Month: January 2017

Redefining Defensemen based on Transitional Play

Ryan Stimson Exploring Context, Passing Data, Shot Quality, Theory Leave a comment

Last time, I showed how passing data is a better predictor of future player scoring than existing public metrics. In this piece, I’m going to spend some time talking about how we can more reliably evaluate offensive and defensive contributions from defensemen, which has been difficult due to a lack of data. Not only due to a lack of data, but from a lack of flexibility regarding the identity of the position. Traditionally thought of as existing to defend and “make a good first pass,” I feel this limits the scope of both how we evaluate the position and its responsibilities.

In order to better evaluate defensemen, we need to identify specific metrics that we can tie to future goals. In looking at entry assists (a pass occurring in the neutral or defensive zones that precedes a shot), both for and against, we can quantify how effective that defensemen is at generating offense in transition, as well as suppressing those chances. The importance of those things at the team level is something I’ve previously discussed (transition here and defensive work here with Matt Cane). Once we identify these metrics as having a strong impact on future scoring and goal-suppression, we naturally then reevaluate what the proper roles are for a defensemen, which in turn forces us to reevaluate how we evaluate them.

Personally, I’d like to see us think of them more as fullbacks or midfielders in soccer (this is part of a larger concept of redefining positions and responsibilities, which will be posted in the next month or so, I hope). There are still going to be various types of players based on their individual skill set and team tactics, but supporting play, overlapping on the attack, and distribution are all pillars of what teams should look for. Let’s get to it.

All data is from 5v5 situations and special thanks to Dr. McCurdy for pulling the on-ice player data for me. All non-passing project data is from Corsica.

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Friday Quick Graphs: Marginal Gains for Defenders

Garret Hohl Uncategorized Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2017-01-20 at 6.59.49 PM.png

Last Friday we asked how many goals is improving a team’s first line worth versus their fourth line? What about defenders?

The above graph shows the number of goals over a season a team should expect in improving their player’s shot differential talent, here described in percentiles of talent.

The blue line is first pair with 2nd, 3rd, pairs falling next with red and yellow.

The blue line is the steepest, suggesting that moving from a 55th percentile player to 60th percentile player on the top pair will improve a team’s goal differential more so than a second or third pairing player. (This is not to be confused with improving from a 55% Corsi player to a 60% Corsi player)

Notice how the difference between the top and middle pair is pretty negligible. Improving from an average (median, 50th percentile) to the absolute best in both top and middle pair defenders is only about half a goal difference in improvement. This effect may be due to the fact that teams often place their second best defender on the second pair, whether that may be due to strategy and design or due to handedness “forcing” the team’s hand.

A reminder that the coefficients we found for forwards were 0.24, 0.12, 0.12, and 0.06. This may seem to suggest improvement should be concentrated for top forward line, followed by the top-four defenders, and then middle-six forwards with the bottom pair. However, our method is agnostic of usage and who drives shot differentials more, forwards or defenders.

Friday Quick Graphs: Marginal Gains for Forwards

Garret Hohl Friday Quick Graphs Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2017-01-19 at 1.30.05 PM.png

How many goals is improving a team’s first line worth versus your fourth line?

The above graph shows the number of goals over a season a team should expect in improving their player’s shot differential talent, here described in percentiles of talent.

The blue line is first liners with 2nd, 3rd, and 4th liners falling next with red, yellow, and green.

The blue line is the steepest, suggesting that moving from a 55th percentile player to 60th percentile player on the top line will improve a team’s goal differential by about twice that of a 2nd or 3rd line player. (This is not to be confused with improving from a 55% Corsi player to a 60% Corsi player)

What is interesting is that the marginal gains in improving a 2nd line player and 3rd line player is about equal.

The next question one should ask is: what are the costs in salary and cap hit for making said improvements?

Method:

  1. All forwards over all available full seasons were sorted by 5v5 TOI/GP
  2. Players binned into four groups of equal number of games played
  3. Each bin then sorted by Corsi%, and binned into percentiles
  4. Goal differentials are extrapolated to full season given average TOI per season for each line (so differing rates in injuries and pressbox banishment is being included)

Expected Primary Points are a better predictor of future scoring than Shots, Points

Ryan Stimson Passing Data, Shot Quality 3 Comments

While I have spent a lot of time over the last several months digging into how we can quantify passages of play and inform better tactical decisions, it’s time to revisit how passing impacts scoring at the player level. We have only been using half of the picture in terms of individual shots and goals for player evaluation. Sure, we have primary and total points, but primary assists aren’t a very useful metric. The rate at which players create shot assists also appeared to have significantly more value than a player’s own shots in some analysis I did last year.

This piece will release individual passing data for the 2014 – 2015, 2015 – 2016, and 2016 – 2017 seasons, the latter of which tracked by Corey Sznajder, the former tracked by myself and many others. However, it is important to provide context and meaning to the numbers rather than simply inundate you with data.

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Analyzing One-Timers: The Most Dangerous Shot in the Bag

Ryan Stimson Uncategorized Leave a comment

Very little has been written about one-timers because, surprise, the NHL doesn’t track it. However, this is something we’ve been tracking for the last couple of seasons and it is worth a short post to investigate the value in this type of shot. Additionally, it is also worthwhile to dig into whether or not it is a skill to set up a one-timer for a teammate, or if it is strictly a shooter shoot. Lastly, is this type of shot more predictive than ordinary slap shots? Deflections? The standard wrist shot?

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