Where to find historical goals for/against data online?

[tabness]

The NHL clearly has the official (and most detailed data) for recent seasons 2009-2010 and beyond, but nothing for before that. Also, even for recent seasons, I do not know where in the stats API this data is found. It is not in the people reports strangely enough.

Hockey Reference has it but it is against the terms of service to broadly scrape it which is what I'm looking to do. Hockey Reference suggests the data came from Dan Diamond and Associates (Total Hockey?) but I'm not about to start transcribing the information from the book obviously.

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[morehockeystats]

What data are you exactly looking for?
Who was on ice for each goal?

 

[tabness]

No (I mean yes I would love that as well lol but I know it’s only really available in gamesheet format for the past twenty years), just even the stats that constitute +/- would be sufficient (total goals for, powerplay goals for, total goals against, powerplay goals against).

Of course, if there were actual shorthanded numbers teased out that would be better but I’d assume only the NHL would have that sort of info and they have only made that available from 2009-2010 on their site.

 

[morehockeystats]

No (I mean yes I would love that as well lol but I know it’s only really available in gamesheet format for the past twenty years), just even the stats that constitute +/- would be sufficient (total goals for, powerplay goals for, total goals against, powerplay goals against).

Of course, if there were actual shorthanded numbers teased out that would be better but I’d assume only the NHL would have that sort of info and they have only made that available from 2009-2010 on their site.

It is relatively easy to scrape ALL the existing NHL records.

PP/SH fields are present in the NHL JSON report since 1933/34.
Aggregate +- is present since 1959/60

All the personal "for/against" stats are derived, not straightforward, and, I have a feeling, have not been preserved in hardcopy. Therefore they are only available from 99/00 on.

 

[tabness]

How are the player goals for/against stats derived?

I can find team goals for/against data and +/- for players in the stats API. It makes sense that perhaps the only thing recorded in old game sheets was the final +/- and not the goals for/against numbers, but then where do the goals for/against numbers referenced in places fundamentally come from?

I know shorthanded goals for/against are estimated from the numbers but how do the initial numbers get derived at all?

 

[morehockeystats]

How are the player goals for/against stats derived?

I can find team goals for/against data and +/- for players in the stats API. It makes sense that perhaps the only thing recorded in old game sheets was the final +/- and not the goals for/against numbers, but then where do the goals for/against numbers referenced in places fundamentally come from?

I know shorthanded goals for/against are estimated from the numbers but how do the initial numbers get derived at all?

They are derived in the sense they are not published AS IS neither in the ES html report nor in the live JSON.

I have no idea how any source figures out that 0 +- translates into "1GF 1GA". There are ways to deduce certain things, such as whether the player was in the penalty box, or was involved in the goal, like the famous conditional logic puzzles, but these things are pretty limited.

But +- originally comes from some hardcopy sheets from the scorekeepers, and maybe someone does have access to them, contrary to what I wrote before.