It probably went unnoticed by most fans, but Tuesday’s game 7 between the Penguins and Rangers was more than just a hockey game. It was nothing less than a culture war. On the one side, there were the old school pundits. On Tuesday morning, Kevin Allen of USA Today was musing about the Penguins’ […]
Crosby and Malkin Together Again
FOREWARD: Below is the article that ran in the Toronto Star this week. But I wanted to add just a little more discussion that wasn't included due to space limitations, but which I think it important to properly analyze the issue raised. First, although the article mentioned this, it's worth highlighting that Crosby and Malkin played […]
Additional Thoughts on Special Teams and Playoff Success
In today’s article in the Toronto Star we looked at whether regular season special teams success translates into playoff success. This is a very specific question that seemed highly relevant as we watch this season’s NHL playoffs unfold. However, there are other questions, and we will be looking at them in the coming […]
Momentum Matters
By IJay Palansky and Phil Curry In sixteen NHL cities that aren’t Toronto, much of the talk over the past few weeks has been about the “momentum” each team carries into the playoffs. During lulls in the game when color commentators are desperate for something passably intelligent to say, they trot out the good ol’ […]
Coming in Hot: More on Momentum and the Playoffs
This week we looked at whether there was anything behind the common claim that teams need to go into the playoffs playing well. There are actually several ways one could examine this problem, some of which unfortunately suffered from a lack of data. Ideally, I think we would have liked to look at a team’s […]
The Mythical President's Trophy Curse
With NHL playoffs coming up next week, fans and players alike are ready to channel their nervous excitement in weird and interesting ways. I’m not talking something boring like a standard-issue playoff beard. Or watching the game from your “lucky chair”. I’m imagining something along the lines of former Ottawa Senator Bruce Gardiner, […]
Nonis' Clarkson Catastrophe
July 5, 2013: The Toronto Maple Leafs sign David Clarkson to a 7 year, $36,750,000 contract. November 2013: Dave Nonis comments that “people run with these [advanced hockey] stats like they’re something we should pay attention to and make decisions on, and as of right now, very few of them are worth anything to us.” […]
More on the Hit Parade: The Good Stuff
There were a couple of requests to see more about the regressions that were run. So here it is. First, I should mention that the kind of regression that is run is called a probit regression. The variable we’re trying to explain is wins, so it can only take on two values - 1 if […]
The Hit Parade: More on the Relationship between Hitting and Winning
This week’s Star column looked at the relationship between hitting and winning. Several articles have already been written on this topic in the advanced stats community, but somehow the analyses generally seem to fall short in what seemed like a rather obvious way. This piece set out to correct this oversight. This week, I need […]
The Department of Hockey Analytics on SiriusXM
A few weeks ago we were interviewed with Darryl Metcalf from extraskater.com on The War Room with Mick Kern and Peter Berce on the NHL Network on SiriusXM. You can listen to a recording of the interview here: