Newswise — Canton, N.Y.-- As the National Hockey League draft (June 24-25) approaches, a St. Lawrence University statistics professor has developed an analysis that can help hockey teams assess the value of their selections and determine the costs and benefits of trading up or down for draft picks.
The analysis is the latest by Michael Schuckers, associate professor of statistics, who uses statistics to assess player performance in other sports as well. He has analyzed the effectiveness of the NHL penalty shot, and also recently conducted a study of the NFL draft.
In this NHL study, Schuckers analyzed drafts from 1988 to 1997, in order for recent careers to be compared. For each player, he used draft number; position; NHL team; amateur team; and a variety of career-performance metrics based on position. After crunching thousands of data points, here are some of his top findings:
• A trade for the 2nd overall draft selection would have to give up the 8th and 32nd picks to obtain equal value. Schuckers determined "value" as the number of NHL games each pick is statistically likely to play over a career. So, a 2nd pick plays, on average, 871 NHL games, while an 8th pick averages 629 and a 32nd averages 246.
• In general, Schuckers found that hockey forwards have higher value than defensemen, and defensemen have higher value than goalies, based on career longevity.
• Just 5 percent of the top 5 picks each year fail to complete an NHL season, and 10 percent of the first-round picks overall never play a game in the league.
• Schuckers' statistics depend largely on data collected by NHL teams, and that data collection has room for improvement. The data collected by the NY Rangers at Madison Square Garden, for example, is skewed in that shots-on-goal are recorded as being systematically closer to the goal than they actually are, making shooters look bad and goalies look good.
“There are a lot of efficiencies that NHL teams could gain by using statistics,” says Schuckers. “Baseball has been using statistics for a long time, and hockey is more of a challenge because it’s such a dynamic game with many variables. But as data collection improves, so too will the strategic use of statistics in decision-making. This draft-pick analysis is a good example of what is possible.”
Schuckers is co-founder of Statistical Sports Consulting, a company that assists teams in utilizing statistical methods in planning, training and game performance. He earned a bachelor’s degree at Pennsylvania State University, a master’s degree at the University of Michigan and the PH.D. at Iowa State University
Located close to the Canadian border, St. Lawrence is a great place for a hockey statistician: its Division I men's and women's teams consistently earn spots in league tournaments. Boston Bruin Rich Peverley graduated from St. Lawrence in 2004, becoming the first alumnus with his name on the Stanley Cup as a player. Other graduates have earned the Cup as coaches, general managers and trainers.
Schuckers' NHL draft study is available online at: http://myslu.stlawu.edu/~msch/sports/Schuckers_NHL_Draft.pdf
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