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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

leafman101 said:
They played a 1-3-1 in LA because their best offensive player is Adrien Kempe.
Click to expand...
And his entire thing before coaching the Kings was about offense. He revolutionized powerplays, every team in the league stole his ideas from the work he did with Detroit. So he has proven to have a creative offensive mind as well. He's no one trick pony.
 
Preston said:
And his entire thing before coaching the Kings was about offense. He revolutionized powerplays, every team in the league stole his ideas from the work he did with Detroit. So he has proven to have a creative offensive mind as well. He's no one trick pony.
Click to expand...
“I’ve always tried to hire different types of people to help me get better and to grow,” Babcock explained recently. “I was impressed with his knowledge and the way he thought offensively. He doesn’t have one thought that would be similar to mine. He doesn’t think like that at all.

“He likes the offensive side of the puck and that’s how he thinks. That’s what he thinks about. That’s his skill set and that’s much different than the way I see things in the game. So it’s been good for me – and ideally, good for him, too.”

Hiller made a significant and immediate impact on the Red Wings power play. They went from 18th in the league (17.7 per cent) before his arrival to second in the league with a 23.8 per cent success rate.
 
Preston said:
“I’ve always tried to hire different types of people to help me get better and to grow,” Babcock explained recently. “I was impressed with his knowledge and the way he thought offensively. He doesn’t have one thought that would be similar to mine. He doesn’t think like that at all.

“He likes the offensive side of the puck and that’s how he thinks. That’s what he thinks about. That’s his skill set and that’s much different than the way I see things in the game. So it’s been good for me – and ideally, good for him, too.”

Hiller made a significant and immediate impact on the Red Wings power play. They went from 18th in the league (17.7 per cent) before his arrival to second in the league with a 23.8 per cent success rate.
Click to expand...
Leafs players say that Hiller spends much of his time analyzing opponents’ tendencies. Before each game, he’ll pick apart the other team’s penalty kill strategies and help his power-play units find a path to the net.

“Everyone knows how to set up and play [on a] power play, but it’s the small things,” Leo Komarov explained. “Like if the PK man has his stick on the inside or outside, you’ll know if you have more room. Sometimes when you look at it, it doesn’t make sense, and then he starts talking about it and then it’s like ‘Whoa, that makes sense. I get it now. Wow.’ ”

During games, Hiller is typically keeping track of situations in the offensive zone when a scoring chance doesn’t result in a goal. He will then tell Leafs players what the opposition is doing to adjust to Toronto’s offence midgame.

“He’ll come in and show you some clips of one play that you’ll have in a situation that you aren’t going to have next time and vice-versa,” Nazem Kadri said. “He’s a very visual person. He shows you a lot.”

“He’ll explain that it’s not a low-percentage play, it’s a high-percentage play,” van Riemsdyk said. “But you don’t realize that the play is there until he explains it. If someone misses a play, instead of saying ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he’ll say he saw that same alley or same angle as you did. Try this next time to give yourself more room to make it.”

www.nytimes.com

How Jim Hiller has brought special teams success and an analytical eye to the Leafs bench

Practice had just ended when Maple Leafs assistant coach Jim Hiller grabbed an iPad and went right to James van Riemsdyk’s dressing room stall. Hiller wanted to review a sequence of plays that resulted in an excellent scoring chance in a game earlier in the week. While breaking it down, he...
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Preston said:
And his entire thing before coaching the Kings was about offense. He revolutionized powerplays, every team in the league stole his ideas from the work he did with Detroit. So he has proven to have a creative offensive mind as well. He's no one trick pony.
Click to expand...

it's amazing that every one of these writers doesn't understand that analytics is about process more than it is about coming up with some sort of 10 commandments
 
Preston said:
Leafs players say that Hiller spends much of his time analyzing opponents’ tendencies. Before each game, he’ll pick apart the other team’s penalty kill strategies and help his power-play units find a path to the net.

“Everyone knows how to set up and play [on a] power play, but it’s the small things,” Leo Komarov explained. “Like if the PK man has his stick on the inside or outside, you’ll know if you have more room. Sometimes when you look at it, it doesn’t make sense, and then he starts talking about it and then it’s like ‘Whoa, that makes sense. I get it now. Wow.’ ”

During games, Hiller is typically keeping track of situations in the offensive zone when a scoring chance doesn’t result in a goal. He will then tell Leafs players what the opposition is doing to adjust to Toronto’s offence midgame.

“He’ll come in and show you some clips of one play that you’ll have in a situation that you aren’t going to have next time and vice-versa,” Nazem Kadri said. “He’s a very visual person. He shows you a lot.”

“He’ll explain that it’s not a low-percentage play, it’s a high-percentage play,” van Riemsdyk said. “But you don’t realize that the play is there until he explains it. If someone misses a play, instead of saying ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he’ll say he saw that same alley or same angle as you did. Try this next time to give yourself more room to make it.”

www.nytimes.com

How Jim Hiller has brought special teams success and an analytical eye to the Leafs bench

Practice had just ended when Maple Leafs assistant coach Jim Hiller grabbed an iPad and went right to James van Riemsdyk’s dressing room stall. Hiller wanted to review a sequence of plays that resulted in an excellent scoring chance in a game earlier in the week. While breaking it down, he...
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
Click to expand...

Interesting to remember in those days we ran two balanced pp units. Might have just been personnel related tho.

Something like Matthews/Marner with JVR/Bozak on one unit and Kadri/Nylander with Marleau/Komarov/Brown on the other.

Though i think when we got tavares we ended up stacking the top unit.
 
CH1 said:
it's amazing that every one of these writers doesn't understand that analytics is about process more than it is about coming up with some sort of 10 commandments
Click to expand...
It would have been kind of ridiculous if Hiller took a look at the Kings roster and said 'lets play run and gun!" He did what he needed to do to get the most out of his team.

But again, before LA, he never even coached in a defensive capacity. His entire job and specialty was his creative offensive mind. Funny to see how many people suddenly forget that.
 
Preston said:
“I’ve always tried to hire different types of people to help me get better and to grow,” Babcock explained recently. “I was impressed with his knowledge and the way he thought offensively. He doesn’t have one thought that would be similar to mine. He doesn’t think like that at all.

“He likes the offensive side of the puck and that’s how he thinks. That’s what he thinks about. That’s his skill set and that’s much different than the way I see things in the game. So it’s been good for me – and ideally, good for him, too.”

Hiller made a significant and immediate impact on the Red Wings power play. They went from 18th in the league (17.7 per cent) before his arrival to second in the league with a 23.8 per cent success rate.
Click to expand...


lol

Babcock saying “he doesn’t have one thought that would be similar to mine” is just about the most reassuring possible thing I could’ve heard.
 
Preston said:
It would have been kind of ridiculous if Hiller took a look at the Kings roster and said 'lets play run and gun!" He did what he needed to do to get the most out of his team.

But again, before LA, he never even coached in a defensive capacity. His entire job and specialty was his creative offensive mind. Funny to see how many people suddenly forget that.
Click to expand...

Funny thing is it wasn't actually a defensive system. They just didn't have scoring talent.

23-24: 64.5cf/60 (#5), 2.82xgf/60 (#7), 2.53gf/60 (#18)
24-25: 62.9cf/60 (#7), 2.61xgf/60 (#12), 2.64gf/60 (#8)
25-26: 61.0cf/60 (#5), 2.73xgf/60 (#18), 2.27gf/60 (#25)

3yrs: 62.8cf/60 (#4), 2.72xgf/60 (#11), 2.48gf/60 (#18)

This wasn't low event hockey.
 
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