Analytics Revolutionizing Professional Hockey

The game of hockey is in a constant state of change. Whether it is equipment upgrades or rule amendments, the game of hockey today is a far cry for what it was just ten years ago. One reason for the game’s metamorphosis is the introduction of new stat categories that influence the way management and fans judge the performance of any given player.

This new wave of data collection and analysis is known throughout the hockey world as analytics. Shawn Wilken, a Data Analyst for a hockey analytics firm, says that analytics aims to act as “an examination of elements or an observation of the structure of something.” The role of the analyst in hockey is to “break down a simple play into several elements. From there, observe every time this play is made [and] determine an average between the number of times it was successful and the number of times it failed,” according to Wilken.

Analytic assessments can be applied to almost every aspect of the game of hockey, “like a pass made, where a shot came from, [and] where body checks are delivered,” Wilken says. For example, Corsi is a relatively new statistic in the game of hockey that indirectly determines puck possession. Corsi, expressed as a percentage, measures the shot attempts your team has while you are on the ice against the shot attempts your opponent has while you are on the ice. A Corsi percentage above fifty percent is generally a good thing, as when you attempt to take more shots at your opponents net, your team probably has the puck more than your opponent. Shooting the puck often indicates that you have the puck often.

These measurements are helpful in analyzing how players have performed in any given game, but they are also instrumental in analyzing the successes and failures of a player or a team over a longer period of time.

“After gathering all these results, it helps an analyst create algorithms to suggest what certain players are doing right and what they can improve on,” Wilken says.

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