State of analytics in major junior hockey?

[R S]

This looks promising:

http://chlstats.pythonanywhere.com/
"Welcome to the CHL Stats website, to become a one stop shop for all your CHL team and prospect stats. If you have any ideas, suggestions, bugs or feedback, please feel free to send them to me @joshweissbock"

Promising, yes, but I have to wonder how he gets his data. I had a conversation with the aforementioned Bruce Peter (the Blades stats analyst) last night and he had some thoughts on that new site.

He's assuming that Josh is doing some major guesswork to try and gather his information on players, considering the availability of certain metrics are unavailable. It's pretty crazy to try and scrape/track specific data for players when you don't have the basics provided for you.

Things that would be ideal to have, but aren't tracked by anyone unless you do it manually:

- Time on ice
- Shots per player (aside from in the Q)
- Faceoffs
- Blocked shots
- PP shots per player and per team and therefore even strength sv% etc.
- Zone entries and exits

That's just to come up with player-specific metrics.

As for as the team stuff goes, in speaking with Bruce he said that the TEAM numbers early in the season have underrated Saskatoon specifically, the team he does manual tracking for. He said that something like that should balance out a bit throughout the season, but he noted that doing this much guess work can lead people to draw some very inaccurate conclusions.

 

[Mathletic]

Btw, if anyone cares. I worked on the QMJHL draft a couple years ago and posted my rankings before the draft.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1443175

Here's how it would have turned out for a team drafting 2/3 of the way down.

2013

#12 Nicolas Meloche, DD, Saint-Eustache
LHJMQ: Jason Bell

#32 Luc Deschênes, D, Fredericton Canadiens
LHJMQ: Mathieu Nadeau

#49 Jean-Michel LeBlanc, F, Saint John Vitos
LHJMQ: Cody Petawabano

#67 Campbell Pickard, F, Halifax Titans
LHJMQ: Antoine Waked

#85 Jesse Murphy-Hamer, F, Dartmouth Taylor Flooring Major Midgets
LHJMQ: Nicolas Leblond

#103 Dillon Boucher, F, Halifax Titans
LHJMQ: Julien Simounet

#122 Shawn Ouellet-St-Amant, C, Gatineau
LHJMQ: Jeremy Belisle

#139 Brandon Mc Culloch, AG, Châteauguay
LHJMQ: Charles-Antoine Côté

#157 Joseph L'Heureux, C, Lévis
LHJMQ: Félix-André Bouchard

#175 William Gignac, C, C.Esther-Blondin
LHJMQ: Jordan Picard

#193 Anthoni Nadeau, AD, C.Antoine-Girouard
LHJMQ: Anthony-John Greer

#211 Jonathan Fillion, DD, C.Charles-Lemoyne
LHJMQ: Bryan Lemos

#229 Nicolas Boudreau, DD, Saint-Eustache
LHJMQ: Bryan Nelson

#247 X
LHJMQ: Yami Girard

...

Of this group, Meloche was candidate for rookie of the year in 2013-2014 and is a potential 1st round pick in 2015. He was also part of the Canadian team at the Hlinka tournament. Deschênes is off to a good start in 2014-2015, Gignac and Ouellet St-Amant (NHL prospect) were great surprises for their team. Pickard would have made his debut for Baie-Comeau but got hurt in camp. Leblanc is starting to get some ice-time in Rimouski. Same for Boucher with CB. Nadeau, Murphy-Hamer, Mc Culloch and Fillion could play as role players.

 

[Kevin Forbes]

Promising, yes, but I have to wonder how he gets his data. I had a conversation with the aforementioned Bruce Peter (the Blades stats analyst) last night and he had some thoughts on that new site.

He's assuming that Josh is doing some major guesswork to try and gather his information on players, considering the availability of certain metrics are unavailable. It's pretty crazy to try and scrape/track specific data for players when you don't have the basics provided for you.

Things that would be ideal to have, but aren't tracked by anyone unless you do it manually:

- Time on ice
- Shots per player (aside from in the Q)
- Faceoffs
- Blocked shots
- PP shots per player and per team and therefore even strength sv% etc.
- Zone entries and exits

That's just to come up with player-specific metrics.

As for as the team stuff goes, in speaking with Bruce he said that the TEAM numbers early in the season have underrated Saskatoon specifically, the team he does manual tracking for. He said that something like that should balance out a bit throughout the season, but he noted that doing this much guess work can lead people to draw some very inaccurate conclusions.

I might be wrong, but I don't see where any of the player-specific values you're mentioning are on that site (besides the Q players, which then track back to the information on the Q site itself).

As far as I can tell, every stat on the site either comes from (or is derived from) official stats on league sites.

 

[R S]

I might be wrong, but I don't see where any of the player-specific values you're mentioning are on that site (besides the Q players, which then track back to the information on the Q site itself).

As far as I can tell, every stat on the site either comes from (or is derived from) official stats on league sites.

