So I still had some data leftover from some of my other innovation investigations from 2012-13. However, I was thwarted by this as the NHL does not make the individual +/- for a goal available in their public API anymore (an API is a method of retrieving data without going web page by web page.) The idea was to grab one team’s scoring, figure out who was on the ice for each goal, and simulate awarding assists. So there is probably some tweaking to be done.Īt first, I wanted to compare real life stats to the actual season (2019-20). With seven seasons in this project, a defensemen has led in assists five times. Doesn’t look like a typical scoring leader board. However, when the season was done, it was littered with defensemen: Player Based on the season I last played (2019-20), and adjusting for the assist numbers would be a little higher because a smaller league produces more scoring (25% more goals), pro-rating the assist leaders would produce the following: Player One project I play every year is a 10-game, 12-team draft league.
I had never really noticed that until I started looking closer at some of the statistics in my own projects. I once saw a stray comment on an APBA Hockey post that defensemen get too many assists.
