“When you don't have success, I think you have to kind of evaluate everything, so that goes for my staff, the coaching staff, and the players." - Edmonton Oilers General Manager Stan Bowman at the season ending press conference following the team's Round 1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks.
The Oilers did just that in the days following their early exit from the National Hockey League Playoffs, culminating in the firing of head coach Kris Knoblauch. His team results got consistently worse over his three seasons behind the bench, and the firing, if somewhat hair trigger, was understandable. GM Bowman then reviewed the rest of "his" staff, and it seems he decided that several of them deserve new titles and pay raises.
Maybe they do. It could be that the Oilers' roster just needed a different guy setting the lines and setting up the plays. If the team starts off like a rocket in the fall, then we might have our answer, but if they struggle out of the gate again, we might have cause to question Bowman's internal evaluation skills.
Good analytics are good, but you have to use them
Trent Frederic is the reason for concern. Not the only reason, because analytics on goaltending acquisitions certainly exist as well, but one of two scenarios happened with the Trent Frederic longterm signing.
Scenario A: GM Stan Bowman ignored the publicly available and proprietary analytical information available to him when he decided to trade for Frederic, and then double down on an 8 year deal for the bottom of the bottom six forward. There was nothing to surprise him, because Frederic has been a net negative Corsi/Fenwick player his entire career.
Scenario B: This one is potentially more worrisome. The analytical department that just received promotions left and right was entirely on board with the Frederic signing. They advised Bowman to trade for an injured player, lock him down for the rest of his career, and they completely own the lack of production and negative goal differential that consistently occurs when Frederic gets ice time.
Goalie
Similar to Frederic, the massive swing and miss on trading away Stuart Skinner for Tristan Jarry should be cause to question the Oilers' decision making processes. Jarry had problems staying healthy (which continued in Edmonton), little playoff experience, and a career save percentage that was only marginally better than Skinner (+0.05%). It doesn't take complex algorithms to suggest he wasn't going to be a massive upgrade in net. Either the GM doesn't care what his analytics folks say, or they, collectively, have not been doing a very good job. Both are problems.
There is a recurring graphic out there, highlighting the number of analytical staff per franchise in the NHL. At one point during Ken Holland's reign as GM, the Oilers had one of the smallest analytics departments in the league. That's not the case anymore, but having a department staffed is only the first step in utilizing math to get your team an edge. The numbers need to be right, and the GM needs to understand them.
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