Analytics creeping into WHL . . . Cougars hire assistant coach

While a lot of hockey people are jumping on the analytics bandwagon these days, the Saskatoon Blades appear to have gotten something of a head start.
The Blades went through an ownership change a year ago, one that had Edmonton-based Mike Priestner and his son, Colin, purchase the franchise from Jack Brodsky and family members.
Almost immediately, Colin Priestner, who is the franchise’s managing partner, brought in Bruce Peter, who volunteered to provide the Blades with something more than the usual in the way of numbers.
“I believe we were the only team in the league using one last season,” Priestner told Taking Note via email. “I hear a few others are now, too.”
Peter, a long-time Blades fan from Outlook, Sask., is back with the Blades and, according to Priestner, will have an even bigger role this season.
“I found it to be an excellent resource last season,” Priestner explained, “and this season we hope to have regular meetings with Bruce and his new apprentice -- a grad student in economics wants to help him -- and our hockey ops to review trends and outliers.”
Just what do the Blades get from Peter?
“His work is awesome and the amount of data he provides us is amazing,” Priestner said. “He does every home game for us.
“He uses his own sheets to track stats. We get everything from everyone's head-to-head faceoff wins to Corsi to Fenwick to offensive-zone entries, defensive-zone entries and scoring chances and drawn penalties.”
To have even one team doing this is a huge step forward for the WHL. After all, this is a league that, as Cam Charron, then of Yahoo! Sports Canada, wrote a year ago, “is a league that publishes very little information via its box scores.” Charron, as of earlier in August, now works for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL’s team’s three-man analytics department.
To give you some idea of the kind of information Priestner is looking for and what he and Peter are up against, here’s more from Charron a year ago:
“Analytics are tricky in the WHL. The NHL in 2007 began publishing play-by-play sheets that didn't just record when shots, hits and giveaways occurred, but also which players were on the ice for each event. That sort of information has been transformed into several different categories, the chief of which is the Corsi number, a plus-minus number that factors in every shot attempt for and against when a player was on the ice.
“Since Corsi is a team statistic, work has been done to attempt to separate a player's individual contribution to his team's Corsi number. Because of the number of games in the WHL and the limited availability of information, coming up with a Corsi number and putting it in the appropriate context is impossible.”
A lot of Peter’s analysis features zone entries and exits, and, as Charron pointed out, that is something that can be done “by a single person sitting high up in the arena,” or by someone watching video with a remote control in hand.
It should be pointed out that the Kelowna Rockets also are beginning to delve into the area of analytics. Larry Fisher of the Kelowna Daily Courier has a story on that right here.
One interesting thing about all of this is that there have long been conversations about the validity of various statistics that are kept by the home team-provided stats crews in WHL arenas. In Kelowna and Vancouver, for example, the shots on goal are often questioned by visiting teams. In Kamloops, then-head coach Guy Charron of the Blazers once had a loud one-sided conversation on that very subject with his own statistical crew.
Last week, one WHL insider told Taking Note that there is a “big question mark at our level regarding the accuracy of information. Without that, you don’t have good data.”
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The WHL is using the exhibition season to experiment with a dry scrape of the entire ice surface between the third period and overtime of those games requiring extra time.
It seems that this has been met with mixed reaction. For one thing, the break during a game in Moose Jaw last week was 12 minutes in duration. The ensuing OT period lasted 34 seconds.
As one individual with knowledge of the ice-making and -maintaining process told me Saturday: “Why an entire dry scrape? Forget the scrape and flood then.”
Prior to now, teams went straight from the third period to OT with just a brief intermission. Then, if a game needed a shootout, a dry scrape that took in the middle of the ice was done. This can be done in three or four minutes. That time now has been at least doubled. So why not do a complete flood?
“The timing of a two-Zamboni flood without on-ice promotions to avoid should be 10 minutes tops -- five minutes for the flood and five minutes drying time,” this person stated. “I guess you could shave the dry time to to 2.5 minutes, depending on conditions.”
He also pointed out that “shaving that layer also could lead to ice issues down the road depending on teams’ flood schedules.”
Interestingly, a game in Everett between the Seattle Thunderbirds and Victoria Royals went to OT on Saturday night. Andy Eide, who covers the Thunderbirds for ESPN 710, tweeted that he asked Seattle head coach Steve Konowalchuk “how he enjoyed the pre-OT ice scrape?”
Konowalchuk’s response: “No comment.”
I don't know how long the dry scrape took, but Seattle won the game, 5-4, on an Ethan Bear goal at 2:20 of OT.
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Roman Vopat, who was a guest coach in camp with the Prince George Cougars, has been added to the team’s coaching staff on a full-time basis. Vopat (Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, 1994-96) was a seventh-round pick by the St. Louis Blues in the 1994 NHL draft and went on to a 16-year pro career. . . . The 38-year-old native of Litvinov, Czech Republic, has coaching experience with the junior B Kimberley Dynamiters of the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League. . . . With the Cougars, he will work alongside head coach Mark Holick and assistant coach Mike Hengen. . . . “Roman and I go way back to our playing days, and he also played with my brother Brett for many years,” Todd Harkins, the Cougars’ general manager, said in a news release. “He was a great teammate, cared about everyone in the room and played the game with passion.” . . . Harkins added: “Roman joined us at training camp as a guest coach and impressed all of us with his excitement and professionalism, and his past experience will be beneficial to all of our players who have a dream to play in the NHL. He’s well connected with teams and scouts in Europe, and that will serve us well down the road with the CHL import draft.”
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Carl Cirullo, a familiar face in Spokane hockey circles, has died. He was 87 when he lost his fight with lung cancer on Thursday. . . . Chris Derrick of the Spokane Spokesman-Review has more right here.
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Sorry, Las Vegas. Oh, and you, too, Seattle. But you just don’t have enough NHL fans to make a franchise viable. Cities like Kingston, Halifax and Sudbury might be able to support a team, though. At least, that’s the way Neil Paine of FiveThirtyEight has it figured in a piece that is right here.
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If you’re a regular here, you will know that organ donation is kind of near and dear to me, especially when it involves a kidney. Gregg Doyel, a national columnist for cesspits.com, has the story right here of a college basketball coach who now has three kidneys inside his body. . . . If you read anything today, make it this one.

