Mmmm, stats.

Mmmm, stats.

Throughout this painful season, one of the comments that has stuck with me is when Alain Vigneault referenced that the Rangers look good when you see the advanced metrics. That was a false statement based on what’s publicly available –teams track their own stats, but it’s proprietary and we have no idea what they track or how effective it is– and all of the analytics community was pretty confused by this statement. The Rangers felt the pain of being a bad possession team once the playoffs rolled around as they were absolutely trumped by a possession goliath in Pittsburgh.

Even though the season has felt like a fluke in the standings, there must be someway to explain their stellar season heading into the January, PDO is certainly one of the prevalent reasons. The current measurements of shot quality can’t currently explain the season or where AV’s stats were coming from (Jim Sullivann, head of the analytics department, maybe?). It is almost impossible for a team to win time of possession and be so inefficient to not out shoot the other team on a regular basis.

This post isn’t entirely about the Rangers, in fact they are merely a case study. The goal of this post is to make you think about the fundamental thinking of hockey analytics. If you are like me, you don’t settle for Rolle’s Theorem. You want to connect the points to get to the Mean Value Theorem.

There is so much in the game of hockey that is not quantified. We put it off and focus on our shot statistics because it is easier to scrape data automatically than to track data manually. With your help MICRO will help bridge that gap. Trackers will record numerous events that are not supplied by the NHL, including shot attempts, in order to help with venue adjustments and ghost shots. If you help track these events, you and many others can use these numbers to create better models and understand the game better.

Here is a list of what will be tracked:

Shot Attempts:

  • Who shot the puck?
  • From where?
  • What type of shot?
  • What happened?
  • Was there a pass proceeding it?

Zone Entries/Exits:

  • Where did it happen?
  • Who performed it?
  • Was there a pass before it?
  • What type was it?

Challenges (Hits/Takeaways/Recoveries)

  • What type was it?
  • Where did it happen?
  • Who did it?

All events will answer the time, man strength, and the new zone strength. These events should seem familiar to you if you have followed hockey analytics, but is not usually available. What was Sidney Crosby’s controlled entry percentage this year? MICRO is going to try to supply these stats, but we need your help. Whether you can only track a game a month, a game a week, or multiple games a week, we need your help. If you are interested in tracking email: [email protected].

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