Sportsnet.ca 'Shot Quality Project' (EDIT: Now with results!!)

[LAX attack*]

One of the datapoints for deflections was that low.

Guess is he wanted to standardize the various graphs to show how much more variance there was for (shot type X) in comparison to "clean shots."

I am sure this is a stupid question, but what are the different data points?

 

[Bear of Bad News]

I am sure this is a stupid question, but what are the different data points?

If I understand correctly, each data point represents one goaltender.

I don't know if they reveal who each point represents specifically.

 

[reffree]

The Canucks outshot the Bruins in the 2011 finals, but scoring chance data ("scoring chance" being defined as within the slot area) shows the Bruins significantly outchancing the Canucks. At the time I thought the shot quality difference was mainly due to score effects, but I always suspected the Bruins were inherently giving up lower-quality shots.

The same thing happened in last year finals too. Chicago got more shots but Boston got more scoring chances. It's king of a trend with the Bruins and that's a reason why I wasn't in the "if Bruins wins the Smythe goes to Rask easy" train. Rask is really good, no doubt, but there's a reason Bruins goalies are always at the top with save% every year.

 

[hatterson]

I'm not sure how the author of the article is coming up with the rebound and transition shot data. The league, as far as I know (and I've researched this quite a bit), does not record anything like that. The only way to mine that data is to watch all of the footage and chart that data on your own (or have the money to outsource it), which I doubt the author did. The analysis and conclusion makes sense but without information on how the data is collected I'm reluctant to believe the conclusions drawn in the series of article.

He says in the first article

Using NHL GameCenter resources, I stripped the HTML data as my guideline to track individual events. I then reviewed streaming game footage through the NHL GameCenter app and manually tracked shot location.

From the sounds of it he basically took the raw shot data to get some basics and then cruised around gamecenter to manually chart them.

He tracked ~30,000 shots. If we assume 20 seconds per shot, to find it on gamecenter and then record it, you're looking at ~166 hours. Certainly not a small time commitment, but neither is it unheard of for people to spend that kind of time (and much more) pursuing stuff like this.

 

[Wesleyy]

He says in the first article



From the sounds of it he basically took the raw shot data to get some basics and then cruised around gamecenter to manually chart them.

He tracked ~30,000 shots. If we assume 20 seconds per shot, to find it on gamecenter and then record it, you're looking at ~166 hours. Certainly not a small time commitment, but neither is it unheard of for people to spend that kind of time (and much more) pursuing stuff like this.

Oh wow so he did watch all the game footage, not sure how I missed that part of the article. That's crazy! Good for him to have the dedication to invest that much time.

 

[Master_Of_Districts]

The same thing happened in last year finals too. Chicago got more shots but Boston got more scoring chances. It's king of a trend with the Bruins and that's a reason why I wasn't in the "if Bruins wins the Smythe goes to Rask easy" train. Rask is really good, no doubt, but there's a reason Bruins goalies are always at the top with save% every year.

http://www.shutdownline.com/hurrica...ayoffs-stanley-cup-final-scoring-chances.html

Chances were 99-84 Hawks at EV; 110-108 overall.

 

[MarkGio]

I loved this article and the analysis. The complexity of hockey is really getting the spot light lately and its the works of everybody involved and certain analytic pioneers that are driving this.

I thought this article was depicting goalie performance more than anything. Its too bad it doesn't single out goalies, because if it did, one could look at the team structures and really get the big picture.

The next step is to see which players are taking quality shots. Cross reference with shooting percentage, and you'll know who the true goal scorers are.

These type of analytics could really help teams in how they examine free agents and trade assets. One year wonders like Blake Comeau would be better understood, as would goalies who were a product of a good system. Coaches could be better scrutinized for having a system that allows quality shots and who give away quality shots.

Very good work IMO

 

[hatterson]

There's been four new articles in this series since last discussion.

The first takes a look at Ovechkin and his resurgence, it's interested to see the dramatic difference between his powerplay shots in 2011-2012 and 2013-current

The next three are back focusing on goalies. First looking at Carey Price's hot start to the season and seeing if it's really due to his new goalie coach, and the next two looking at the Olympic goaltending battle for team Canada. He ends up with 7 candidates to review based on his numbers only analysis: Braden Holtby, Carey Price, James Reimer, Marc Andre Fleury, Roberto Luongo, Mike Smith and Corey Crawford.

Now, it's worth noting that his analysis only includes data through roughly the end of November. Since then two of the goalies on that list (Holtby and Reimer) have had significant issues, so his conclusions will naturally vary from work that would include the last month and a half.

Articles can all be accessed here: http://www.sportsnet.ca/author/chris-boyle/

 

[Plante]

if they could flesh this out enough so we have new shot quality stats I would be ecstatic as a goalie, it's impossible to know who's doing good unless you give it the eye test with such mundane stats the nhl keeps.

Keep up the good fight, i'd like to know the shot quality difference between someone like Rask and Miller.

 

[hatterson]

if they could flesh this out enough so we have new shot quality stats I would be ecstatic as a goalie, it's impossible to know who's doing good unless you give it the eye test with such mundane stats the nhl keeps.

Keep up the good fight, i'd like to know the shot quality difference between someone like Rask and Miller.

I actually reached out to the author today to see if the data was public, or could be access some way, and he said "not at this point."

I had a few ideas I wanted to explore, but unfortunately until either someone else does this work, or Chris Boyle/Sportsnet decide to make the internal data publicly accessible, we're kinda out of luck.

 

[gqmixmaster]

you pretty much need a person coding each shot and it will always be affected by subjectivity.

 

[swiftwin]

Has this thing died off? Looked very interesting. The data required for this project looks freely available.

edit: looks like he's still post lots of good stuff.

https://twitter.com/chrisboyle33?lang=en