This week the Contrarian covers a number of items, just like what you'll find in a Happy Meal.

This past week has been a busy one for me, so I’ll be commenting on a few stories from the past week including the DobberHockey Experts League draft.

Torts and Stats

John Tortorella is back in hockey after being named as the head coach for the USA in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. I am glad to see him back.

In his interview he was asked about advanced stats and his response was, “I think quite honesty it’s media driven.”

He gave examples of Vancouver’s and Los Angeles’ puck possession numbers in season where they did not end up doing well, and of individual players like Jonathan Toews and Ryan McDonagh where their Corsi numbers do not match their importance and value to their respective clubs. “Do not any red flags go up here?” he asked in response.

These quotes were sure to cause a bit of a reaction especially from proponents of advanced statistics, such as Jonathan Willis of the Edmonton Journal.

Willis goes on to breakdown the comments about the performances of the Canucks and Kings and while doing that, he unknowingly strengthens Tortorella’s point of view.

In his second to last paragraph he states, “Corsi, and statistics like it, are not magic bullets. Strong work on the shot clock at five-on-five can be undermined by shoddy goaltending, a failure to convert on chances, or deficiencies on the power play, the penalty kill or in the shootout.”

That is exactly what Tortorella points out when he said, “But you can’t spit out numbers 30 minutes after a game on a player and a team and say this is what happened.”

To punctuate it, “What Tortorella is describing as ‘red flags’ are really nothing of the sort; they’re features, not bugs”, says Willis.

Features, honestly? That is like saying when your freezer isn’t keeping things cold because it acts as a warmer.

The point is not that keeping statistics, any statistic, is bad. It is an attempt towards explaining a situation. The issue is that some believe that the solution can be derived from the numbers alone and sometimes with very little data behind it.

Finding more ways to express and track information should never be impeded. It should be encouraged, but it also should be tempered with skepticism and challenged to make sure it does measure what one thinks it does.

Some people laughed when ballet dancers were brought to football teams to help wide receivers develop their skills. The same could be said of figure skaters with hockey players. The underlying concept was that the performances of the affected players were evaluated and a solution was sought to improve their play.

If the evaluation is by statistic or is by eye-balling, does it matter? If you are paying attention, you will identify the problem.

Yogi Berra once said, “You can observe a lot by watching.” I think that holds true even with statistics. A number is just a number unless it has context.

Paper or Plastic, Mr. Murray?

Another recent headline got people’s attention when Ottawa Senators’ GM Bryan Murray suspended Mikael Wikstrand when the player abruptly left Ottawa to return to Sweden.

“I can’t stop him from going home, if that’s what he wants to do. But he’s suspended from playing hockey other than for our organization,” said Murray.

He expanded by saying, “I told him that he can go home and be a grocery clerk and play in a beer league, but he could not play hockey in any shape or form if he doesn’t play for the Ottawa organization, and that’s the way it will be.”

In the same Sportsnet article, there is a Twitter response by Wikstrand, and a translation, indicating that he went back because of a serious family illness.

It is understandable that Murray wants to protect his organization’s assets, and there may be a degree of the tail attempting wag the dog here, to which Murray clearly asserts who is the boss.

The failure is in the severity of the comments that were made public. Maybe this is common language that is spoken between players and organizations, but the short-term optics are not great.

I don’t know much about Wikstrand, but I know of one grocery clerk who ended up winning a Super Bowl and being named MVP: Kurt Warner. Maybe it can happen again.

May the illness in his family be healed quickly, but here is a bit of advice for the young guy through Berra again: “If I didn’t make it in baseball, I won’t have made it workin’. I didn’t like to work.”

Bagging groceries pays a lot less than playing in the minors.

Experts League

My busy week started with last Sunday’s draft. This is my second year in the league, and I was hoping to get a better draft position than last season where I picked last. Please anything but last.

So I check in only to find out that I’m drafting last yet again, and this year there are 13 owners instead of 11. I felt like Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2.

Now I had to hope that the other 12 guys in front of me ended up shooting some blanks like the bad guys did in that movie.

I set up my monitors with everything that I wanted easy access to, including Terry Campkin’s “Fantasy Hockey: how to pull off the perfect draft” article.

The draft starts and what happens… the guy with the first overall pick hasn’t logged on and he is running on autodraft. Not like that was going to change his pick but gosh darn it, talk about being rewarded for not paying attention. (Turned out that he was a time zone ahead and thus was late)

Anyway, Alex Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby get knocked off the board and then the first surprise comes when Erik Karlsson was selected third overall. Darn, there goes my plan for drafting him and P.K. Subban with my wrap around picks.

The first round proceeds and Carey Price goes in the seventh spot, and Subban is gone at ten. Darn, darn, darn… well those weren’t the exact words I used. Keep calm and make fists with your toes.

Okay, maybe I’ll get one of Steven Stamkos or Phil Kessel. Nope, they disappear with the two picks in front of me. Sheez!

What to do now? Last year, I picked up Jonathan Quick and Subban and in an analysis by one of the other experts, they felt taking a goalie was too early at this point. I agreed with that assessment of last year’s drafting, so I was not going to make that error again. But who was left?

This is when I went back to good ol’ Yogi, who said: “Make a game plan and stick to it. Unless it’s not working.”

Clearly it was not working, so I scrapped it. My first selection was Jakub Voracek. He plays well with Claude Giroux on Philadelphia and they are not the problem over there.

The wraparound was Connor McDavid. He’s not someone who I thought I would take or even have an opportunity to get this year. With what was remaining and McDavid being touted as a generational player, how could I pass up on him? I was either going to go big or go home.

Now the wait…

Goalies and defensemen were mostly flying off the board. Two picks to get my turn and I had a chance at Taylor Hall. Oh darn, he gets selected. I swear I should have been thinking of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man instead.

I end up taking Nathan MacKinnon and Jordan Eberle.

My next two picks are where I think I made a mistake. I took Alex Pietrangelo and Duncan Keith. Not that these guys are terrible players, but in hindsight I think I may have gotten more value out of a goalie like Frederik Andersen or on other forwards at those spots.

As my next picks approached, everyone except for the owner of the first overall pick had multiple goalies. I would have waited even further, but Jonas Hiller was creeping up the undrafted board and I was afraid that the autodraft bot would have snagged him.  I didn’t worry about taking another goalie until that owner logged onto Yahoo to take control of their draft (as I mentioned he was about an hour off because of the time zone).

The rest of my draft was basically taking players who I felt were projected to get a lot of shots and goals. I was not concerned much about hits.

The question asked at the end of the draft was if owners were happy with their teams. Unfortunately, I think my error in selecting Pietrangelo and Keith kind of cost me but “It ain’t over till it’s over – Berra”.

One thing that I liked was the pedigree of my players.

Four first overall NHL drafted players – McDavid (2015), Aaron Ekblad (2014), MacKinnon (2013) and Nail Yakupov (2012).

Three second overall – Eric Staal, Bobby Ryan, and Jordan Staal.

I also chose a smattering of other first-round draft picks. I know that being draft in other rounds doesn’t mean that other players are worse, or that first rounders are highly superior, but I do like that they will be given more chances to succeed.

If nothing else, for the first time I can say I was happy to get McD.