NHL trails other leagues in advanced statistics

[Bear of Bad News]

http://www.thestar.com/sports/hocke...s_sports_world_in_advanced_stats_feschuk.html

Interesting Star article, largely focusing on tracking technology and those who love it.

Click to read more...

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Winnipeg Free Press article on the increased use of analytics in the NHL:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/The-art-of-analytics-255503041.html

 

[JayTam]

very nice read...

 

[Hardyvan123]

Interesting stuff and this comes from a huge Bill James fan.

I think the articles combined do point out the deficiencies of the "art of analytics" which is a misnomer right? Stats are numbers plain and simple, art like running a hockey team or a game from the bench or even on the ice relies on emotion and intuition at times.

That being said the pursuit of the perfect stat is much like the game of hockey itself, something worth striving for and looking at.

 

[Mathmew Purrrr Oh]

Winnipeg Free Press article on the increased use of analytics in the NHL:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/The-art-of-analytics-255503041.html

Garret Hohl at Arctic Ice Hockey addresses some of Cheveldayoff's comments in Ed Tait's article:

Further to The Art of Hockey Analytics

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Interesting comments from Treviling the other day:

http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com/...lgarys-new-gm-says-flames-need-to-get-bigger/

“You’re always trying to find information. … We’ll be leading the league in digging for information.” Though ultimately he believes you still have to go watch the player.

"Treliving asked about using analytics: "If I say yes Burkie might punch me.""

"We did some things in Phoenix...I guess it would be an analytical approach in some respects. It gives you another little piece."

...

I don't think anyone's suggesting that you can (or should) do this stuff without watching the player. I guess we will see what happens in Calgary going forward.

 

[Trap Jesus]

I think there's just too much randomness in hockey. If you look at baseball, there's only one thing going on at once most of the time, it's all about individual match-ups, and it's incredibly easy to track. Football has distinct plays that last for a very short period of time, so it's easier to track as well. Basketball only has 5 players on the court at one time, they don't change off mid-play, and possession/change of possession is a very cut and dry thing. Hockey is sort of all over the place. I think luck plays a greater role in it, you constantly have changes in possession, players changing in an out constantly, etc. It all makes things more difficult to track.

 

[wgknestrick]

I think there's just too much randomness in hockey. If you look at baseball, there's only one thing going on at once most of the time, it's all about individual match-ups, and it's incredibly easy to track. Football has distinct plays that last for a very short period of time, so it's easier to track as well. Basketball only has 5 players on the court at one time, they don't change off mid-play, and possession/change of possession is a very cut and dry thing. Hockey is sort of all over the place. I think luck plays a greater role in it, you constantly have changes in possession, players changing in an out constantly, etc. It all makes things more difficult to track.

You are much easier to fleece of your wallet when you throw your hands up in the air in defeat.

It can and will be tracked. For all we know, it may be currently tracked by certain teams. There are no significant differences between hockey and basketball with respect to tracking.

5 players with substitutions
1 game object
1 goal/side

All the differences you mentioned are just with respect to "time" which is something that computers are much better at dealing with than humans. Maybe the puck is harder to track optically, but I'm sure things can be done for this. Hell, remember the fox puck in the 90s? They tracked that thing AND knew when it went over a certain MPH to do the stupid red trail on it for shots.

I'd use a camera array like the Xbox has in it's kinect(or whatever it's called) that has an IR camera, depth sensor, and RGB camera to overlay the information. Players, puck, and refs start to stand out easily when you have a sensor array like this.

It can be done.

 

[Starbuds]

Hockey is the most dynamic and chaotic in nature. The fact that it trails isn't surprising.

 

[Hasbro]

It would help they could get reliable basic statistics like Hits, Takeaways and clears down.

 

[soireeculturelle]

Hockey is the most dynamic and chaotic in nature. The fact that it trails isn't surprising.

It's also got a much smaller pool of scientific minds interested in the game than the MLB, NBA and NFL. A lot fewer people in Canada than in the US.

 

[wgknestrick]

It would help they could get reliable basic statistics like Hits, Takeaways and clears down.

Once the automate the process with a proper camera array, EVERYTHING is fixed and tracked automatically. Shots, zone entries/exits, hits, positioning, proper scoring chances, shot locations, etc. The problem is not analytics, its data capture.

The NHL does not possess the minds creative and intelligent enough to develop such a system unfortunately. Remember, this is organization that STILL credits and tracks goaltender wins as a stat.

 

[Jonathan34Noete]

Winnipeg Free Press article on the increased use of analytics in the NHL:

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/The-art-of-analytics-255503041.html

Great read

 

[Hasbro]

Once the automate the process with a proper camera array, EVERYTHING is fixed and tracked automatically. Shots, zone entries/exits, hits, positioning, proper scoring chances, shot locations, etc. The problem is not analytics, its data capture.

The NHL does not possess the minds creative and intelligent enough to develop such a system unfortunately. Remember, this is organization that STILL credits and tracks goaltender wins as a stat.

Until then it feels like building a house on a foundation of sand. I know the analytics crowd has a propensity for putting the cart well ahead of the horse, but this is such a huge hole to have in the system.

 

[metalfoot]

Agreed. There has to be a universal, automated, standardized way to generate and gather advanced data before the advanced stats are truly accurate and most meaningful.

 

[wgknestrick]

Agreed. There has to be a universal, automated, standardized way to generate and gather advanced data before the advanced stats are truly accurate and most meaningful.

The sad thing is that the technology already exists and is being used in a $400 game system (to an extent). Something like this has to come from the top of the NHL and they could charge a fortune for the data mined from every game to every team to pay for the development. The teams would all line up to pay for it.

With this we could be tracking shot locations, player locations, puck locations, player positioning, even puck trajectories on shots. Just imagine if we knew exactly WHERE, in 3D, a shot was taken and hit (or missed) for every single shot in the game?

It is an epic amount of data to mine, but it is sad that we are probably 25 years away from it with how forward thinking the NHL is. Technology is not holding them back, it's the thickness of their skulls.

Setup a 3 camera array above the 3 zones. IR Camera, Depth Camera, and RGB camera. IR Camera tracks players (hot bodies contrast very well against cold ice in IR). Depth Camera adds depth overlay for puck and player positioning (standing/prone). RGB (standard) camera has visual overlay for helping identify players (which is probably the hardest thing to automate). I'm sure Microsoft would love to take 50mil to adapt their tech for this, and the NHL could make that back in 2-3 years.

 

[Mathradio]

Hockey is trailing other leagues in advanced stats simply because there are more aspects of hockey that simply can't be captured by stats...

 

[Hivemind]

Hockey is trailing other leagues in advanced stats simply because there are more aspects of hockey that simply can't be captured by stats...

I don't buy that. You can track anything with stats, you just need to be able to properly gather data and define your statistics. Hockey isn't there yet, but it's a goal worth pursuing.