In Part I, we looked at the most common way “advanced” statistics are used to evaluate team performance. In Part II, we get to the much trickier part: judging individual players.
An important part of evaluating individuals—and one that is often overlooked in traditional media—is context. Two statistics in particular can help shine light on something that should be of keen interest to any fan of the game: how a coach uses his players.
Quality of Competition/Teammates
NHL coaches pay deep attention to their matchups, so some players constantly face the other team’s best and others see them only rarely. Naturally, this matters a lot; it’s easier to look like a quality player against Craig Adams than it is against Sidney Crosby.
By the same measure, it’s a lot easier for a player to score a goal with Sidney Crosby as his centre than it is with Craig Adams in that role.
Various ways of measuring quality of competition have been calculated (using plus/minus, points, time on ice or shot metrics) but they all produce basically the sam ...
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Article written by Jonathan Willis
The Idiot’s Guide to NHL Advanced Statistics, Part II
December 9th, 2013 by Jonathan Willis Leave a reply »
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