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Ahh, you have to love social media.
Before the Portland Winterhawks were able to announce a deal with the Everett Silvertips for D Seth Jones, the names of two players included in the swap had surfaced on Twitter.
D Ben Betker, one of four players the Winterhawks gave up in the exchange, changed his twitter profile to read “Product of Cranbrook BC, Canada. Everett Silvertips of the #WHL. #LivingTheDream.”
F Mitch Skapski also had changed his Twitter profile to reflect the trade.
As it turns out, the Winterhawks also sent along F Tyler Sandhu and D Reece Willcox in the deal.
It all was made official in a late afternoon news conference in Portland.
Betker, a defenceman who turns 18 on Sept. 29, had 18 points for the BCHL’s Westside Warriors this season. Undrafted, he was placed on Portland’s protected list in June. He had signed with the Winterhawks.
Skapski, the younger brother of Kootenay Ice G Mackenzie Skapski, was a fourth-round pick in the 2011 bantam draft. Mitch, who is from Abbotsford, B.C., had 49 points in 40 games with the major midget Fraser Valley Bruins.
Sandhu, a second-round pick by Portland in the 2011 bantam draft, is 16 and also signed with the Winterhawks. From Surrey, B.C., he had 45 points in 38 games with the major midget Vancouver Canadians this season.
Willcox, who also is from Surrey, had 23 points in 52 games with the BCHL’s Merritt Centennials. Now 18, Willcox was a third-round selection in the 2009 bantam draft. He has committed to attend Cornell U and play for the Big Red.
The Silvertips, then, acquired the rights to four players in exchange for Jones, who is projected as an early pick in the NHL’s 2013 draft.
All indications are that the 6-foot-3, 200-pound Jones, 17, may well be one of those once-in-a-lifetime players. But he wasn’t going to report to Everett, so the Silvertips had no choice but to trade his rights. They also got an undisclosed bantam pick from Portland just for the right to speak with Jones and his family.
Right now this looks like win-win for both teams, but don’t forget the adage about the team getting the best player winning the trade.
Garry Davidson, the Silvertips’ general manager, spent almost four full seasons as the Winterhawks’ director of player personnel. So he certainly is familiar with the players he acquired from Portland, having drafted three of them and listed the other.
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ASK THE COMMISSIONER:
From a WHL fan, via email:
“When did the WHL start webcasting the signing of players? And why not do it for everyone?”
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Roy MacGregor of The Globe and Mail weighed in Tuesday with his view of the Stanley Cup playoffs vs. the world championship.
“The Stanley Cup playoffs, for some years now, has been a tournament run largely in reverse,” he writes, “with the climax and greatest interest in Round 1 followed by a sliding war of attrition that culminates in June with exhausted players and weary fans just wishing it would get over with so summer could start. It does not help in Canada when they schedule Sunday afternoon games when cabin-fevered Canadians are thinking far more of bikes and canoes than of skates and pucks.
“The Stanley Cup playoffs are also so overly coached that, inevitably, defence rules. Far easier to teach trapping and shot-blocking than knocking the goalie’s water bottle off the top of the net with a high wrister.”
He’s right, you know, and his complete column is right here.
You know that there is a problem when the play-by-play voices and the analysts talk more about blocking shots than scoring goals and when they make reference to the team having blocked the most shots having won the most games.
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In a column that appeared Tuesday, Gregg Doyel, a national columnist at CBSSports.com, tries to answer this question: “Knowing what awaits NFL players after retirement, is it ethically defensible to watch it – and enjoy it – as they do this to each other?” . . . That column is right here and it’s food for thought.
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JUST NOTES: The 2013 U-17 World Hockey Challenge will be held in the Quebec communities of Victoriaville and Drummondville, running from Dec. 28 through Jan. 4, 2013. . . . The 10-team tournament always features five teams from Canada (Atlantic, Ontario, Pacific, Quebec, West) and five international teams. . . . G Matt Tomkins, who played this season with the AJHL’s Sherwood Park Crusaders, has committed to play for the Ohio State Buckeyes starting with the 2013-14 season. You will recall that the Vancouver Giants at one point were taking a long, hard look at Tomkins. . . . F Jordan DePape of the Kamloops Blazers lives with Type 1 diabetes and is preparing to head out on the Diabetes Heroes Tour for a second straight year. Last year, the tour made three stops; this time, it’ll stop in five cities – St John’s (May 14), Barrie (May 15), Winnipeg (May 16), Edmonton (May 17) and Prince George (May 18). The tour also includes country singer George Canyon. DePape appeared on the morning show at CTV Winnipeg on Tuesday. There’s more information on the tour, including how to get tickets, right here. . . .
