Post-Game Reports
The last few tools we’ve unveiled have been in hopes of filling specific gaps in our offerings for analysis. The Line Compatibility Lab and Roster Builder were created to offer more GM-style “build your team” fun. The Team Blueprints and Matchup Engine were designed to gather team-oriented takeaways. The Contract Projector expanded our portfolio by bringing salary evaluation into the fold. And the Steals & Chokes Log brought goalie-specific insights into their monumental day-to-day impact. But another area remained uncovered: game-level studies. With that, we are happy to finally fill that void with our newest tool, the Post-Game Reports!
An important feature of Post-Game Reports is being able to get insights ready for analysis the very next morning. So we have ensured that this tool’s data gets automatically updated early every morning to include the previous night’s set of games.
Scoring Summary
We will break down each of the quadrants that make up the Post-Game Reports. In the top-right of the viz, we have the scoring summary which lists information for each goal. This includes the team, scorer, assists, strength, time, and score. Goals outside of the usual 5v5 game strength will be highlighted, such as those on the powerplay, penalty kill, 3v3, or with an extra attacker.
You can move to the next page of goals with the “Part #” drop-down at the top of the section.
Just off-screen to the right of the scoring summary, you will find an extra drop-down. This simply lets you change between selected seasons. Meaning that when you want to look at games from a different season, all you need to do is pick your desired year with this, and the available games in the primary game selection drop-down will update to match your choice.
Game Flow
At the top of this section we have the aforementioned game drop-down, giving you the option to cycle between every regular and playoff game from the chosen season. The home & away teams, along with the date and playoff info, are outlined here to help in finding the game you’re looking for.
The primary chart in these reports is the Game Flow progression. Using this, you can visualize the cascade of either unblocked shot attempts (USAT aka Fenwick), shots on goal (SOG), or expected goals (xG) throughout the game. This serves as a proxy for viewing how momentum swung for one team or another over the duration of the match. As indicated by the vertical axis, values above zero (up) are in favour of the home team, while those below (down) are against the home team (so for the away team).
Included on this plot are both penalties and goals, marked by white flag and red siren labels respectively. Once again, if the label appears above the point it was scored/committed by the home team, and those under the point were by the away team.
Key Areas
To show which elements of the game were behind the triumph or failure of a given team, we have the Key Areas section. Here we have 9 different dimensions of the game that you can rotate between, with four showing simultaneously. This spotlights which team succeeded more often in the specific subset of plays within that area, aided by a pie chart, the percentage of plays won, and the winning team’s logo being highlighted.
Highlighted Players
One of the most common parts of post-game analysis in hockey is the Three Stars. And this section was built to provide that and build upon it. With the Highlighted Players quadrant, you can view not only our selection of 3 stars for a game, but also the MVP for each team, their goaltenders, the best forward line, and the top defence pair. The players, along with a few notable statistics from their performance, are shown in each slot.
And lastly, in similar fashion to the Season drop-down described earlier, this extra list lets you customize the data on-screen. This filter is located to the right of the Highlighted Players quadrant and gives you the option for the type of metrics to view when selecting “Goalies” as your Highlighted Players choice. You can alternate between GSAx (for goals saved above expected and expected goals faced), SV% (for saves made, save percentage, and expected save percentage), or lastly W-L (for if the goalie won, lost, stole, or choked the game).
