Stats' Sheet November Mailbag
In our first monthly mailbag, we try to answer some reader questions about attendance, points per minute, and the “best statistical lineup”, among others
Welcome to the Stats’ Sheet November Mailbag. We’ll try to do these monthly, if we can get enough questions.
What is the best attended season since BU moved to Agganis, and how does attendance contribute to winning percentage? — Max
The best attended season was, unsurprisingly, the first full season at Agganis Arena, 2005-06. There doesn’t really appear to be any correlation between attendance and winning percentage.
There is no correlation between goal differential and attendance, though weirdly BU only has one loss with attendance less than 2800.
What is the all-time goal differential between BC and BU? — @_brendanm14
The current goal differential in the Green Line Rivalry is +22 in favor of BU. The highest it has ever been is +76 in favor of BU, which was reached twice: December 7th, 1997—at Conte Forum, a 5-1 win—and February 14th, 2000—a 4-1 win in the 2000 Beanpot Championship Game.
What is the largest combined margin of victory over a common opponent by the men's and women's team?
In 2008-09 and 2011-12, the men’s and women’s team combined for a margin of victory of +24 over Maine (10 M, 14 W) and New Hampshire (11 M, 13 W), respectively. Last season’s combined MOV over Vermont at +22 (12 M, 10 W) comes in at 4th, just one behind a combined +23 vs. Vermont (3 M, 20 W) in 2014-15.
Which men’s players have the highest points per minute this season?
Quinn Hutson and Cole Eiserman lead the way in points per minute. Surprising, Tristan Amonte has 2 points in just 55 minutes of ice time. Hutson and Eiserman record a point about every 16 minutes on the ice.
What would it look like to generate a BU line chart based on ranking players by xG% (like top 3 players at their position being top line, then next 3 are line 2, etc.)
Here’s what a line chart based on xG% would look like:
The top two lines both have all players over 50% GF%, with the third line having close to both of its wingers near 50%.
Per your game score model, who has been the best and worst players on the men’s team thus far? — Eli Cloutier
So far this season, Quinn Hutson (16.0561) is far and away the top player on the BU men’s team, joined closely Matt Copponi (9.2961) and Shane Lachance (9.2111). Gavin McCarthy is the “worst” in terms of game score, but some of that comes down to playing top defensive minutes.
What is the lowest ranking BU has had in November and still made the NCAA tournament?
Though, the pairwise should not technically be calculated till the end of the season. We’ll take a look at where BU stood in the pairwise1 since 2004-05 on November 1st, November 15th, November 30, and their final pairwise placement.
The lowest that BU has been in a year that they made the tournament was 33 in 2017-18, though they did win the Hockey East tournament to earn the automatic bid that season. In non-auto bid years, it was 28. Heck, last season they started November at 22 and ended up as 1 seed. Long story short, what the pairwise says in November does not matter, do not care about the pairwise in November, do not worry about the pairwise in November, do not even look at the pairwise in November.
How many instances have there been of a backup goalie taking the starting job? If any, who? And how did they perform after becoming the starter (i.e, if Lacroix takes over starting in front of Caron) — Official Bubbah
We don’t really have the data on that per se. I guess the only instance I can think of is Matt O’Connor taking the starting job in 2014-15, after Sean Maguire went out at the end of the previous season with a bad concussion. The two had been a goalie tandem for both their freshman and sophomore years. O’Connor backstopped the team to the 2015 National Championship game as a junior with Maguire out. I don’t see Lacroix taking over fully, if he does play consistently it’ll probably be in a tandem.
BU famously came back from a 6-2 deficit against Maine to hand them their only loss of their incredible 1992-93 title season, 7-6. Is that the biggest comeback for BU against Maine? At Maine? — defkit11
Yes, that is the biggest comeback for BU against Maine. BU has only beaten Maine 6 times when they allowed 5+ goals. Though if we want to be technically they did earn a win against Maine when allowing 8 goals and only scoring 1, when Maine had to forfeit games in 1991-92, due to ineligible players.
Where do you get the advanced stats from that you post through the newsletter? Are those accessible to the general public? — Sean
The advanced stats we post come from Instat, it is a paid service that has advanced stats for many leagues at all different levels of hockey, including NCAA Men’s DI. While they are not available, free for all, CollegeHockeyNews.com has begun adding some advanced stats. They’ve had Corsi in the past, but now they have TOI and a basic xG (though its accuracy is a bit dubious), a variant of Game Score, that they termed CHIP.
Can others join the BU hockey stats program? I'm really interested in researching statistics on NCAA DI hockey teams.
Yes! Anyone is welcome to join the BU hockey stats program (I’m just an alum with a hobby, not affiliated with the team or university). There are some great resources for finding interesting facts and stats: BUHockeyStats.com (shameless plug), CollegeHockeyNews’ Almanac, team media guides, CollegeHockeyStats.net (old box scores), old newspapers. Everyone is free to submit a stat or note that they find. Feel free to contact me if you’re interested in helping or contributing at all.
How can I support BUHockeyStats?
I do this because I enjoy it and like to share random stats and notes. I don’t need financially support, the only support I need is just for everyone to enjoy and share any interesting stats or notes I post. However, if you really want to financially support BUHockeyStats we sell merch in our TeePublic store, or you can give directly to us on Ko-Fi.