In the spring of 1991, the Oshawa Generals, coached by Rick Cornacchia, and Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, under Ted Nolan, met in the OHL’s championship final. On Tuesday, the two men went head-to-head one more time, this time at the world championship in Stockholm. Cornacchia is Italy’s head coach, while Nolan fills the same role with Latvia. . . . The Greyhounds won the OHL title in 1991; on Tuesday, Latvia won, 5-0. . . . The video that was shot and put together by Chris Rumble at Seattle Children’s Hospital really has gone viral. On Tuesday afternoon, Kelly Clarkson sent this tweet to her 1,344,307 followers: “Oh my goodness y'all have to see this! It's beautiful! I can't wait to visit these kids and nurses! It's Seattle Children's Hospital, I believe. God Bless y'all!” That video, if you haven’t seen it, is right here. As of the wee hours this morning, it was closing in on 177,000 views.
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It would seem that 20-year-old goaltenders are in demand in the WHL.
On Tuesday, the Seattle Thunderbirds dealt a 2013 third-round bantam draft pick to the Calgary Hitmen for G Brandon Glover, who turns 20 on Aug. 21.
The Thunderbirds, of course, are in the market for a goaltender as they don’t expect to get Calvin Pickard back for his 20-year-old season. Pickard is likely to play somewhere in the Colorado Avalanche’s system.
Glover went 20-12-0, 3.11, .885 with the Hitmen last season. They acquired him from the Moose Jaw Warriors prior to the 2010-11 season. A native of Victoria, he was selected by the Warriors in the sixth round of the 2007 bantam draft.
With Glover gone, Chris Driedger, 18, is No. 1 on the Calgary depth chart.
The Thunderbirds, who didn’t qualify for the playoffs this season, now show 11 20-year-olds on their roster – Glover, G Michael Salmon, Pickard, D Dave Sutter, D Braeden Laroque, D Brad Deagle, D Mitch Spooner, F Chance Lund, F Luke Lockhart, F Brendan Rouse and F Sean Aschim — but only six or seven of those are serious contenders for the three spots.
Each team is allowed to dress a maximum of three 20-year-olds per game. In fact, teams must each declare a maximum of three 20-year-olds at a cutdown date in mid-October.
On Thursday, during the bantam draft in Calgary, the Lethbridge Hurricanes acquired G Ty Rimmer, 20, from the Tri-City Americans, while the Prince Albert Raiders got G Luke Siemens, 20, from the Moose Jaw Warriors.
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THE COACHING GAME:
Kurt Kleinendorst won’t be back as head coach of the Binghamton Senators, the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators. Kleinendorst’s two-year contract is up in June but he made the decision not to return. "I've thought long and hard about it," Kleinendorst told Joy Lindsay of the Binghamton Press and Sun-Bulletin. "I have nothing but good things to say about (general manager) Bryan Murray and the organization, and the same is true for Binghamton. It's been one of my nicer stops along the way. The people here are wonderful. The players that I've experienced for two years have been wonderful." . . . Binghamton put up a 71-70-8-7 regular-season record under Kleinendorst and went 16-7 in the playoffs, including winning the AHL championship a year ago. . . .
Kevin Hartzell won’t be back as GM and head coach of the USHL’s Sioux Falls, S.D.,  Stampede. Hartzell just completed his seventh season with the Stampede, going 224-152-44. The Stampede recently underwent a change in ownership. A new coach is expected to be in place may May 22, which is when the USHL holds its entry draft. . . . Ryan Clark of the Fargo Forum has more on the Hartzell situation right here.
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THE WHL FINAL:
Game 4 . . .
In Portland, F Rhett Rachinski scored twice, including once in OT, to give the Edmonton Oil Kings a 4-3 victory over the Winterhawks. . . . The championship final now is tied 2-2 with the teams returning via shared charter flight to Edmonton for Game 5 on Thursday. They flew out of Portland right after last night’s game. . . . A sixth game is scheduled for Portland’s Rose Garden on Saturday. . . . The Rose Garden was home to a concert by The Black Keys on Monday night and ice conditions worsened as the game progressed. . . . Rachinski was able to corral a loose puck after Portland F Oliver Gabriel wasn’t able to handle a pass from D William Wrenn. Rachinski, 20, then scored his sixth goal of these playoffs at 9:07 of OT. . . . The Oil Kings were in OT for the first time in these playoffs; Portland now is 2-1 in extra time. . . . The Oil Kings had taken a 3-1 lead into the third period only to have Portland F Sven Baertschi scored twice, at 3:49 and 9:06. . . . He now has 13 playoff goals and is tied with linemate Ty Rattie for the postseason points lead, each with 32. . . . Baertschi has goals in five straight playoff games. . . . F Marcel Noebels opened the scoring for Portland at 1:21 of the first period, with Rachinski pulling his side even at 15:50. . . . F Tyler Maxwell gave the Oil Kings the lead at 8:17 of the second with his first goal of the final. Interestingly, Maxwell is one of the veterans whom Edmonton head coach Derek Laxdal said prior to Game 4 had to be better. . . . Edmonton F Stephane Legault scored for a 3-1 lead with 56 seconds left in the second. . . . Edmonton G Laurent Brossoit stopped 39 shots, one more than Portland’s Mac Carruth. . . . Each team was 0-2 on the PP. . . . Attendance was 10,947.
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Here is the schedule for the WHL’s championship final for the Ed Chynoweth Cup (all times local):
Thursday, May 3: Portland 2 at Edmonton 3 (7,466)
Friday, May 4: Portland 5 at Edmonton 1 (10,720)
Sunday, May 6: Edmonton 3 at Portland 4 (10,947)
Tuesday, May 8: Edmonton 4 at Portland 3 (OT) (10,947)
Thursday, May 10: at Edmonton, 7 p.m.
Saturday, May 12: at Portland (Rose Garden), 6 p.m.
x-Sunday, May 13: at Edmonton, 6 p.m.

