New York Islanders Tapping Into 21st Century Tech

When I first learned that the New York Islanders had bought into a mysterious Russian computer program that is supposed to resemble “Moneyball” for hockey, I was incredulous at best.

Upon seeing their promotional video on youtube, however, I am now cautiously optimistic. As a fan of sabermetrics and the changes it brought to the game of baseball in the early 2000’s, I am constantly looking for similar advanced statistical analysis to be applied to hockey.  The question of why it hasn’t has a number of answers.

First, hockey is an infinitely complex and contextual game due to the abundance of constantly moving parts. It is that entropy that makes it hard to reduce the game to meaningful statistics.

The simplest example I can give to demonstrate this is to suggest that the next time you watch a game, try and track the zone entries (as I am currently trying to do for an upcoming post). You wouldn’t believe 1) the number of different ways a puck can cross that blue line and 2) how badly you will want to clarify each entry the context of the specific play.

Additionally, just as with baseball, there is entrenched resistance from fans, players, coaches, and even front office personnel that presents a barrier to using… well, for lack of a better term, math.

More from Analysis

• Islanders, Finally, Have Cap Space – What Can They Do With It?
• Islanders: Consequences of the Nick Leddy trade
• Islanders Ilya Sorokin Proves He Was Worth the Wait
• Islanders Power-Play Cannot Continue Playing the Same Way
• Islanders: Analyzing Mathew Barzal’s Evolving Play-Style

I’m not saying that there hasn’t been any progress. Corsi and Fenwick are not the dirty words they once were, especially since the NHL started listing them on their stats page (even if they won’t call them by name). I just doubt that you’ll ever hear those stats referenced in a coach’s post-game presser anytime soon.

Lastly, it is to some degree a shortcoming of technology. There are only so many things in the game of hockey that can be quantified with naked eye observational methods. Better analysis will come if and when the NHL implements the kind of player tracking that the NBA is using.

Unfortunately, it has been slow going waiting for the NHL to move forward with advanced tracking as it has been in the ‘testing’ stage for several years now.

All of this is to say that I am shocked that the Islanders look to be working ahead of the curve on this particular matter. As a lifelong Islanders fan, I tend to revert to extreme pessimism by default.

Next: More good news!

Having Iceberg spit out relevant data in whatever form is also a far cry from Coach Capuano allowing it to inform his strategies and personnel decisions. The mere fact that the team has bought into this system, however, has me more excited about the future than I’d like to admit.