My list didn't necessarily refer just to his player-specific information (which frankly, I hadn't look at too closely considering I didn't have much interest in the Q). It was more related to how he'll get that stuff for the WHL and also just a general take on someone trying to do CHL advanced stats.

It wasn't really a shot at him. I do appreciate his work in this area.

I just know that it obviously has it's limitations due to the lack of stuff tracked on game sheets in the WHL especially. That, plus man-power.

 

[Kevin Forbes]

My list didn't necessarily refer just to his player-specific information (which frankly, I hadn't look at too closely considering I didn't have much interest in the Q). It was more related to how he'll get that stuff for the WHL and also just a general take on someone trying to do CHL advanced stats.

It wasn't really a shot at him. I do appreciate his work in this area.

I just know that it obviously has it's limitations due to the lack of stuff tracked on game sheets in the WHL especially. That, plus man-power.

Maybe I'm still not understanding your/Bruce's criticism, but I don't see where the claims of guesswork can be levied against the information provided on Josh's site.

Are you referring to the Estimated Fenwick Close numbers and how he came up with those?

 

[sfan]

Major upgrade by @joshweissbock
http://chlstats.pythonanywhere.com/

 

[sfan]

David Branch on OHL Analytics

David Branch as quoted here:
http://www.ottawasun.com/2015/02/26/ohl-has-no-desire-or-design-to-expand-david-branch

“Analytics is certainly part of our industry now, and it’s (something) that we must respond to,†he said. “We’re looking at that and it’s something that you have to make sure is built out the right way and is going to provide credible statistics and the like."

“I think it’s important that we expand and grow our reporting in that area.â€

“The three leagues operate independent of each other in terms of administration and execution of a number of policies and procedures,†Branch said. “We learn from each other and there’s things that one league does that another league doesn’t – whether it’s stats or other aspects. You take best practices and move them forward. In due course, I’m sure we’ll be somewhat standardized in statistical reporting.â€

“It’s more than just thinking about it. We’ve had some good discussion and we’ve challenged ourselves on what we want,†he said. “Now, it’s about (deciding on) how to deliver it and execute it in such a way that there’s the type of information tha fans want and that our teams can respond with, along with the league.â€​

 

[DangleSprong]

Btw, if anyone cares. I worked on the QMJHL draft a couple years ago and posted my rankings before the draft.

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1443175

Here's how it would have turned out for a team drafting 2/3 of the way down.

2013

#12 Nicolas Meloche, DD, Saint-Eustache
LHJMQ: Jason Bell

#32 Luc Deschênes, D, Fredericton Canadiens
LHJMQ: Mathieu Nadeau

#49 Jean-Michel LeBlanc, F, Saint John Vitos
LHJMQ: Cody Petawabano

#67 Campbell Pickard, F, Halifax Titans
LHJMQ: Antoine Waked

#85 Jesse Murphy-Hamer, F, Dartmouth Taylor Flooring Major Midgets
LHJMQ: Nicolas Leblond

#103 Dillon Boucher, F, Halifax Titans
LHJMQ: Julien Simounet

#122 Shawn Ouellet-St-Amant, C, Gatineau
LHJMQ: Jeremy Belisle

#139 Brandon Mc Culloch, AG, Châteauguay
LHJMQ: Charles-Antoine Côté

#157 Joseph L'Heureux, C, Lévis
LHJMQ: Félix-André Bouchard

#175 William Gignac, C, C.Esther-Blondin
LHJMQ: Jordan Picard

#193 Anthoni Nadeau, AD, C.Antoine-Girouard
LHJMQ: Anthony-John Greer

#211 Jonathan Fillion, DD, C.Charles-Lemoyne
LHJMQ: Bryan Lemos

#229 Nicolas Boudreau, DD, Saint-Eustache
LHJMQ: Bryan Nelson

#247 X
LHJMQ: Yami Girard

...

Of this group, Meloche was candidate for rookie of the year in 2013-2014 and is a potential 1st round pick in 2015. He was also part of the Canadian team at the Hlinka tournament. Deschênes is off to a good start in 2014-2015, Gignac and Ouellet St-Amant (NHL prospect) were great surprises for their team. Pickard would have made his debut for Baie-Comeau but got hurt in camp. Leblanc is starting to get some ice-time in Rimouski. Same for Boucher with CB. Nadeau, Murphy-Hamer, Mc Culloch and Fillion could play as role players.

Do you twitter?

 

[Mathletic]

Do you twitter?

nope, why?

 

[sfan]

CHL Stats

Just want to give regular season end shout out, and very big thanks, to Josh Weissbock. He has done tremendous job incrementally building a great game and player advanced stat database from the meager, and less-than-easily scraped, CHL league websites.

If you haven't had a look at chlstats.com recently, you owe it to yourself to explore the depth of advanced analysis that you can do without even opening excel.

Major upgrade by @joshweissbock
http://chlstats.pythonanywhere.com/