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THE COACHING GAME:
The OHL’s Guelph Storm has extended head coach Scott Walker's contract through 2013-14. Walker took over as head coach a year ago; the team is 30-22-6 under him. He will serve as an assistant coach under Don Hay with Canada’s national junior team later this month. . . .
Bob Woods (Brandon, 1987-89) now is an assistant coach under Bruce Boudreau with the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks. Woods started the season with Boudreau and the Washington Capitals. When Boudreau was fired earlier this week, Woods was on the bench for new head coach Dale Hunter’s first game, but was let go after that game as the Caps brought in Jim Johnston to work with their defence. . . .
With head coach Dale Hunter having moved up to the NHL, the OHL’s London Knights have had to shuffle their coaching deck. Mark Hunter now is the head coach and former NHL D Rob Ramage has moved from his eye-in-the-sky role to the bench. That move has caused some controversy in London. Neate Sager of Yahoo! Sports takes a look at the situation right here.
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JUST NOTES: F Matej Stransky of the Saskatoon Blades isn’t one of the 23 forwards on the Czech Republic’s preliminary roster for the World Junior Championship. The 18-year-old, who had 26 points in 71 games last season, has put up 28 points in his first 27 games this season. That, apparently, did impress anyone in his homeland. . . .
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In Prince Albert, the Raiders scored four third-period goals and beat the Kootenay Ice, 7-5. . . . The Ice led this one 4-1 at 10:02 of the second and 5-3 going into the third. . . . F Mark McNeill scored three times for the Raiders. He tied it 5-5 at 2:25 of the third while shorthanded and got the winner at 12:11. He has 12 goals this season. . . . McNeill also had two assists and was plus-4. . . . F Justin Maylan scored the Teddy Bear goal, at 10:10 of the first period. . . .

