Building a NHL Fantasy Predictor: Do NHL Coaches Have Zone Start Trends?
Ben Wendorf
November 20 2012 07:51AM
Tavares, Sedin of the East
Photo by Michael Miller
Whether coaches have zone start trends is another question I find that I'm asking myself as I build my fantasy prediction model. We know, for instance, that Alain Vigneault uses a drastic zone start deployment, where his 3rd liners would yield virtually no value for fantasy hockey (though they certainly have real-life value) because they start so much of their time in the defensive zone. Why is this important for me? Well, having identified a pretty stable indicator of the amount of on-ice shots a player will take in %AttSh, and knowing that 1st, 2nd, and 3rd lines have typically different amounts of shots-for per 60 minutes, we also need to remember that a coach might affect those shots-for per 60 minutes by having drastically different zone deployments. After the jump, I'm going to look at this question and see what I can find (and potentially use).
Hogging the Puck: A Follow-Up (All That You Wanted & More)
Ben Wendorf
November 15 2012 07:45AM
After initially publishing the piece on players who "hog" the puck (players who take a high percentage of the Fenwick attempts-for {shots + missed shots} when they're on the ice), I received a lot of helpful feedback and queries about the metric, which I called "percentage of attempted shots," or %AttSh. Some of the questions revolved around, "What if the player is playing with someone with a high %AttSh, like Rick Nash or Jeff Carter?" I had another question wondering if the %AttSh had a normal distribution like all of us stats folks love. And our own Eric T. wondered aloud what a chart of the player's shooting percentage minus his linemates' shooting percentage (x) would look compared to the player's %AttSh (y). Some of these questions I'd been wondering about myself, but some were angles I hadn't considered, so I figured I ought to put together a follow-up post to tie up some of those loose ends. Enter if you dare...
Hogging the Puck: Who's Doing It, and Who Should Be Doing It
Ben Wendorf
November 06 2012 02:36PM
Still building on the infant stages of my fantasy predictor work, I was looking across forwards with 20+ games the last five years and decided to add a metric where I took the shots attempted (technically, it would be like "Fenwick attempted"; shots plus missed shots) while a player was on the ice and determined what percentage of those shots were attempted by the player. This percentage of attempted shots (%AttSh) was my way of saying, "Okay, I don't care what line you're on, or where you start on the ice...how many of your line's shots did you take?" At the time, I was more interested in seeing if it was a stable metric for fantasy hockey prediction; if it was, I could consider it a marker of player behavior, or talent, and use it to predict how many shots a player might take. I was also interested in labeling people "puck hogs."
Full disclosure: I've played with puck hogs often in my life, and I've always been okay with setting people up (even though I have a pretty good shot). If you've ever played in an adult league, chances are you've played with a puck hog, and if you think you haven't - YOU ARE IT. So there.
Anyway, I was surprised to find that it actually was a pretty stable indicator of human behavior, and not much of an indicator of talent, making it an important adjustment for fantasy hockey but also fun to use for pointing fingers. So...who's hogging the puck?
Building a NHL Fantasy Predictor: What's in a Line?
Ben Wendorf
November 02 2012 08:04AM
I've been pretty determined to figure out how to build my own fantasy hockey predictor for a while, and it's led me to bounce a few ideas off fellow NHLN writers and friends. What seemed to hold was my assertion of starting with players sorted into "line" thinking, with forwards considered 1st/2nd/3rd liners and defensemen as 1st/2nd pair defenders. You're not rostering players beyond that unless you are anticipating their involvement in those lines/pairings down the road.
But before I would even move into thinking about lines that a player might play in, I have to think about the statistical composition of the lines themselves, as a player's production has a talent component but, more importantly, a situational component. It's hard for the talent to be productive without the time to make it happen. So what's in a line?
2012-13 Anaheim Ducks Season Preview - All Hiller, No Filler
Ben Wendorf
August 07 2012 07:24PM
Once again, it's up to Getzlaf to carry the Ducks offense
Photo by Arnold C, via Wikimedia Commons
I'm not going to lie to you: the Anaheim Ducks were a bad team last year. And they're probably a year or two away from getting substantially better. That's the kind of stuff that happens when you swap out Lubomir Visnovsky for Sheldon Souray, your best players have mostly peaked or are past their prime, you have to fire your Stanley Cup-winning coach mid-season, and the youngsters are not quite ready.
Yet, at the same time, this is an exciting team for me. I love watching Jonas Hiller and Teemu Selanne play; ditto Bobby Ryan and Ryan Getzlaf. I have a great appreciation for how Toni Lydman and Saku Koivu play the game, and Cam Fowler and Devante Smith-Pelly can be fun guys to watch on the ice.
But what makes up these 2012-13 Ducks, coming off a dismal 22nd-place finish in Fenwick Close? And why could they be slightly optimistic?
