The NHL is apparently tracking some statistics they aren’t sharing publicly on their website. In the era of advanced statistics, the league is aware that more and more fans want more and more ways to track and evaluate their teams and players. With that in mind, the league has been slowly rolling out some interesting and unique stats into their NHL Network broadcast.
One of these stats is the average number of times a player touches the puck per game. It’s not clear how this metric is tracked or how it specifically works, but the belief is that one “touch” means each time a player has possession and does something with the puck. It’s not literally tracking how many times a player touches the puck with his stick (those numbers would be in the hundreds), but it helps show how influential a given player can be during the course of a game.
Apparently Alex Pietrangelo is leading the way with 61.8 touches per game.
Puck touches per game. Where is his data coming from? pic.twitter.com/Kqu0x9p5yf
— Neil Greenberg (@ngreenberg) December 9, 2014
As for the question posed in the Tweet above, it’s clear the NHL is working towards improving their in-house stats. This likely means working with an outside company. Regardless of that, this is a cool and unique look into the game and it shows the Pietrangelo is arguably the most influential defenseman in the NHL. Considering how often he touches the puck, the team will rise or fall based on the quality of his touches.
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