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Buffalo, NY (WGR 550) -- We’ve hit the age of analytics in all sports. Some teams have resisted it, but in the past year several have embraced it.
This past summer our Matthew Coller told you how Tim Murray uses analytics, but Ted Nolan doesn’t think of it in the same way. Nolan is old school, “The information I’ve used is with my eyes and my soul and my heart. If I see someone who’s competing and I know he’s competing, that’s good enough for me. I don’t need a machine to tell me how hard he worked, I can see it for myself, but there’s some of that data that you can use for how many calories they burn, but my number one analytic is you score one more goal that the opposition, you win.” Nolan added, "In modern day hockey there's a lot of emphasis put on analytics and how much possession time, but you can never underestimate the human aspect of the game. Hockey's not all that difficult, there's a science to it, but it's not rocket science."
There’s a Corsi number and a Fenwick number and possession numbers that have become quite popular in the last year or so. None of that is popular with the Sabres head coach, “If you have a Crosby on your team, they’re going to have a little bit more zone time. If you have a Kopitar on your team, they’re going to have a little bit more zone time. You look at all the teams that make the playoffs, they make it for a reason, they’re better teams. What we want to do is become a better team and you do that you get better players and it hasn’t changed since the 50’s and 60’s, you get better players, you have a better chance of winning.”
This past summer our Matthew Coller told you how Tim Murray uses analytics, but Ted Nolan doesn’t think of it in the same way. Nolan is old school, “The information I’ve used is with my eyes and my soul and my heart. If I see someone who’s competing and I know he’s competing, that’s good enough for me. I don’t need a machine to tell me how hard he worked, I can see it for myself, but there’s some of that data that you can use for how many calories they burn, but my number one analytic is you score one more goal that the opposition, you win.” Nolan added, "In modern day hockey there's a lot of emphasis put on analytics and how much possession time, but you can never underestimate the human aspect of the game. Hockey's not all that difficult, there's a science to it, but it's not rocket science."
There’s a Corsi number and a Fenwick number and possession numbers that have become quite popular in the last year or so. None of that is popular with the Sabres head coach, “If you have a Crosby on your team, they’re going to have a little bit more zone time. If you have a Kopitar on your team, they’re going to have a little bit more zone time. You look at all the teams that make the playoffs, they make it for a reason, they’re better teams. What we want to do is become a better team and you do that you get better players and it hasn’t changed since the 50’s and 60’s, you get better players, you have a better chance of winning.”
Ye Gods.
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