In Regina, the Vancouver Giants broke a 1-1 tie with three third-period goals and beat the Pats, 4-1. . . . Vancouver F Brendan Gallagher scored his 23rd of the season into an empty net. . . . Vancouver is 3-1-1 on its East Division swing. . . .

In Calgary, F Victor Rask scored twice, including the OT winner, as the Hitmen got past the Spokane Chiefs. . . . Spokane F Darren Kramer forced OT with his 11th goal at 3:35 of the third. . . . Rask got the winner at 2:26 of extra time. He has a team-high 15 goals. . . . F Alex Gogolev scored Calgary’s other goal, his 11th. . . . Calgary has 25 goals from its two import players. . . . The Chiefs are 1-1-1 on their Central Division tour. . . . Spokane G Luke Lee-Knight, playing in his hometown, stopped 27 shots. . . .

In Medicine Hat, F Josh Nicholls scored a PP goal in overtime to give the Saskatoon Blades a 2-1 victory over the Tigers. . . . The Blades had lost their previous three games, all at home. They’ve now won six in a row on the road. . . . Nicholls got his 19th goal at 1:06 of OT. . . . F Hunter Shinkaruk, with his 26th, gave the Tigers a 1-0 lead just 2:55 into the first. . . . Nicholls tied it at 19:21 of the second. . . . Shinkaruk is one off the WHL’s goal-scoring lead, that is shared by Medicine Hat F Emerson Etem and Portland F Ty Rattie. . . .

