SAP overhauls NHL stats system, rebrands Fancy Stats
Fancy Stats aren't just for nerds anymore. Well, okay, they probably are. But they're NHL endorsed and tracked now thanks to a new partnership with SAP.
One day before the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings face off in the Stadium Series, Levi's Stadium played host to a press conference held by the NHL and SAP announcing the overhaul of the NHL's statistic database.
Representaties from both the NHL and SAP said that this was a project 8 months in the making, and compiled statistics that fans wanted to see. NHL Commisioner Gary Bettman said the new system can "go as deep as fans want to go."
The new site is already live at NHL.com/Stats. The most striking element of the revamp has to be the emphasis on making it more visual. Player photos and team logos are much more prominent. The leader board is interactive and also features a bar graph of the top ten players in each category.
At the moment, the page for career stats and season stats look pretty similar. They have added a couple new sections, including a tab tracking shootout stats and a bit more emphasis on team stats as well.
But the biggest addition, at least for many of our readers here at FTF, are the enhanced statistics. All in all, there are 45 advanced statistics added to the NHL database. The numbers are the same, but there are some new names for Corsi and Fenwick.
Corsi is now just listed as SAT for Shot Attempts. Fenwick gets rebranded as Unblocked Shot Attempts, or USAT. The various situations are listed too: SAT close, SAT ahead, SAT behind, SAT relative, and so on. If you change the report type, you can see SAT percentages or SAT per 60 or 20 minutes. Scoring rates per 20 and 60 minutes are available, along with zone starts and PDO. Well, the newly rebaranded version of PDO: Shooting Percentage Plus Save Percentage, or SPSV%.
NHL Commisioner Gary Bettman said the league wanted to use more "self-explanatory" titles for the Fancy Stats. The original names are still referenced in some places on
The site also has an introduction to enhanced stats that should settle some nerves for people who think this just sounds like alphabet soup. Just like the rest of the stats, there's some good visualization of the data as well. For example, here's a look look at SAT% close.
Breaking news: Buffalo is bad.
The visuals and enhanced stats additions are just the first phase of the project. Phase two brings together Iron Man, Thor, Hulk and Captain America for... Oh, wait sorry, wrong multi-phase project. Phase two will actually add a new level of filters for the stats, allowing fans to narrow down situations to an obscene level. Player's teams, nationality, conference, and even stuff like height can be selected to filter your stats.
Phase three adds another layer of data mining, with the possibility off adding some new metrics. More visualizations will be added as well. The example shown in the press conference was a chart of where Jonathan Quick allows his goals. And finally, phase four will add statistics from every game in NHL history. They're working on digitizing gamesheets from the 1920's for this project. Bettman also hinted that the NHL's work with Sportvision could add another layer to the statistics listed.
From the looks of it, I don't think people will be missing Extra Skater nearly as much anymore. Now if only they'd integrate a CapGeek replacement...