Brian Burke, analytics, and the future
Cam Charron
November 13 2012 03:27PM
We know that Brian Burke doesn't have an eye for analytics. None of what follows in this short post is the suggestion that Burke drop everything and base his player decisions based on things found on The Leafs Nation or NHL Numbers, particularly if it meant we weren't going to collect royalties.
Still, things said by Burke at a panel today attended by friend of our blog and every blog Justin Bourne sort of irk me:
Burke on analytics: "I don't think they have any value at all." Playing role of stodgy old man beautifully today. Sort of tongue-in-cheek.
— Justin (@jtbourne) November 13, 2012
Defining Mats Sundin's Hall of Fame legacy
Cam Charron
November 13 2012 12:25AM
Mats Sundin's new Hall of Fame plaque reads thusly:
The first European-born player to be drafted first overall in the NHL Entry Draft in 1989, Mats Sundin went on to a 18-year NHL career with Quebec, Toronto and Vancouver. A native of Sweden, he would spent 11 seasons as captain of the Maple Leafs, the longest servicing non-North American captain in NHL history, while becoming the first from his country to score 500 goals and record 1,000 points. Also an Olympic gold medallist in 2006, Sundin was named a 2nd Team All-Star twice and finished his career with 564 goals, the 21st best total in NHL history, along with 785 assists and 1,349 points.
That doesn't really tell you much about the type of player he was, or what his legacy ought to be.
It doesn't make sense to compare Sundin and Alfredsson
Cam Charron
November 12 2012 05:55PM
"If you ask a Senators fans to create a Mount Rushmore of comic genius, it will include George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and Daniel Alfredsson pretending to throw his broken stick" famed Leafs blogger Sean McIndoe once wrote about the dumbest moment of the Toronto-Ottawa rivalry. That always stuck with me.
Today, Ian Mendes of the Ottawa Citizen's 'Senators Extra' feature brought that up as "one of the most galvanizing—if not humorous—incidents between the two clubs."
When you look back at Daniel Alfredsson's career once it's over, I'm sure it will merit some Hall of Fame talk. It isn't fair to him right now to be compared to Mats Sundin. For much of Alfredsson's career, he played in Sundin's shadow. The Senators were 0-4 against the Leafs' in the playoffs and it wasn't until after the lockout that Ottawa managed success on their own merit, with a conference final and a Stanley Cup bid.
The Toronto Maple Leafs as Pokemon
Cam Charron
November 09 2012 02:02PM
Jake Goldsbie over at Backhand Shelf wrote a fun post today comparing NHL figures to Pokémon. Inspired by that, I decided to write a post comparing the Toronto Maple Leafs to various fictional creatures from the original 150 list from Pokémon Red & Blue.
If you weren't born in the late 80s or early 90s, this post probably isn't for you, but, screw it, I don't want to talk about labour issues. The Goldsbie post went up under the tag "No, you're a slow news day" and, he's right.
Nate Silver, elections and SPORTS
Cam Charron
November 07 2012 02:55AM
Math kicked ass.
Not to say that Nate Silver's models are completely infallible, of course, the guy got lucky. Every single state of the union voted as Silver forecasted it to vote, within a slim margin of error he gave simply by aggregating polls over the last year or so.
I don't want to write an election-themed post, but I do think it's worth it for me to note Silver in writing somewhere. Silver, once fed up with mainstream electoral coverage during the 2008 election and began writing a blog. He correctly forecasted the winners of 49 of 50 states. That's not a huge achievement on its own, but Silver had gained notoriety in the political world for the statistical approach on his blog fivethirtyeight and his work with Baseball Prospectus in developing PECOTA, a system used to find historical matches of baseball players, and use those matches to forecast a range of outcomes for a player later in his career.
