Long-term Team Performance and the “5-Year Plan”

I made an interesting chart that I’d simply love to talk about. I keep hearing this assertion that Don Waddell hasn’t followed through on his plan to build a winning franchise here in Atlanta. I hear complaints about the “5-year, wait, 10-year plan.” The defense of Waddell usually goes like this: “Well, he’s had to deal with a lot of crap.” I tend to agree with that assessment, but I usually point to two specific events: the Heatley Incident and the Playoff Push. Can I prove my point with a chart? Here goes…

So let’s talk about this chart. This is the Thrashers winning percentage over their entire history. You can see markers for each season at the bottom. The X-axis is set at 0.56% or 92 points – this is the approximate winning percentage you’d need to make the playoffs. The chart shows both a 25- and 42-game moving average. These are long periods of time, so keep in mind that they are slightly lagging indicators.

Don Waddell came out with a 5-year plan. Was he on track to make the playoffs in 5 seasons? Basically, yes. If you look at the history up through the end of season 4, the team basically got better and better. (Keep in mind, the chart is a slightly lagging indicator. What you see as playoff-level performance at the beginning of season 5 is actually playoff-level performance at the end of season 4.) Again: by the 5th season, they were sitting at playoff-level performance. But then a precipitous fall…

So what happened in season 5? We see the team performed terribly through the beginning of the season, only to pick it up toward the ending. What happened that year?

Oh yeah, Dany Heatley missed the first 51 games of the season.

You can see an uptick later in the year when he returned.

Don’t blame Don Waddell for the failure of his 5-year plan: if not for Heatley, the 5 year plan would have worked. Hell, as you can see by the chart, they got there. They weren’t a Cup contender by any means, but after 4 seasons, the Thrashers were poised to make the playoffs.

After the 5th season came the lockout. The Thrashers had a strong season, building toward playoff-level performance by the end of season 6 and missing the playoffs by points… even with the Great Goalie-go-Round.

Season 7 was a slide. Getting swept in the playoffs was just a symptom of a larger problem: this team was falling apart. The loss of Marc Savard was instrumental. Scott Mellanby, with 36 points and 40 years of age, was our 4th-leading scorer. Only 3 Thrashers had 20 goals. The firesale of prospects and picks for a playoff push severely depleted the stores of a team that was already heading south.

Bob Hartley was the victim, but my theory is that the loss of Marc Savard was really the final nail in the coffin for this team.

After D0n Waddell stepped in for Hartley, things looked good for awhile, but it was only temporary. The Hossa situation was an additional complication, but it certainly wasn’t solely responsible for the decline. Bad times continued until very late this year: the 25-game moving average finally made it back to playoff territory.

The question of the year – and the metric by which Waddell will either keep or lose his job – is whether the 5-year Plan Part Two can keep the team above the axis. The team is clearly moving in the right direction. The post-trade deadline Thrashers were a playoff-calibre team.

Of course, if Don Waddell can’t re-sign Ilya Kovalchuk, the loss of Marc Savard will seem moderate in comparison.