Quantifying the effectiveness of hitting

[NDiesel]

I never usually post on this part of the forums, so forgive me if this has been explored before.

I have an interest in attempting to quantify the effectiveness of hitting, but am unsure how to go about sifting through data for what I want. I do not really have an opinion on if I do think hitting is effective throughout a game, but am really interested in seeing if on average a player's effectiveness is diminished in games he takes more hits than in games where he takes less. I feel the general consensus is probably that it does have an effect over the course of a game, but moreso over the course of a season.

I first thought I would post in here and see if it has been done before.

My next question would be is there a place to find stats for hits taken by a player in each game, or would I essentially have to sift through play-by-pays to find this information?

Thank you for any help.

Click to read more...

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

No data behind this, but I think you'd want a more standard definition of a "hit" than what the NHL uses to run a good study on hitting.

 

[The Noot]

Essentially look for a correlation with hits.

In a game in which one team got hit more often than the other, do they tire out towards the end of the game?

Does their possession get worse? Are they less efficient? Do they take more penalties?


Stuff like that. Intuition would say that hitting doesn't have an immediate impact, but it turns the game into a war of attrition, so the relevant data should be in the third period

Now, sounds fine and all, but IS there a correlation?

 

[Filthy Dangles]

Some thoughts...

- If all you do is hit (Matt Martin, Tanner Glass) and you have really high hit totals but low other event totals, your team probably doesn't have the puck very often when you're on the ice and you're probably not a great hockey player.

-If you are a good forechecker and throw hits while being F1 into the zone you can turn over pucks and get possessions back for your team.

Hits are valuable in that they can separate a physical body from a puck and change possession. But if you are trying to find a correlation between 'hitting and momentum' I think you won't find much.

To summarize, I don't think hits have much value compared to other things advanced stats have yet to uncover.

 

[morehockeystats]

Hasn't there already been a discussion, and it was found that hits and game outcomes do not have any correlation, either negative, or positive (i.e. r^2 close to 0)?