NHL Team Statistics

linear regression
correlation
Team-level statistics from the 2022-2023 NHL season
Author

Taylor Lum, Robin Lock

Published

December 15, 2023

Motivation

In 2005 the National Hockey League added shootouts to regular season games. In the event that regulation time ends in a tie and no goals are scored in overtime, the game goes to a 3-player shootout. This data set can be used to explore the relationship between various team-level statistics.

Regulation time in an NHL game consists of three 20 minute periods. If regulation time ends and the score is tied (both teams have the same number of goals), the game goes into a 5 minute 3-on-3 overtime, where the next goal wins. If the game is still not resolved after overtime, it goes into a 3 round shootout, where players take a 1-on-1 breakaway against the goalie. If still tied after three shootout rounds, shootout rounds continue until one team is victorious. A team gets 2 points for a win (whether it’s regulation, overtime, or shootout), and the losing team gets 0 points for a regulation loss, or 1 point for an overtime/shootout loss.

Data

The data set contains the final standings of the 2022-2023 NHL Season with team level statistics.

nhl_2223.csv
Variable Description
Team NHL team abbreviation
GP Total games played
SOG Number of games that went to shootout
W Wins
L Losses
OTL Overtime losses
PTS Points
Reg_PTS Points won during regulation time or overtime (2 points per game)
PPG Points won per game in regulation time or overtime (# of non-shootout points / # of non-shootout games)
SO_PTS Points won from shootout (1 extra point per shootout)
Pct_SO Proportion of possible points from shootout won (# of shootout points / # of shootout games)
RW Number of regulation wins
ROW Number of regulation and overtime wins
SOW Number of shootout wins
SOL Number of shootout losses
GF Total goals scored
GA Total goals against
DIFF Goal differential (GF-GA)

Questions

  1. Plot GA versus GF. Describe the trend. Do teams that score more goals tend to allow more or less goals against?

  2. Is offensive ability (‘GF’) or defensive ability (‘GA’) a better predictor of overall performance of a team (as measured by ‘PTS’)?

  3. Is there a relationship between the ability to win shootouts (‘Pct_SO’) the ability to win games before shootouts (‘PPG’)?

  4. Is there a relationship between the total number of goals a team scored during the season (GF) and the proportion of shootout points they won (Pct_SO)?

References

NHL Standings 2022-23. ESPN (n.d.). https://www.espn.com/nhl/standings/_/season/2023/group/league