In Brandon, F Darian Dziurzynski scored three times to lead the Wheat Kings to a 4-2 victory over the Red Deer Rebels. . . . It was the third three-goal game of his career and the second since being acquired from the Saskatoon Blades earlier in the season. He’s got 18 goals this season, 15 in 19 games with Brandon. . . . Brandon D Ryan Pulock had a goal and two assists. His score was the Teddy Bear goal, at 1:24 of the second period. . . . Red Deer D Matt Dumba took a puck in the mouth in the first period and left the game, but returned early in the second period. . . . The Rebels, who now have lost eight in a row, played without six regulars — D Alex Petrovic and F Turner Elson are serving WHL suspensions, while D Aaron Borejko, F Josh Cowen, F Daulton Siwak and F Adam Kambeitz are injured. . . . Red Deer had F Dexter Bricker, 16 of the midget AAA Swift Current Legionnaires and D Kevin Pochuk, 16, of the midget AAA Winnipeg Wild in the lineup. . . . Brandon F Mark Stone, the WHL scoring leader, was held to one assist. He has 61 points and an eight-point lead over Medicine Hat F Emerson Etem. . . .

In Portland, F Oliver Gabriel did the Gordie Howe hat trick in his first game back with Portland as the Winterhawks beat the Everett Silvertips, 5-1. . . . Gabriel, 20, returned to the Winterhawks this week from the Springfield Falcons, the AHL affiliate of the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets. . . . Gabriel scored the game’s first goal, just four minutes into the first period. He later added an assist and got into a scrap. . . . Portland has won eight in a row at home. . . . F Josh Birkholz scored for Everett to extend his points streak to a season-high nine games. . . . Everett has lost five in a row. . . . In the NHL, F Nino Niederreiter, a 19-year-old whose rights belong to Portland, scored his first goal of the season for the New York Islanders. . . . Nick Patterson of the Everett Herald reports that Silvertips D Ryan Murray, who has been out with a high ankle sprain since Oct. 19, “suffered a small setback during the week and will be given a few extra days to recover.” The Silvertips had hoped he would play this weekend. . . . Also according to Patterson, Everett F Zach McPhee had arthroscopic surgery on a knee on Thursday and won’t play again until the new year. . . .

In Kelowna, F Robin Soudek scored twice as the Victoria Royals got past the Rockets, 2-1. . . . Soudek got his 15th at 8:02 of the second and scored again, on the PP, at 8:12 of the third. . . . In between, F Colton Sissons got his 15th, via the PP, for Kelowna. . . . The game included eight fighting majors, four of them in the game’s first five minutes. . . . As well, Kelowna F Jessey Astles took a major and game misconduct for a check to the head. . . . The Royals went into this one winless in six. They now go into Kamloops for their fourth meeting in nine nights with the Blazers. Kamloops won the first three games in this series and is 4-0 against Victoria this season. . . .

In Kent, Wash., F Justin Feser had a goal and two assists to lead the Tri-City Americans to a 4-2 victory over the Seattle Thunderbirds. . . . The Americans improved to 20-7-0, as they became the first team to 20 victories this season. . . . F Adam Hughesman got his 20th goal and set up another for the Americans.
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FRIDAY’S CHECKING-FROM-BEHIND COUNT:
D Harrison Ruopp, Prince Albert
F Trevor Cheek, Calgary
F Mason Wilgosh, Tri-City
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Bill Burke, who owns the OHL’s Niagara IceDogs, has told the city of St. Catharines, to build it or we will leave. With that in mind, Sunaya Sapurji over at Yahoo! Sports takes a look at the OHL and the possibility of moving franchises. That piece is right here.
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Today’s good read comes from Gregg Doyel, the national columnist at CBSSports.com. Every coach who has to deal with the media would be well-served to pay attention to this . . . and it’s right here.
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gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca
     
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