Many of you in recent days have reacted to the column entitled “To what extent does the NHL pamper its first picks?” “, and because irrational player usage is both a broad and fascinating topic, it is certainly worth returning to.
Basically, this column looked at the work of two researchers, Lou Farah and Joseph Baker, who managed to establish that the managers of NHL teams (like their counterparts in other North American championships) analyze the performances of their first-round pick through the prism of an irrational cognitive bias called sunk cost trap
.
This cognitive bias means that even if a player selected in the first round of the draft performs worse than a second-round pick, the first-round pick will play more. In fact, over a full 82 game season, the first round pick will play the equivalent of 5 more games. And this, simply by taking into account the minutes of play played at five against five.
What logic is there in favoring less efficient players when trying to win games in the best hockey league in the world? There isn’t, of course.
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Researchers Farah and Baker hypothesized that team leaders invest a significant asset (a first-round selection) and that they put their professional reputation on the line when they make their first choice. And as a result, even when these young hopefuls do not perform up to expectations, the leaders persist in using them abundantly in the hope of reversing the situation and justifying their selection.
I concluded this column by reminding that the draft is not the only situation where general managers put their reputation on the line. Clearly, the big transactions, the expensive hires on the free agency market, the long and generous contract extensions granted to young players and the status of certain veterans constitute all opportunities to derail what should simply be a meritocracy.
This reminder and clarification having been made, let us now look at what seems to be a clear example of sunk cost trap
: the management of the Canadian’s digital advantage units.
At the end of training camp, I emphasized in this column that the identification of quarterback
of the CH’s first power play unit would prove to be one of the most interesting narrative threads of the season.
Before our eyes, slowly but surely, the kind of dilemma that experts love, but that team leaders often have difficulty tackling head-on, was developing.
On the one hand, the Habs were preparing to entrust a defense position to Lane Hudson, a young virtuoso in puck possession and the numerical advantage. On the other, the position of quarterback
of the team was already owned by veteran Mike Matheson, who is also a former client of GM Kent Hughes.
Never recognized as a power play specialist since the start of his NHL career, Matheson was still 4th in terms of playing time for defensemen in this situation in 2023-2024. And although Matheson collected 28 points on the power play (8th in the NHL), the Canadian’s unit finished the season ranked 27th in the NHL in this regard.
The game of direct comparisons and the performances of each, it was believed, would quickly dictate how Matheson and Hutson would be used. However, that is not what is happening.
During the first month of the season (October 4 to November 3), Mike Matheson played 40:50 on the power play. Rounding up a bit, that means Matheson got about 57% of the playing time at the starting position. quarterback
. Hutson, for his part, played 29:31 on the power play.
During the first month of the season, the Canadian maintained an average of 8.82 goals per 60 minutes on the power play when Matheson was in charge. The team did slightly less with Hutson (6.10 goals/60 min) who was then getting familiar with the NHL.
Since November 4 (we are still talking about three calendar weeks), everyone has clearly noticed that the unity pivoted by Hutson has taken the upper hand. And the statistics confirm it: when Hutson is the quarterback of the power play unit, the CH scores 15.4 goals per 60 minutes.
During this period, only Morgan Rielly (22.26 goals/60 min) and Dougie Hamilton (17.35 goals/60 min) did better than Lane Hutson in the NHL (minimum 15 minutes played on the power play).
The anomaly in this story is that Mike Matheson (4.68 goals/60 min) played nearly 62% of the playing time (25:38) enjoyed by the Canadian on the power play, compared to 15:35 for Hutson .
What logic is there in granting 62% of playing time to a quarterback
whose unit produces three times less than that piloted by Lane Hutson? There isn’t, other than the fact that there’s probably someone, somewhere, who thinks it should work out with Matheson eventually.
Some might argue that three weeks of play (eight games) is a small sample size and that the veteran should be given the benefit of the doubt.
To this, we could however respond that over a sample of 20 games, Hutson still has a success rate in the power play (9.31 goals/60 min) higher than those of Morgan Rielly (Toronto), Rasmus Dahlin (Buffalo) and Quinn Hughes (Vancouver).
We could also recall that with Matheson at the helm, the CH was in the bottom of the NHL last season.
The questioning of the rationality of the creation and use of the CH’s numerical advantage does not stop there, however.
It does not seem more logical, for example, to play within this same first unit attackers like Juraj Slafkovsky and Kirby Dach, who are looking for each other and who have only scored one goal each since the start of the calendar.
Is the main objective to restore confidence to a former first choice in the NHL draft (Slafkovsky) and to a forward acquired in a big trade and who is returning from a long convalescence (Dach)? Or should we rather favor the players who, in the immediate future, are the most deserving?
How do we end up establishing a culture of excellence within an organization? By throwing rose petals in the path of players who are supposed to be the most productive or by rewarding those who actually are?
The future, unfortunately we do not know when, will undoubtedly tell us.
