Yesterday the hockey community lost some more quality websites. One of the longest serving and reliable sites for player information was shut down. David Johnson's Hockey Analysis was pulled from the internet because he was hired by the Calgary Flames.
I just wanted to take a moment to thank David for creating and maintaining his site as long as he did. I have used that particular website for countless projects and blogs which have appeared in this space, on the Hockey Hurts Podcast, as well as my published work in Hockey Prospectus' annual book.
The site was so clean and simple to use and provided a ton of great information. Even if you did not agree with some of David's own analysis methods losing his site is a tough blow and it will take some time for a proper replacement to pop up (if ever).
Kevin Kan and his Data Rink website was also shutdown yesterday. He was hired by the Carolina Hurricanes. Both of these websites provided the interesting with or without you stats. Kevin is providing everyone an opportunity to download the data before the site is wiped off the internet on Sunday
All in all the public hockey forum lost some great resources in a span of a few hours. This is becoming a regular trend. From Extra Skater to War On Ice to Corsica (perhaps coming back) it has become increasingly difficult to navigate hockey's pertinent information.
Compounding this problem is the fact the NHL's statistical website is unusable and unreliable. You can't trust their information. It's pathetic
The NHL is the least progressive league in providing their consumers proper information. That is why so many of these privately run websites pop up and are necessary to provide proper context. It is also why it is disappointing when they go dark.
They are also pretty tough to keep going. The amount of server space needed is expensive and cost prohibitive. Here is a good thread about running a site from one of the best
At the end of yesterday's blog I said that people could send me ideas to write about. I received this one today and it is pretty topical
While the disappointment won't just disappear from losing quality sites I feel as though I should shine some light on the resources that are still available. I'm not going to go through every particular metric I use, but instead will point you in the direction of some of the resources I use.
I think one of the best starting points in player evaluation is to use simple visualizations. You will still need to do further research in order to understand the context of the information, but you'll get a nice clean overview of that player. I have some go to visualization resources for this task. In no particular order
Hockeyviz
This is
Micah Blake McCurdy's website. He has a ton of great information that is placed in easy to read visualizations. Some of the work is behind a pay wall, but there is still plenty for those that are not in a position to pay for the site. One of my favorite charts he produces is the shot charts after a game is completed. It is easy to read and gives a nice snapshot of how players performed on the possession front each game
He also has individualized player reports which provide a lot of good information
Micah is very active on Twitter so when big moves go down he provides tweets like the one above that provide all the data with a succinct and easy to digest description.
Own the Puck
This is where you can find
Domenic Galamini's HERO charts. I don't care how big of a hockey fan you are. You don't watch every player on every team enough to properly evaluate them. For the players that you are less familiar with (or even the ones that you are) these charts are an amazing starting point for context. So easy to read and understand. As somebody who attempts to write daily one of these charts can save you from expressing the same information but with 500 less words. It just makes life easier on everybody.
Again, a great starting point for player analysis
Ryan Stimson
If I've said it once I'll say it 100 times. Ryan Stimson's work is in my opinion the most valuable stuff that is coming out these days. His passing data is going to change the way we are able to evaluate players. It's not that we didn't know the things he is tracking were important, it's the fact we now have a growing database of specific information that we can now look up and reference. Your brain and eyes are not capable of properly remembering everything you watch in a hockey game. Cognitive biases exist. Ryan's database of passing information is a great step in trying to eliminate that bias and give us a clearer picture of the players who are consistently doing the things that lead to better success.
The only issue with Ryan's work is that it is extremely labor intensive. He and
Corey Sznajder (among others) have to manually track the work and then add it to their growing database. Ryan has created a nice visualization that is accessible to everybody that highlights the different passing skills for each player who is tracked. The site can be found
here I've used these in my blogs in the past so it should look familiar
Game Score
This is where you can find
Dom Luszczyszyn's Game Score charts, matchup charts, depth charts, and more. Here is an example of a depth chart from last season
Dispelling Voodoo
This is Ian Fleming's goaltender site which features what I consider the goaltender version of HERO charts. There is plenty of good goaltender information on his site and if you want to dive deeper into goaltending this is a great place to do so
Also follow
Nick Mercadante for quality goaltender analysis on his Twitter account.
Those are some of the visualizations that I like to work with.
As far as raw data goes there are still a few options left.
Natural Stat Trick
This site does a great job with the raw data from individual games played and is working towards building a bigger database that will function much like Hockey Analysis did.
The site is actively trying to improve and open to suggestions. This will be one of the better resources available now.
Hockey Reference
It doesn't have as clean of an interface as Hockey Analysis, but it does have a lot of information at its disposal. Just a few years back the site only had your basic counting stats. It has improved over the years and has added more and more of the "advanced" statistics.
Puck IQ
I only stumbled upon this site last night when the following was tweeted
It's nice to still have some WOWY information available.
This obviously isn't a complete list of resources and I apologize for any I have overlooked.
It can be frustrating when quality sites go down, but the hockey stats community has been resilient for years and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. More sites will open their doors and more will close. We'll continue to adapt to the ever changing marketplace.
Thank you to all who provide us with these great resources.
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Here's the latest Hockey Hurts Podcast
Thanks for reading!
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