Oilers' Eakins hopeful on analytics front

Edmonton Oilers head coach Dallas Eakins had a great discussion on hockey analytics Thursday on TSN 1290.

On the hiring of Tyler Dellow, the emergence of analytics and harkening back to Roger Neilsen’s ‘Captain Video’ innovation days:

“Well, yeah. It goes back to that. Roger taught me early on how to keep your own stats for your own team and not rely on others. So we’ve done that internally with our team with these advanced stats, the analytics, whatever you want to call them. I kind of look at it like when Roger started the video. I think a lot of people thought Roger was crazy and this is just going to be a fad and it’s going to go away. But everybody is doing it. And now some teams are maybe doing it too much.

“So I’ve got a lot of time for the analytics. I believe it’s something you have to consider. Why you would not consider it in your decision process baffles me. Doesn’t mean you’re going to use it every time, but it’s certainly something you have to look at when you’re making final decisions. Whether it’s on systems, on players, or however you’re going to use it.

“Tyler and I have a very short history. It’s one that when I was coaching in the American League, I was interested in analytics and I was reading his web site. It’s where I started my education on the verbage and what these guys were looking at.

“We brought Tyler in to our in-house coaching clinic last year before the season started. He put up a presentation. It was excellent. That night we all went out to dinner and I ended up sitting next to him at dinner. He was engaging. He was passionate. And I kept in touch with him. Not a lot during the season, but maybe three or four times, just checking in. You know, talking hockey a little bit.

“But as the summer went on and we revamped our staff, I really thought this was probably the last piece. And to try to get ahead of the game, and not be scrambling a year or two down the road, trying to find a really good analytics guy. I thought it was time for us to have one right away.”

Are there things that haven’ t been exposed in tradition stats that you’ve found have been helpful from the likes of individuals like Dellow?

“Well, I’m not going to go into great detail because I feel like we’re – and I’m not confident yet. I’m hopeful. We’re taking a stab. We’re trying to get ahead of the game. I think there is value, but I’m not prepared to go into detail on what we’re going to do with this. But I will say the one thing analytics does is when your opinion and your gut and what you see – it matches up with the analytics – I think you’ve got the home run. It’s ‘Hey, we are doing the right thing.’ ‘That player is doing the right thing.’ ‘We’re teaching this the right way.’ Whatever it is. When your gut tells you one thing and the analytics are for or against it the other way, it starts the conversation. And there’s different levels of the conversation and you can go through it on a number of different levels on the questions you’re going to start asking.

“But for me, it’s just another tool to look at. It’s another consideration. It’s another question. Certainly another conversation with your staff going forward. And for me, listen, I think it’s something that’s imperative. I think it’s something that’s going to help us. It’s certainly something I believe in, and I’m not going to be so quick to go ‘Hey, that’s a bunch of crap. Discard it. Those guys don’t know what they’re doing.’ and leave it. I’d much rather be the other way, and go ‘Hey, we’re going to move forward with this. We’ll see if it does help us.’ And be considerate and open-minded to learning something new.”

Have you seen any studies on how units can be effective with puck possession?

“(Pause) I’ve seen lots. (Laughs) Listen, I could go... I could just lay it right down for you, everything how we’re going to use it. The different ways you can use this... I’ll tell you this. You can use it for your team. You can use it for individuals. You can use it for players. You can use it for lines. You can use it for match-ups. There’s all kinds of different ways. The key is going to be how do you do this efficiently. And is it going to work. But we’re going to jump in with two feet. We’re already started. We’re excited about it. And I’m excited to see what kind of data we’re going to get very, very quickly.”

(Host relays recent quote from someone about not wanting to be using too much video with your players because you don’t want to burden them with too much information.)

“Well, no, that’s right. And I know who said it. It was actually John Paddock, who I’ve got an immense amount of respect for. A great teacher to me and a great man. I just love him. I saw that quote, and he’s so right. It’s one of those ones, you’ve got be careful with your team. You can hammer on these guys too much with too many different things. The encouraging thing for me is our staff has grown. We’ve got very specific roles for our coaches. And then that’s my job at the end, is how much we’re going to use this. How much the players are going to be hit with it. At the same time, you’ve got to make sure these guys are prepared. You never want to leave any box unchecked.

“But John’s right. My thing with the coaches are ‘Hey, get your heads out of the computers and go coach the players.’ You can’t be sitting in your office the whole time looking at video. And you can’t be just hammering video, video, video down your players’ throats. There’s other ways to teach. I agree with John. You’ve got to be very, very careful of spending too much time in your office watching it and having no interaction with your players.

“And then, the second problem you can run into, is trying to give them too much. So much that they’re just totally confused when they hit the ice.”