Player tracking data coming soon

[dudacek]

Interesting piece in the Athletic by Justin Bourne (former player, coach and current thought-provoking writer) speculating on the new info and how it will shape the strategy within and the conversation around the game.

https://theathletic.com/1165936/2019/08/28/hockey-stats-can-be-murky-enough-so-a-word-of-caution-before-the-first-nhl-season-with-player-tracking-data/

“We’re getting player tracking data in the NHL over the 2019-20 season, the first public burst of it ever, and it’s going to give us amazing, interesting, helpful statistics that hockey fans decades ago couldn’t have even fathomed. But in the process of figuring out what’s important, and how to use a lot of this information, there’s going to be a lot of ***** out there. I mean flat-out *****.”

“...We’re usually blind to what a coach tells a player. That’s a pretty crucial element in analyzing success or failure on any given play. Maybe after the game, it’s written that Player X entered the zone with possession zero times on a half-dozen neutral zone touches, and the discussion around his play ends up way off base, given he was actually executing the coach’s vision to a T.”

“...That’s not to say we disregard numbers. It doesn’t even really devalue them. It’s just an intermittent reminder that eyes and stats and even inside information all play instruments in the band called Analysis. The more we can get from each, the better we can assess quality of play.”

“There’s just so many interesting questions to be asked and answered, and I do believe we’ll get there. The problems just bring me back to where we began this conversation: I already have questions about what many hockey stats really tell us, and we’re about to get more information with even less vetting.”

[Taro T]

Pretty sure he's correct.  We'll get a LOT of junk fancier stats before people figure out how to extract useful ones out of the glut of data.

But it will be interesting to see how this additional data ends up changing the game and over how long a time frame that change will occur.  Captain Video (Roger Nielson) totally revolutionized the game simply because he had to play him 8 times per season and couldn't figure out how to stop Gretzky just from watching him in real time.  Took a while, but today's game is far different than that of 35 years ago.  (Actually took about a decade for video to lead to things like the trap & the left wing lock.)

[darksabre]

Player tracking is going to be a really powerful tool in time. It's going to allow us to do one of the things I've always wanted to do: study the flow of play.

The way players influence one another, and the way individual players start, contribute to, and finish scoring events, is going to be huge for player and group evaluation. Does this grouping of players generate higher quality sequences of hockey? What happens when we plug player x into group b?

We probably wont really get anything useful from player tracking for like...a decade.

[Taro T]

1 minute ago, darksabre said:

Player tracking is going to be a really powerful tool in time. It's going to allow us to do one of the things I've always wanted to do: study the flow of play.

The way players influence one another, and the way individual players start, contribute to, and finish scoring events, is going to be huge for player and group evaluation. Does this grouping of players generate higher quality sequences of hockey? What happens when we plug player x into group b?

We probably wont really get anything useful from player tracking for like...a decade.

A very reasonable and safe bet.

Well anything foundationally transformationally useful that is.

[dudacek]

More from Bourne:

Not knowing what’s going to be available, I can tell you some things I want to see: I love the idea of tracking the shape of how teams defend in their own zone. Of laying the paths of every skater on a team over one another over the course of a bunch of games, and seeing which teams truly play tight, and seeing how teams play differently and so on. And from that, seeing which players on which teams most stray from the most common tracks of their teammates. Is there a team that’s tight defensively, but has one winger who’s always higher and farther out than the rest of his teammates? Do we have the chance to call out the players who objectively cheat on offence?

I want to know the players who pull defenders out to them most because the opposition fears them most. How much tighter are the D on Connor McDavid than, say, Dominik Simon? And from that, which players are best able to find the soft spots? (Can we determine the average distance of the closest defender on every goal of each player who scores X goals in a given year?)

Which players are hockey’s Lionel Messi – skating markedly shorter distances than other players over similar ice times thanks to efficiency? Who’s working their bag off – oh, and I bet there’s some beloved players here about to take one on the chin – in a stupidly fruitless manner? Which players are coast-and-burst skaters and which keep it more around average at all times?

[Taro T]

1 minute ago, dudacek said:

More from Bourne:

Not knowing what’s going to be available, I can tell you some things I want to see: I love the idea of tracking the shape of how teams defend in their own zone. Of laying the paths of every skater on a team over one another over the course of a bunch of games, and seeing which teams truly play tight, and seeing how teams play differently and so on. And from that, seeing which players on which teams most stray from the most common tracks of their teammates. Is there a team that’s tight defensively, but has one winger who’s always higher and farther out than the rest of his teammates? Do we have the chance to call out the players who objectively cheat on offence?

I want to know the players who pull defenders out to them most because the opposition fears them most. How much tighter are the D on Connor McDavid than, say, Dominik Simon? And from that, which players are best able to find the soft spots? (Can we determine the average distance of the closest defender on every goal of each player who scores X goals in a given year?)

Which players are hockey’s Lionel Messi – skating markedly shorter distances than other players over similar ice times thanks to efficiency? Who’s working their bag off – oh, and I bet there’s some beloved players here about to take one on the chin – in a stupidly fruitless manner? Which players are coast-and-burst skaters and which keep it more around average at all times?

Discounting his weird fascination with Tage Thompson, Bourne is one of several writers that makes the Athletic worth the subscription.  And it's for pieces like this.