In today’s Toronto Star article (http://www.thestar.com/sports/hockey/2014/03/20/alex_ovechkin_a_perfect_example_of_why_the_nhls_shooting_percentage_is_flawed.html), I talked about Sh% and why it doesn’t tell us enough about how good players are at turning scoring opportunities into goals. Specifically, I pointed out that Sh% excludes shots that never make it to the net because they’re either blocked or miss entirely. At one extreme of the […]
Living Large and in the Past: More on Size in the NHL
This week’s piece in The Star looked at the effect (if any) of a player’s size on his own performance and that of his teammates. Unfortunately, space constraints prevented us from going into as much detail as we would have liked. To that end, I would like to give a more thorough explanation of what […]
Do NHL trade deadline deals actually work?
It’s trade deadline time, and fans of middling teams are no doubt dreaming of a shining knight who will ride into town and inspire the team President to dust off his long abandoned Stanley Cup parade map. But do deadline acquisitions actually work, or is adding a key part now like trying to fix […]
Hockey analytics: Defencemen give Canada oh-so-slight advantage in Olympic semifinal
When two men’s hockey teams are as closely matched as Canada and the U.S., the difference between skating for gold and playing in the loser’s bracket can come down to which one shuts down the other’s biggest weapons. So the Department of Hockey Analytics set out to identify and analyze the Canada-U.S. semifinal’s critical matchups. We wanted […]
Canada an underdog against field to defend men’s Olympic gold
As Canadian hockey fans gear up for the Olympics, I have good news and bad news. Let’s start with the good news: Team Canada is the best team in this tournament, and the one most likely to win gold. The bad news is Canada probably won’t win gold. Before you start clamoring for my passport, […]
Variance and Chicken Wings: More on the US Olympic Team
To me, the important issue raised by the piece in The Star is that the probability of winning a single game is determined by more than each team’s expected performance. Consider the following stylized version of a competition. Suppose that IJay and I sit down to have a suicide wing eating competition. In such a […]
Did The U.S. Pick Their Best, Best Men’s Olympic Hockey Team?
By IJay Palansky and Phil Curry The Olympics are just around the corner and there’s no shortage of prognosticating and second guessing. Pundits have argued ad nauseam. What’s the magic formula? Experience? Speed? Heart? Size? Defense? Team chemistry? Ability to play on the larger international ice? I’m not going to talk about any of […]
Alex Ovechkin's "Statistical Dominance" In The NHL? Hardly
Alex Ovechkin scored his 400th career goal on December 19. NHL.com ran a story proclaiming his “statistical dominance.” My not-very-sensitive gag reflex was triggered. Don’t get me wrong, Alex Ovechkin is fantastic to watch and he’s exceptionally good at what he does. Unfortunately, he only does one thing: score goals. Now, one might reasonably, yet […]
Some further thoughts on goal quality
By Ian Cooper Since we officially launched last week, we've had a lot of feedback on our first article in The Toronto Star. I wanted to take a moment to thank everybody who took the time to tell us what they think and to respond to some of those comments. Because we only have 700 […]
Is Don Cherry right about stat padders?
Not all goals are created equal — some of the NHL’s elite scorers tend to feast on weaker, non-playoff teams. By Ian Cooper, Published in The Toronto Star, Friday January 24, 2014 In The Gospel According to Don Cherry, some players are shameless stat padders. Cherry can even tell you what kind of passports they carry. But is […]