Situational & deployment metrics

What this layer measures

The headline metrics tell you how good a player is. This layer tells you the circumstances behind those numbers. It covers three things. One is the quality of the chances a player creates. Another is the on-ice luck riding along with his results. The last is the strength of the opponents and linemates he shares the ice with. None of it replaces the value metrics. It explains them. A strong season in sheltered minutes reads differently from the same season against the league's best.

Shot quality

Shot quality is expected goals per unblocked shot. It shows whether a player creates dangerous looks or just piles up volume. It uses the same home-grown expected-goals model described on the xG page, added up for the shooter. A related label places a player by his volume of high-danger chances. It puts him in the top, middle or bottom third of his position that season.

It is worked out over a full season's shots. We need at least 200 unblocked shots before we publish a reading. So the number reflects a steady shooting profile, not a hot couple of weeks. That floor is deliberately strict. Most forward seasons have fewer than 200 unblocked shots. So the floor really does screen out the small samples it is meant to catch. Defensemen are not ranked on it. They carry the shot profile instead.

Puck luck

Puck luck is on-ice shooting percentage plus on-ice save percentage. At 5v5 it sits close to 100 across the league. That is why we publish it only for 5v5. A reading far from 100 is mostly luck. We mark readings of 104 and up as high and 97 and below as low. What a high or low reading means for a player's next season is being re-measured on today's numbers.

Zone starts

A player's shot-attempt share is partly a gift from his coach. Start a shift in the offensive zone and the puck is already there. Shot attempts follow before the player has done anything. Start in the defensive zone and the reverse is true. Where we publish a shot-control read, we correct for that. The shot-attempt half of the metric is adjusted for how far a player's zone starts strayed from an even split. The adjustment compares players on the same team. That way it measures deployment, not the gap between good and bad teams. The chance-quality half is left alone.

Our zone-start correction starts in 2020-21. Earlier seasons are shown without it. Comparing two players within the same season is always fine. Both rows were computed the same way. Comparing a season from 2020-21 on with one from 2019-20 or earlier is not like-for-like. Every place on the site that shows one of these numbers for an earlier season says so right there.

We chose to show the earlier seasons rather than hide them. Hiding a decade of shot-control history would cost more than it protects. So the earlier seasons are published for what they are: a raw shot-control read, labelled as such.

5v5 Shot-Control Index

This is the one metric on the site built directly on the zone-start adjustment above. So it belongs here, not with the headline value metrics. It asks a narrow question. When this player is on the ice at five-on-five, does play tilt toward the other team's net? And does it tilt more than it does for his team without him? Two things go into the answer. The first is his share of shot attempts, corrected for zone starts as described above. So a player fed offensive-zone faceoffs gets no credit for the head start. The second is his share of the expected goals. That is the same question asked about chance quality instead of chance volume.

Chance quality counts for more than raw attempts. That is deliberate. A shot attempt from the point is not worth what a look from the slot is worth. A metric that counted them equally would reward the player who shoots from anywhere. Both halves are measured against the player's own team, not the league. The question is what he adds to the team he actually plays for.

What it is not: a verdict on how good a player is. It measures one thing. An elite finisher who scores most of his goals on the power play can rate poorly here. He can still be worth every dollar. A defensive center who never scores can rightly sit at the top. We publish it as a shot-control reading and name it that way on purpose.

The index covers every season from 2010-11 on. Our zone-start correction starts in 2020-21. Earlier seasons are shown without it. Compare an older season with a recent one only loosely.

Quality of competition & teammates

QoC and QoT sum up the strength of the players a skater shares the ice with at 5v5. QoC is the average impact rating of his opponents that season, weighted by time on ice together. QoT is the same for his teammates. Strong numbers against heavy competition mean more than the same numbers against depth lines. A player needs only about eight minutes at even strength to get a reading. So read a small sample loosely.

How it stays honest

Two rules keep this layer careful. The first is that each metric has a minimum sample. Shot quality needs 200 unblocked shots. QoC and QoT need only about eight minutes at even strength, so read those loosely. The second is that every reading here describes a season. None of them is presented as a forecast.

Every one of the 2,757 player-seasons in the deployment-context table clears its floor. Rows below it are withheld behind a low-confidence flag. That is why you will never find one on a board. Shot quality is gated the same way. Only a minority of forward seasons have the 200-plus unblocked shots we require. So that floor is a real bar, not one most rows clear without trying.