Welcome to the fifth episode of the Hockey Graphs podcast, where Rhys Jessop (of Canucks Army and That’s Offside) and Garret Hohl (of Jets Nation and Hockey-Graphs) continue talking about hockey while learning how to podcast. Join us as we talk about Chris Tanev negotiations, RFA statuses and the cap, Olli Jokinen trade, the trade deadline and what it means to a few teams. Continue reading
The Hockey Graphs Podcast (EP 5): Leafoilers
Welcome to the fifth episode of the Hockey Graphs podcast, where Rhys Jessop (of Canucks Army and That’s Offside) and Garret Hohl (of Jets Nation and Hockey-Graphs) continue talking about hockey while learning how to podcast. Join us as we talk about fixing the Oilers and Leafs in one swoop, the Canucks BIG pick-up, and the Sabres-Jets trade. Continue reading
Regular season hit differentials and the playoff success

“Milan Lucic Stanley Cup celebration” by Ashley Bayles from Canada – IMG_5526. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Last time we looked at the relationship between hit and goal differentials. We showed that the outhit team tends to also be the outscoring team.
On Twitter, the subject of playoffs naturally came up. Do physical teams get an edge in the post-season?
I’ve been already pulling some data on the playoffs and doing some studies. I thought this would be a good opportunity to show a few of my early findings.
The Usefulness (or lack thereof) of Hit Totals
The hit statistic rivals the faceoff in praise by some more traditional hockey analysts. Both statistics are also similarly over valued in terms of their impact to the game. There has been work previously shown that the hitting statistic actually has a negative relationship with winning.
I wanted to look into this just a little bit further. I went to War-On-Ice and downloaded data for every NHL game since October 2007. I then cleaned the data and took a little look. Continue reading
The Hockey Graphs Podcast (EP 4): Correlation of Sour Cream
Welcome to the fourth episode of the Hockey Graphs podcast, where Rhys Jessop (of Canucks Army and That’s Offside) and Garret Hohl continue talking about hockey while learning how to podcast. Join us as we talk about the Super Bowl, random correlations, Michael Hutchinson, save percentage, Zach Kassian, the Vancouver Canucks soon to become big trade, and other random thoughts. Continue reading
2015 Midseason Goalie Projections using Hockey Marcels
Last Year, I unveiled a hockey version of the baseball Marcels forecasting system in an attempt to forecast the future performance of goalies. The idea behind Marcels is simple: we take the last few years of a player’s performance and then weight more recent numbers higher than older numbers. In addition, we regress the player’s #s to the mean (with a player who has a larger sample being regressed less than one with a smaller sample) and, if we’re projecting for the future, we adjust the overall #s for aging. Again, this is a very very basic projecting system, but its’ been proven to be incredibly well founded for baseball, and probably for hockey as well.
So let’s take a look at how things have changed now that we have data from the most recent season. We now have a few goalies with enough data to run Marcels on that we didn’t previously (although barely in most cases) and a few goalies have had large turns in one way or another in their career, which changes the projections.
Again, as a reminder, here is our methodology:
Continue reading
The Hockey Graphs Podcast (EP 3): Hot Dogs = Sandwiches
Welcome to the third episode of the Hockey Graphs podcast, where Rhys Jessop (of Canucks Army and That’s Offside) and Garret Hohl continue talking about hockey while learning how to podcast. Join us as we lament the death of Corsi. We also talk about Mike Richards hitting the waiver wire, All-Star game, and (as always) some prospects and draft theory. Continue reading
What if statistics chose the All-Star lines?
No, not roster. Lines. This won’t be a discussion of hits and misses for the rosters.
While usually Hockey-Graphs tends to stay in the more serious and analytical side of sports statistical writing, I thought “why not have a little fun” since that’s what the All-Star break is supposedly about.
How would one shape the line ups for tonight if the best (minus some missed calls and injured) in the business were designed by statistical analysis (with a pinch of old-school eye-test)? Continue reading
Trading Off: How Much Possession Can My Team Surrender and Still Win?

Photo by Michael Miller, via Wikimedia Commons; altered by author
Within the continuing discussions over the value of possession metrics, and the veracity of shot quality or shooting talent measures, there’s a point that seems to have slipped through the cracks. While there’s a spectrum of attitudes about possession and shot quality/talent, neither entirely refutes the importance of the other – and with that thinking, it’s worth considering how much you can sacrifice in one and still maintain success by the other. Put more simply, how little can a team possess the puck and still expect to shoot their way to success?
Continue reading
The Hockey Graphs Podcast: Episode 2
Welcome to the second episode of the Hockey Graphs podcast, where Rhys Jessop (of Canucks Army and That’s Offside) and Garret Hohl continue talking about hockey while learning how to podcast. Join us as we discuss the CSS rankings, Vancouver Canucks, Winnipeg Jets, Toronto Maple Leafs, the NHL’s disciplinary practices, and the up coming All-Star game. Continue reading



