Season 4 Episode 11 of the Chasing MacNaughton Podcast from Tech Hockey Guide; Analytics with (Augie) Zach Aufdemberge. This week, Tim Braun and Matt Cavender were joined by THG’s own Zach Aufdemberge (aka Augie from Analytics with Augie). In this episode, they discussed analytics, Tech’s series last weekend against Minnesota State, the Joe Shawhan Hour, the Jagger Joshua situation, and very briefly the Northern Michigan series.
Analytics
Tim talked about how nice it is to have real numbers to back up his feelings on how the team is playing. He also talked about the unexpected things that sometime happen in hockey. Matt discussed the fact that analytics aren’t everything and games wouldn’t be played if a spreadsheet could predict the outcomes, but analytics can be a useful tool in helping to calculate useful strategies and sustainability. Augie talked about what analytics can do the best, which he said is predicting how well players will do in the future rather than predicting outcomes of games. Augie also talked about how analytics can do this and gave an example relating to players being on hot/cold streaks.
The guys also talked about the difference between hobbyist analytics, like Augie does, and how coaching staffs use the information. Augie talked about making the content more digestible for casual fans and not trying to provide ideas for teams on how to improve. Tim talked about that next step being difficult when none of the guys have coaching backgrounds and reiterated that he’s just happy to have numbers to back up his talking. Tim provided some information showing Tech as one of the top teams in the nation in high pressure moments and the guys discussed how well Tech’s defensemen played this past weekend given their collective lack of experience.
Looking forward, Augie discussed some of his ideas on what he’d like to do with analytics for THG. He talked about wanting to do some percentile stats on Tech players on national basis and he also talked about wanting to isolate individual performances more. He said he also wants to expand his scope and look at stats comparing Tech to the rest of the CCHA conference and NCAA as a whole. Tim offered up his suggestion for a stat which he and Brandon thought up in the past. The guys discussed Tech’s first goal of the Friday game and whether we should ignore the first couple shots that occurred before the goal went in.
Minnesota State series recap
Augie found it interesting that Minnesota State essentially had repeating weekends by coming out slow on Friday, then running the show in game two. Matt said the Friday game felt like he was living a simulation for the first two periods with how much Tech controlled play. Tim thought it was crazy that Tech could dominate the first two periods only to have Minnesota State twice as dominate the third period to even up the stats. The guys also discussed Saturday’s game and how Tech was playing not to lose. They also talked about Tech goaltender Blake Pietilla keeping Tech in the games.
The Joe Shawhan Hour
The guys briefly discussed the Joe Show. Tim talked about how he disagreed with Joe’s early year assessment of the team and how many wins they would get. Matt talked about Joe and Lake Superior State head coach Damon Whitten both being wrong about how their teams would perform, with Shawhan underselling and Whitten overselling. Tim talked about Joe having lower expectations for the team this year.
Everybody hates the shootout
The guys discussed Tech transitioning from a team being bad at overtime to being a team that’s bad at the shootout. Tim talked about the shootout having no effect on the Pairwise, but did bemoan the three points that Tech has left on the table due to the shootout losses. The guys discussed the mentality of the players and goalies in shootouts and how a shootout situation is different than a breakaway situation in a game. Augie pointed out that there are no shootouts in the playoffs, so Tech shouldn’t be worried. Tim circled back to the points Tech has left on the table and provided information on the teams below Tech in the CCHA standings that have games in hand.
Jagger Joshua situation
The guys discussed the recent situation in which an Ohio State player used a racial slur directed at Michigan State player Jagger Joshua, who is black. They also discussed the B1G Conference’s and Ohio State’s reaction to the incident. All of the guys agreed that they had no idea why it took the league and Ohio State so long to respond to the incident. There were confused how the B1G can say that they believe their official who called a penalty on the player and ejecting him, but not punish the player. They also didn’t know why an institution the size of Ohio State wouldn’t use their resources to educate their player on what he did wrong rather than just sending him home. Matt talked about wanting everyone in the world to feel the same as him when watching hockey, which means zero barriers to enjoyment.
Northern Michigan series preview
There was a very brief preview of the Northern Michigan series. Tim said that Northern sucks and their rink sucks. Matt thought it would be an exciting series. Augie picked a split with both teams winning at home. Tim thought that Tech would come home with more than three points, but didn’t elaborate on how that would happen. Matt picked a split with each road team winning the games.
Cut for time
This week’s cut time for Patrons is approximately 36 minutes long. Tim talked about some goaltender stats he’d like to see created and the guys discussed different factors that would play into those stats. Augie answered a Patron question and a THG columnist question. Augie talked about how he formulated his writing style. Tim tried to figure out where in Canada some of Tech’s players played at previously. The guys talked about Arvid Caderoth improving as a player and not knowing what to make of Jack Works. Matt got on his soapbox about 3v3 overtime again and the guys discussed a 3v3 hockey league that happens in the summer. There was extended discussion on how much Tim hates the 3v3 overtime format. The guys got VERY heated discussing games ending in ties. The guys discussed the newest jersey for the Detroit Red Wings. There was a discussion on a poll voter giving Long Island University a vote in the Top 25 poll.
Learn More
For additional information and more episode liner notes, check out our episode overview on Tech Hockey Guide. To make sure we can afford all our fancy equipment we purchased for the podcast and the THG website in general, please check out our Patreon page and consider joining. Patrons at our Black Level or above receive an authentic MTU jersey patch and access to extra podcast content including extended versions of our other episodes. This week’s extended version is about 103 minutes.
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Follow us on twitter at ChasingMacPod. You can submit questions through our email address, ChasingMac@techhockeyguide.com. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate and review to help us reach more people, and tell your friends. Please check out Jonathan Zamaites’ series previews every Friday and Mike Anleitner’s Old Dog in Texas column every Wednesday and Zach Aufdemberge’s Analytics With Augie. Also, keep an eye out for new recruiting articles that Tim Braun writes occasionally. As always, special thanks to our patron saint Doc McResin for his generous donation to get this thing running, we hope you enjoy. Also, thanks to The Thank You Notes for all the bumpers in today’s episode. If you like what you hear, check them out at thethankyounotes.bandcamp.com.
