Analytics, 2016-17

The regular season and the playoffs are kept apart, and the Games box above picks one. The numbers start in 2010-11, the first season the NHL recorded every shot attempt and where it was taken from. Five-on-five means both teams are at full strength with their goalies in net. It is most of a game, and the fairest place to compare teams and players, because power plays do not skew it.

Player rating

Goals above replacement

One number for a player's season: the goals he added to his team's goal difference, compared with a spare-part player who played the same minutes, the kind a team can call up for nothing. It is a total, so a full season counts for more than half of one. Most regulars fall between -5 and +10, and the best seasons are near +30.

Wins above replacement

The same in wins. About six goals of goal difference are worth one win in the standings.

The five parts

A skater's rating is five parts added together. Each is zero for an average skater. Even-strength offence is his own goals, assists and chances at five-on-five, plus how much better his team's chances are with him on the ice than off it. Even-strength defence is the same comparison for chances against, plus his blocked shots and takeaways. Power play is a fifth of what his unit did above the league rate, weighted towards whoever scored or made the last pass. Penalty kill is a quarter of what his unit gave up above the league rate. Penalties is the minors he drew minus the minors he took, at about a sixth of a goal each.

Goalies

A goalie's rating is his goals saved above expected, plus an allowance for how many shots he faced. Only about a third of a goalie's season figure is the goalie, so one year should be read lightly.

What it cannot see

It does not reward scoring more than the chances were worth, so pure finishers rate lower than their goal totals suggest. It does not know who a player was sent out against, so shutdown players are under-rated. A star on a deep team is compared with good teammates, and loses a little for it. Over a full season about two-thirds of a rating is the player and one-third is chance. Under forty games it is more chance than player.

Shot attempts

Corsi (CF, CA, CF%)

Every shot attempt: shots on goal, missed shots and blocked shots. CF is the attempts for a team and CA the attempts against it. CF% is the share that were for. Above 50% means the team, or the team while a player is on the ice, has the puck more than its opponents. It stands in for possession, which nobody records directly.

Fenwick (FF%)

The same without blocked shots, since a blocked shot was rarely much of a chance.

SF%, GF%

The share of shots on goal, and of goals, that were for.

Sh%, Sv%, PDO

Sh% is the share of a team's shots on goal that went in, and Sv% is the share of the other team's shots that were stopped. PDO is the two added together, and across the league it comes to 100. A team or player far above 100 is getting the bounces and usually cools off. One far below is usually due to recover.

iCF, attempts taken

The shot attempts a player took himself.

Expected goals

Expected goals (xG)

How much a shot was worth. Every unblocked attempt gets the chance that a shot like it goes in, based on where it was taken from, what kind of shot it was, whether it was a rebound and the score. A shot from the slot is worth about 0.20, and one from the point about 0.015. Add them up and you have the goals a team or player would expect from the chances they had. Blocked shots count for nothing, because they are recorded where they were blocked.

Seasons before 2023-24

Before 2023-24 the NHL timed events less exactly, and differently from rink to rink, so expected goals for those seasons are rougher. They still add up to the goals actually scored each season, and they are still a fair guide to individual shooters and goalies. For teams before 2022-23 they are no better a guide than Corsi.

xGF%

The share of the expected goals at five-on-five that were for. It is like CF%, but each attempt counts for what it was worth, so a team that gets to the slot rates above one that shoots from the boards. For a skater it is the share while he was on the ice.

Chances created (xG per 60)

The expected goals of a skater's own shots for every 60 minutes he plays: how often he gets a chance.

Shot quality (xG per attempt)

The average chance of one of his unblocked attempts going in: how good each chance is.

Finishing (goals above expected)

Goals minus expected goals. Over one season it is mostly luck, and it takes several seasons to say much about a shooter. Shots at an empty net are left out, so an easy goal does not count as finishing.

A player against his team

CF% rel, xGF% rel

A player's share while he is on the ice, compared with his team's share in the same games while he is off it. It separates a good player on a poor team from a passenger on a strong one. +5 means the team does five points better with him out there.

Lines and pairings

Forward lines and defence pairs

On team and player pages: the three forwards, or the two defencemen, who were on the ice together at five-on-five, how long they played together, and how the team did in that time. It is worked out from the shift charts, a second at a time. A line has to be out together for twenty seconds in a game to count, so players crossing during a change are not mistaken for a line.

Goalies

Goals saved above expected

The expected goals of the shots a goalie faced, minus the goals he let in. It judges him on how hard his shots were, not just how many he stopped, so a goalie behind a leaky defence gets credit that save percentage does not give him. Only shots taken while he was in net count. Each season is set so the league's goalies come out at zero as a group, which makes it a measure against his peers.

