January 14, 2015

Good Afternoon, readers!

Throughout the past week, I have spent time just inputting some preliminary data in excel sheets to further analyze. For today's blog post, I will explain to you my decision making process thus far.


Stanley Cups First, I have looked at who has won the Stanley Cup since 2000. It is important to note first however that there was a lockout in 2005 which resulted in no season and a lockout in 2013 which resulted in half of a season. However, the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings and New Jersey Devils have won the most Stanley Cups in that time period (each winning 2). In particular, Los Angeles has won two in the last 3 years. The Anaheim Ducks, Boston Bruins, Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning have all also won one Stanley Cup in this time period. Therefore, I will be placing an emphasis on all of these teams to see if there were any hockey statistics which positively correlate with their success.

  2013-2014 Statistics
So far, I have inputted data for the 2013-14 year. When choosing data to find correlations with, so far I have decided on focusing on regular season trends in the following categories:
- Number of Wins in the Regular Season (highest chance of making the play-offs, correlates with regular season success)
- Average point percentage (how well the team does in regular season, indicates their success)
- Average goals per game (in order to win games,you need to score goals obviously)
- Average goals against per game (do they score enough goals to win games?)
- Average shots per game (how many attempts do they have during a game, do they put pressure on their opponents?)
- Average shots against per game (can they out-shoot their opponents?)
- Percentage of winning when scoring in the first period (first period advantage effect)
- Percentage of winning when trailing in the first period (first period disadvantage effect)
- Percentage of winning when out-shot (do they score on less attempts?)
- Percentage of winning when out-shooting (do they score on more attempts?)
- Face-off win percentage (face offs in their own zone and their opposing zone)
- Even strength win percentage (when playing 5 v. 5)

  Where Do We Go From Here?
I am also hoping to look at the power play percentages and see if I find any other correlations.

At the moment, I am hoping to conduct MANCOVA tests as well as looking at the Pearson Correlation on SPSS to find correlations and significance.

After focusing on the 2013 regular season, I am hoping to move into the 2013-14 play off seasons and conducting similar tests.

Later on this week, I will have the results from my SPSS tests inputted. Right now, I just want to go through the various statistics to decipher which ones I feel may have a significant effect on a team's success.

So far, I am enjoying this project! I love doing data collection and am hoping to find positive results soon. My goal by the end of the week is to have enough data to find what statistics may contribute to a team's success. In the future, this will be expanded upon for past seasons.