The Detroit Red Wings Dabble in Analytics, Should Do More

On Thursday, the Detroit Red Wings beat writer Helene St. James posted an article for the Detroit Free Press that touches on the Red Wings and the wave of data-driven analysis that has been sweeping through the NHL recently. She grabs quotes from various levels of the organization including players, Coach Mike Babcock, scouting staff, and general manager Ken Holland. For anyone who is familiar with members of the organizations’ past statements regarding advanced statistics and analytics not much of it comes as a surprise.

James drops a few quotes from current players on the subject of analytics:

"Players were baffled — asked if he knew what Fenwick was, Gustav Nyquist, for example, wondered if by chance the questioner meant Fenway, as in the baseball park. Stephen Weiss gave a blunt, “I don’t know what it means and I’ll never take an interest in it.” Jimmy Howard was similarly disinterested, saying, “I think it shows nothing to do with the game, to be honest with you.”"

It is not the least bit surprising that players are neither aware nor interested in analytics. Players are paid to play the game, not to analyze the game or look for patterns. For that reason, I do not really care that Nyquist and Weiss know nothing about analytics or that Howard’s opinion is they are worthless.

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It is the coaching staff and front office that need to be involved in finding the information, determining if it is valuable and finding a way to implement it. Whether they call it data, statistics, metrics, analytics or any other name you can think of, the Detroit Red Wings are basing their decisions on information. In a highly competitive league like the NHL, it would be irresponsible for the Red Wings to not actively pursue the best information available.

To his credit, Babcock seems to be interested in exploring new sources. James writes:

"Babcock hired a guy to come to home games and offer metrics analysis because “there are some parts that I think are real valuable,” he said."

Later she quotes him again:

"“You’ve got to be smart enough to garnish the information from it. I’ve been very impressed with the kid we brought in to work with our team because he’s found us some stuff that we didn’t think about in the past.”"

To my knowledge this is the first public reference by the Red Wings to having anyone solely dedicated to analytics. Without knowing who this person is or what it is they are doing it is impossible to ever know whether or not the Red Wings are getting good information.

While there are countless individuals doing great work in public and private, I would be weary of anyone’s methodology that has not had exposure to public scrutiny. That is not to say this mystery-man is a snake oil salesman; I just hope the Red Wings are using the best information available.

This may become especially important given the news that the NHL may be implementing a new player and puck tracking system as soon as next year. If implemented, NHL pucks and player sweaters would be embedded with electronic chips and would be tracked by infrared cameras installed around arenas.

This would give information on puck and player locations, movements, speeds etc. The next frontier in NHL front offices may be finding a way to use this information to their competitive advantage.

Are the Detroit Red Wings prepared to adapt? So far there only investment in advanced analysis is one guy whom they are not even willing to pay to travel with the team.

It is not likely that this new information will make bottom feeders into Cup contenders but in a league with ever-increasing parity, it might just be enough to put it over the top.

The Red Wings would be wise to do everything they can to extract the maximum possible value of current methods of analysis and also to prepare themselves for the future.

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