Per 60

The same for every 60 minutes he played, so a backup can be compared with a starter.

Shot difficulty (xG per attempt faced)

The average chance of a shot against him going in. A high number says more about his team than about him.

Expected save %

The save percentage an ordinary goalie would have had on the same shots, to set beside his own.

Contracts and value

Cap hit

What a player counts against his team's salary cap in a season. It is the average of his contract over its years, so it can differ from what he is paid in any one year. It is the same whether he plays every game or misses half the season.

Retained salary

A team that trades a player may keep paying part of his contract. He is still shown with his whole cap hit and judged against it, but his new team is charged only its share. That share is what counts in a team's value and on its roster (marked with a star), and it is what he costs in Be a GM. The league's rules: a team may keep at most half of a contract, may keep part of no more than three contracts at once, and may not have more than 15% of the cap ceiling tied up this way. A contract can have salary kept by at most two teams. From 2026-27 the second team cannot do so within 75 days of the regular season after the first, which ends trades that passed a player through a third team to cut his cost twice.

Dead cap

What a team counts against the cap for players who are no longer on it: salary it kept paying for a player it traded, and what is left of a contract it bought out. Only the cases gathered so far are listed, on the team's page and in Be a GM.

Buyout

A team may end a contract early by paying the player two-thirds of the salary he is still owed, or one-third if he is under 26, spread over twice the years that were left. Signing bonuses are paid in full on top. Each year, the cap charge is his cap hit minus the salary the team saves that year. So the charge can be large in a year his salary was low, it runs twice as long as the contract would have, and it can even be a small credit. Buyouts can be made in a window from mid-June (or two days after the Stanley Cup is won, if later) to June 30.

Where the contracts come from

The NHL does not publish contracts, so they do not come with the games. They are gathered from public collections of contract data and from news reports of signings. Recent seasons are nearly complete. Further back, mostly the contracts of players who were still playing in 2024 are known, so an older season can be missing most of its players. The page says so when it is.

Cap dollars per point, per goal above replacement

The cap hit divided by what the player produced in the regular season. Lower is better value. In a season still being played these start very high and fall as the games add up.

The going rate

What teams as a whole paid for one goal above replacement that season: the cap space they spent above the cheapest contract, divided by the goals above replacement they got for it. Skaters and goalies are priced separately, because a goalie's goals above replacement run much higher and each costs less.

Worth at the going rate

What a season like his cost on average: the cheapest contract plus his goals above replacement at the going rate. A player who rated below a spare-part player can come out worth less than nothing.

Value

What his season was worth at the going rate, minus his cap hit: how much more, or less, he gave than he cost. Players on their first contract are paid far below the going rate, so they top the lists. Only players with enough games to be ranked get a value, and it covers the regular season only.

A team's value

The same, added up over its ranked players whose contract is known. A player who changed teams is split between his teams by the games he played for each.

Reading the pages

Who is ranked

A call-up with one good night would top every list, so lists of rates and shares only include players who played a fair amount: at least a quarter as much as the busiest player that season. Totals, such as most expected goals, include everyone.

Ranking bars

On a player's page, a bar filled to the 90th means he is ahead of 90% of the regulars at his position. Forwards are ranked against forwards, defencemen against defencemen and goalies against goalies.

Coloured numbers

On player and team pages, a number is coloured by its percentile, the share of the others it is ahead of: dark green from the 80th up, green from the 60th, amber for the middle, pale red from the 40th down and dark red from the 20th down. Hover over a number for its exact percentile.

What a number is ranked against depends on the number. A skater's on-ice shares are set against every skater who played enough to be ranked, and his rating against the ranked players at his position. A goalie's numbers are set against the regular goalies, and a team's against the other teams. A line or pair is set against the lines or pairs that played at least a tenth as long together as the busiest one.

Some numbers stay plain because they are neither good nor bad on their own: PDO, which is mostly luck, and counts that simply follow ice time, such as attempts taken or goals against. A rating also stays plain until a player has enough games to be ranked.

The radar on the compare page

Each spoke is one measure, running from the lowest regular at the centre to the league leader at the rim. The gap between two players on a spoke is the real gap in their numbers, and the dashed outline is the typical player.

Race charts

Stepped lines that add up through a game or a season. On a game page, each team's line climbs with every chance, with a dot for each goal. On a player's page, his goals race his expected goals. On a goalie's page, the goals he allowed race the goals he was expected to allow.

Shot maps

The attacking half of the rink, with the net on the right. A map with many shots opens as a heat map: darker red means more shots from that area, and each dot is a goal. The button under the key switches to a dot for every shot, sized by how good the chance was. Click Goals, Saved, Missed or Blocked in the key to show only those.