Where to Get Your Fancy Stats

steve laidlaw

2014-10-25

Rob lists some of the best resources for advanced stats.

Hockey analytics has started to hit the mainstream, paving the way for dozens of websites where you can find non-traditional statistics like Corsi, PDO and player usage charts. Some of them are traditional sites that have added some so-called fancy stats for extra seasoning, others are focused more exclusively on these new advances, and some few are devoted entirely to one specific innovation. Here is a summary of where all these websites can be found, and what information they contain.

The Basics

Let’s start with the basics, which is where to find basic, traditional statistics about each player throughout their entire careers. While this information can be found in dozens of places, some websites have some neat features that are worthy of special mention.

– The official NHL website has each player’s league ranking in each category, when they recorded their most recent goal and assist, and the types of penalties they’ve taken (e.g. Tripping).
– ESPN‘s website has an interesting split where a player’s stats are broken down by how much rest they had between games.
– The Internet Hockey Database has statistics for every single hockey player, in every single league, throughout all its history.
– Quant Hockey actually has charts with each player’s career statistics, and allows you to compare players visually.

Hockey Reference

Hockey Reference includes almost endless bells and whistles, including how to pronounce a player’s name, where the player ranks all-time (according to fans), where they finished in awards voting, complete scoring logs (so you can see who assisted on their goals, for example).

As for the newer stats, HR even has a new Beta section, which is the only place where you can get a player’s season-by-season breakdown of RTSS stats (like hits) and faceoffs, and one of only two places where you can get non-traditional statistics like Corsi (i.e. Attempted team shots, for and against), on-ice shooting and save percentages, and how often they start in the offensive zone, in the same way. They have it for the playoffs, too!

Finally, HR has the fantastic player season finder, among other tools, to search NHL history for players whose statistics fall within certain ranges. This is great for finding comparables.

Non-Traditional Stats Sources

Ok, now what about some of the more non-traditional statistics that are out there? First of all, today’s new "fancy stats" ultimately come from the data found in NHL game files. From there, certain programmers make tools that can scrape and parse the content of those files, and aggregate them into a nice website. The most common tool is called Nice Time on Ice or NHLscrapr, but you don’t really need to go there unless you’re building a website of your own, or looking for data you can’t find in an aggregated website.

In fact, if you’re looking for game-by-game information, there are far better options than trying to collect it yourself.

Natural Stat Trick is a brand new website that organizes all the key information on a game-by-game basis, including shot attempt differential throughout the contest, and who matched up alongside who, and against who, and what attempted shot differential occurred during those matchups.
Another new website, Hockey Stats, is a more condensed version of much the same thing. It was introduced by Greg Sinclair, who created the fantastic Super Shot Search to visualize the location of the shots (and “shamelessly” ripped off my player usage charts– I kid).

– War on ice is one of the hot new sites, and is already best-known for Hextally, a visualization not unlike Sinclair’s Super Shot search that shows where shots are taken from, and how dangerous they are. The player profiles are exceptional, and the website also includes the best player usage charts in the business.

– Finally, there’s Progressive Hockey, created by Matt Pfeffer, director of analytics for the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s. Neat features include a calculation of what a player’s shooting percentage should be based on the quality of his shots, confidence intervals for goalie save percentages, goalie rebound data, an incredible graph creator (which defaults to player usage charts), detailed WOWY charts much like Johnson’s, and the most complete AHL data you’ll find anywhere.

Other Sites

And all of that is just scratching the surface! There are a number of other websites out there that specialize in one aspect of the game or another. If you’ll permit me to briefly mention a few of my favourites:

– Looking for which teams are winning the possession game, broken down by score (to account for different playing styles when protecting or chasing a lead)? Try Fenwick Stats.
– In much the same vein as Super Shot Search and Hextally, Sporting Charts has a fantastic heat map of where a player is taking his shots from. It also has a pretty wide-open chart builder.
– Timo Seppa’s Hockey Prospectus hosts Tom Awad’s Goals Versus Threshold (GVT), hockey’s leading catch-all statistic, and has Pfeffer’s visualizations about the NHL Entry Draft and the Hall of Fame.

– The Frozen Pool section has tools that reveal how frequently each player is playing with certain linemates in all manpower situations, who they’re being matched up against, and how well they’ve produced. There’s also a neat tool that allows you see a player’s ice time and scoring in chart format. Finally, don’t forget Dobber’s report generator, which can put together leader boards for everything from fights to drawn penalties.

– As for my Hockey Abstract, it may be best known for player usage charts, but it also has similar tools for evaluating team luck, and trending goalies. My website also has a wealth of spreadsheets to download, including home plate save percentage, quality starts, translating data from other leagues, setup passes, goals versus salary (GVS) and, of course, the annual super-spreadsheets (over 350 stats per player).
– While on the topic of the annual super-spreadsheets, Matt Cane of Puck++ created a nearest-neighbour tool that can find a player’s same-season comparables.

Lastly, we can keep tabs on each team’s chances of qualifying for the postseason, using one of several sites:

– Sports Club Stats. With Anaheim’s 4-1 win over the Sabres Wednesday, its chances of making the playoffs increased to a league-high 87.5%, while Buffalo’s fell to a league-low 5.5%.
– Hockey Reference has their own Playoff Probabilities Report, developed by the sites former host, Justin Kubatko (who also developed Point Shares).
– There’s also a website called Playoff Status that I have come to enjoy for confirmation of the above results. Its methods appear to be more conservative.

Closing Thoughts

There was so little statistical information available when I first started making my name back in 2001 that it’s amazing we ever accomplished anything at all. Crude estimates, manual counts, and cut-out box scores were the only source of information. Then again, as primitive as our tools were back then, that’s nothing compared to how today’s tools might look in a few years!

One more thing – if much of this is seemingly written in Latin to you, you may want to check out this Intro to Advanced Stats piece by David Johnson.