HFHawks Player Development Intern Exercise

[Malaka]

Thought this was cool, stealing the questions from the sox post here:

Job Posting: Chicago White Sox - Player Development Affiliate Intern

The Chicago White Sox are hiring.

blogs.fangraphs.com

Pretend you are applying for this job, answer 5 of the following questions

Application Questions – answer 5 of the 10 that best showcase your overall skillset (limit 250 words per question):

1. What is your favorite defensive metric to use when evaluating a forward and why?
2. How would an automated shot on goal tracker at the NHL level affect how [center/defensemen/goaltenders] are valued?
3. Identify one player the Blackhawks should look to acquire via trade or free agency this offseason. What would it take to acquire this player? Why do you recommend the Blackhawks target this player?
4. In a hypothetical situation you are the Amateur Scouting Director of an NHL team. Your team has the X overall pick and the top two players available are a forward and a goaltender. Both players project to have the same career GoalsAfterReplacement and neither has any known injury history. Assume both will sign at their position's market value at RFA. Which would you select and why? What other factors would you consider in making the selection?
5. Who is one prospect outside NHL.com’s Top 100 that you believe is underrated? Provide a brief scouting report.
6. Marner and Rantanen are impending free agents for the upcoming offseason. Project their next contracts (years/dollars) and support your answer.
7. You’re a defense/goaltending coach preparing for a series against a new team. What are some of the key statistics/metrics on the opposing skaters that you would consider in compiling an Advance Scouting Report? Please support your answer.
8. In terms of analytics and technology, where can NHL organizations look to gain a competitive edge in the coming years?
9. "In recent years, hockey has seen advancements from traditional marker-based motion capture systems (such as Motion Analysis and Qualisys) to marker-less systems like the NHL Edge and Sportlogiq. What are some of the pros and cons of each system in the context of hockey training and performance analysis? If you were responsible for selecting a motion capture system for an NHL team’s training facility, would you choose a marker-based or marker-less system, and why?"
10. Using the dataset in the link below, write a function to create the following measures of performance: "thought he played fine" per 82 , cement feet rate, and blackmail/60 : Michal Rozsíval Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Salary, Title | Hockey-Reference.com

Click to read more...

 

[Kevin Musto]

1. I think takeaways are always a fun one to look at. The best defensive forwards are always great pickpockets.

3. Aside from the big ticket, Mikko Rantanen, there are some depth guys I'd look at. Yanni Gourde would inject some more speed and compete into the lineup. Nico Sturm as a 4C faceoff specialist with speed would fix some woes at the dot for the Hawks.

4. Take the forward. I don't care much for drafting goalies. They're easily available in NHL free agency and undrafted in Europe.

5. Does NHL.com have a top 100 prospect list?

6. Realistically I think both remain with Colorado and Toronto respectively, on 8 year deals. ~12M for Rantanen, and ~11M for Marner would be my guess.

 

[hawksfan50]

1.Defensive puck retrieval if they track that metric at all...But I wouodxadd to that basic...if a pkayer can retrieve a loose puck and either successfully clear it out of the d-zone OR successfully exit with the captured puck on hisxstick ,that woukd be a terrific measure of d-zine effectiveness..

It is no good if you get to a loose puck first or take it away THEN turn it over or faill to clear it out or fail to exit it ...

I think a top score woukd be plauers totalling +clears from that + + exits ofd-zone from such captures. good capture of loose pucks ..

I do not think any data source tracks all of that together for pkayers (you would have separate leader lists for dmen and for forwards) ...but I doubt very much that $9.5 and Connor Barfy rank high on sich a combination measure or vs. A league average for dmen onsuch a combo stat...

Since no data source tracks clears nor I believe loose puck retrieval captures,This may be a proprietary advantage for the Hawks 12 person analytics dept....after all they shoukd be doing sonething nobody else tracks because all the other metrics they can get for free or from paid for analytics companies.

It woukd be interesting to track these 3 components of such s metrics for Hawks pkayers.

We know Hawks get hemmed in a lot by the better teams..Still I woukd put more monet on Vlasoc bei g day ahead of Jones and Murpghyin combi ing these 3 or 4 stats. stats..

The statsxare:

. Gettiing to a loose puck... how many times in a game
.+ take-aways in d-zine to gain capture of the puck
.+ successful 1st try exits ifromd- zone after captures if loose puck
.+ successful 1st attempt to clear puck out of d-zone after capture of a loose puck or by take-away .


So for instance say a player got to 6 loose pucks in game in his d-zone and had 2 d-zone take-aways...his capture rate total would be 8 ..if he had any turnovers after capture y ou subtract from that total of 8 ...then You add any successful clears from that capture ..so of he has 4 1st attempt clears after capture you add that to the total ...and if he successfully carried the puck out himself 2 times after a capture ...so in our examples with no turnovers involved that would give such player a score of 14 (6+2 +4+2)

If he ibstead had 2 turnovers after a capture,his score would be diwn by 4to just a 10... THis is because he would have 2 less clears or 2 less carry outs ,or 1 less of each type of gettibgbitviutvof the d-zibe plus you penalize for 2 sloppy turnovers..

Turnovwrs are defined by give-aeays..But ie nhl does not count failed clear attemotsxas give aways..so you need to deduct both.

If we had this combined stat total we coukd determine how goidcor bad our pkayers are to : Tge NHL average...to the leaders with highest pont totals for this stat...we track this for the season to help our GM confirm who is contributing best in thd-zoneand who just stinks in not helping much iin the dizone.


Obviously you also track this for 5x5 play and for the pk guys in separate lists and you ÷ by 60 to getcavoer 60 monutescpkayed stat measure.

 

[WarriorofTime]

1.Defensive puck retrieval if they track that metric at all...But I wouodxadd to that basic...if a pkayer can retrieve a loose puck and either successfully clear it out of the d-zone OR successfully exit with the captured puck on hisxstick ,that woukd be a terrific measure of d-zine effectiveness..

It is no good if you get to a loose puck first or take it away THEN turn it over or faill to clear it out or fail to exit it ...

Well said, clearing out the puck with control is so massive. Honestly might be the first thing scouts are looking at.