What players connected most often to score in the PHF this season? A new data set by NBC Data Editor Lucia Walinchus looks at the PHF's best passing partners.
Hockey is a team game. Research has shown that passing the puck through the "royal road," an imaginary line that extends from net to net dividing the ice down the middle prior to a shot increases a team's chance of scoring by up to 10x.
Recently, writer and Data Editor for NBC owned stations Lucia Walinchus looked at passing in the PHF, and what teams and players moved the puck most effectively resulting in a goal.
"Hockey is unique because it requires teamwork at a different level," said Walinchus of her reasoning for creating the data set." A soccer player facing a goalie alone has a reasonable chance of scoring. A basketball player with an open shot has nothing between the ball and the net. But a single hockey player with a straight shot on goal is at a disadvantage: the goalie takes up the majority of the net, and what space they don't block is often not possible to hit given the angle."
Her graph looks at what PHF players move the puck most effectively, and with which teammates they most frequently connect, leading to a goal.
Looking at her data set, players like Loren Gabel, Kennedy Marchment, and Jade Downie-Landry emerged as potent scorers. Perhaps more interesting however was the trio's relationship to linemates. For Gabel, she was not only a scorer, but her relationship was reciprocal in both setting up, and being set up by Jillian Dempsey. Gabel was the league's top assist getter with 20.
In Marchment's case, the most potent passer for her success was Taylor Girard, who frequently made Marchment her target. Marchment and Girard were tied for second in the league in assists with 18 each.
For Downie-Landry, her success jumped whenever it was Ann-Sophie Bettez feeding her the puck.
These are the types of results Walinchus' analysis showed. She was also able to look at how teams compared in the number of passes they successfully connected on.
"The team with the most passes, though- Toronto- ended up the ones to hoist the Isobel Cup," Walinchus said. "You could also argue that they were the biggest threat by spreading out their options and working together as a whole team."
According to Walinchus, the need to examine passing in women's hockey is magnified due to the structural differences in the game when compared to men's hockey.
"Unfortunately, women's professional hockey doesn't have checking," Walinchus said.
"This is a sexist vestige from an era where female sports were modified to be less "rough"... of course the point of checking isn't to assault the other team, it's a way to separate your opponent from the puck. At high levels of hockey, it's extremely difficult to get the puck back from a player with possession unless you check them."
"So passing is very important in men's hockey too, of course. But especially in women's professional hockey, it's particularly important to make those crisp passes because losing possession means you might have a hard time getting the puck back," she continued.
Analytics have become a crucial component of analyzing the performance of men's hockey players, and its growth in women's hockey is taking off as well. It's a trend that not only improves the engagement of fans, media, and the ability of teams to assess and scout players, but also for the players themselves to focus on areas of need.
"We've seen improvements in athlete performance in several sports over the past few decades as teams have learned the value of analytics to understand each play," said Walinchus. "I think especially with women's hockey, it's important to understand passing relationships because they are so crucial to the outcome of the game."
In Walinchus' data, the "null" value removes goals scored without a pass, or unassisted goals. She described hockey as an "art" with thousands of tiny marks or "brushstrokes" that together form an image. This analysis of passing in the PHF shows those marks, and paints a clear picture.
"My hope is, this will help fans and teams better understand the flow of the puck and the teamwork that goes into successful plays," she said.
The set, which shows goal to assist and assist to assist ratios begins to achieve that vision. As more individuals like Walinchus continue to delve into analytics in women's hockey, the game will continue to grow, and teams and players will have more information to help make decisions, and achieve on ice success.
See the full data set here: "Explore each PHF pass this season"