An Introduction to Hockey Analytics Part 1 - What is the field of Hockey Analytics and why might you be interested? - Lighthouse Hockey. You may have seen Dominik or myself make posts on this site using some statistics that are unfamiliar. You may have seen myself make some seemingly outlandish claims based upon these statistics (Matt Martin is pretty poor right now, P.A. Parenteau is a pretty good player!) And you may have had one of several reactions to these statistics: 1. What are these statistics and why do they matter? In this series of posts I plan on doing sporadically throughout the offseason, I'm going to explain the field of hockey analytics and the statistics used in the field, and why I think that you all might be interested.
So let's get started: The field of hockey analytics* is defined as the "the search for objective knowledge about hockey. "** Essentially, people learn about hockey analytics to understand the game of hockey better. Okay, so what does this mean? It's here that statistics come in: they allow for us to value properly different elements of hockey.
Conclusion: 1. Chicks Who Give A Puck. Hockey Stats pieces. HFBoards. Hockey's Future.
The Hockey Writers. Behind The Net. Hockey Prospectus. Bourne's Blog. Puck Daddy. Dallas Stars GM vs. the reliability of NHL stats Greg Wyshynski at Puck Daddy1 day ago There isn’t much common ground between those at the forefront of the analytics movement and those who bemoan their value, outside of a mutual disrespect. But they’ve always agreed on one aspect of advanced stats in the NHL, which is that the data produced is only going to be as good as the data analyzed. Hockey is a subjective sport, from the League determining supplemental discipline to referees defining penalties to official scorers defining what consitutes a shot. The greatest example of this, of course, is “hits,” which are handed out so idiosyncratically and inconsistently that they might as well be points assigned by Hardwick on “@Midnight.” Corsi and fenwick are the most widely used metrics to measure puck possession, and rely on the stats reported by the NHL, which has four people tracking stats at every game.