrank Seravalli

PBI Sports details their representation services on their About page. Digging further there is a page on their executive and coaching search services, run under a different name.

NCAA Coach Search | North America | PBI Sports & Entertainment

PBI Sports is a boutique representation agency working with Pro Coaches in the NHL, NFL, NBA and NCAA. We also work diligently on personal brands.

pbisports

While "Executive Search" firms tend to offer services in coaching and sports team management searches as an add-on to corporate Management jobs, we have consistently found that sourcing and hiring a coach or team manager does not mirror the typical executive or management level search process.  

 Coaches need to be motivators, proven performers, fantastic recruiters, and most importantly, fit properly within each school or professional programs' priorities.  Team management talent needs to be properly sourced, properly vetted, and evaluated based on competencies, qualifications and accomplishments,  rather than by the breadth of their network of contacts.  In other words, "who you know" and "hire a friend" mentalities should be a thing of the past. Working with amateur and pro Coaches, as well as team management personnel on a daily basis as an area of specialization and focus, is the key differentiator for The Coaches Agency.

Someone needs to tell them it's "bro you know" in hockey.

Enough of corporate speak! Onto the sudden interest in what is usually an offseason sort of topic – weird things in the NHL season stats.

First of all, this tweet came to my attention, and what he's saying a little unclearly is that the process of scoring shots, and here this is entirely Shots on Goal, has changed, and there are fewer of them this season because they used to just call stuff shots that weren't.

This second person is an off-ice official, and they go on to confirm that all SOG numbers are signed off on by hockey operations (at the NHL level).

It is true that SOG have declined, and here we have Travis Yost to show that in his article, and also to discuss goaltending.

NHL save percentages hit lowest level in 30 years

The league-average save percentage is below 90 per cent with a week left in the regular season, challenging a mark that hasn’t happened since 1993-94, Travis Yost writes.

TSNTravis Yost

To go back to what Russo is saying is that if there are fewer SOG, a given number of goals scored then gives the goalie a smaller Sv%. But Russo says this is a classification change, not a change in player behaviour, goalie skill or what have you.

Meanwhile, Yost asserts that player shooting skill is easier to find due to more places hockey players come from. This isn't anything more than an assertion in his piece, and I'm very wary of these statements.

Two years ago, Bill Daly made a similar assertion:

Skill is off the charts

Bill Daly commissions some more research.

PPP LeafsCathy Squires

That piece looked at the idea of rising player skill and found some evidence for very small increases in minimum levels of ability and the number of players in the good but not great group. But it covers pretty well the ideas of all the inputs into the equation that solves for how many goals are there. So while I won't take Yost's assertion seriously on its face, it might be a factor.

Now, what did strike me as interesting is that Yost compares 2015-2016 Sv% to this season and sees as really strong difference between then and now. Look at his chart and you'll see what he's talking about in stark terms.

But put that together with Russo's comments, and the question has to be asked, is some of this change just the classification issue? To answer that I took a similar set of goalies (I included more because we have three per team most of the time now) and I took out the unimportant GSAX and substituted Fenwick Sv%. That's just Sv% calculated on all unblocked shots.

If some of those unblocked shots were erroneously marked as SOG in the past in significant numbers, then sorting this list by FSv% should offset the pattern that we see with just Sv%. And it's a long, long table, but I think if you click between sorting, you will see what happens.

Is the "the answer"? Is there just one thing that's making SOG lower and Sv% seem bad? Nope. Some other effect is going on, but it's not at all clear from a chart of Sv% of any kind if that's team systems, defence, player skill, parity in the league or all of the above and some other stuff I haven't thought of.

But I'm pretty sure Russo is right that some shots are now classified differently. This will be a fun investigation for the real offseason when the sun is hot and the air conditioning and R Studio beckon.

Bottom line: Sv% is a team stat and the number a goalie achieves has no inherent meaning outside of the context of the whole league. This is a good lesson as prospect season comes along and people start getting exited by goalie stats in other leagues.

Now the big long table. Have a great day, everyone, the preview will be later today.