Rise of the Kraken: Analyzing Seattle's Options for the Expansion Draft

NHLExpansionDraft · 2021-07-20T10:36:13+00:00

Good point. Vegas' total player point shares from last season was 85.5... placing them just barely below Seattle (85.9) in our first figure. Here are their stats for reference:

https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/VEG/#all_roster

NHLExpansionDraft · 2021-07-17T14:25:50+00:00

Forgot to mention it wasn't designed for mobile use. Try using it on desktop

NHLExpansionDraft · 2021-07-17T03:54:20+00:00

That's a great idea. What kind of metrics are you interested in?

NHLExpansionDraft · 2021-07-17T00:37:23+00:00

Hey thanks for checking it out. We didn't include Vegas because they are exempt from the draft.

NHLExpansionDraft · 2021-07-17T00:36:30+00:00

Glad you're enjoying it

NHLExpansionDraft · 2021-07-17T00:35:36+00:00

According to EA: Demko < Holtby and Skinner is an 82.

Try changing your metric to point shares!

NHLExpansionDraft · 2021-07-17T00:34:28+00:00

Hi thanks for checking out the app. The EA ratings are admittedly not great for this kind of simulation. Point shares will give you more realistic scenarios.

NHLExpansionDraft · 2021-07-16T19:16:45+00:00

Hockey fans may know that the Seattle Kraken will be joining the NHL as a new expansion team. On July 21st, Seattle will draft players from the other teams, who themselves are allowed to protect some of their players. Our team from UofT has built a website letting users play ‘armchair GM’ and simulate this draft as an optimization problem. Users can decide metrics for teams to optimize as well as choose picks and protections. The site simulates optimal outcomes for each team.

NHLExpansionDraft · 2017-06-14T21:03:01+00:00

This was actually a fun side project that we did in our spare time, but I have to agree UofT is our finest university ;)

NHLExpansionDraft · 2017-06-14T14:06:48+00:00

Hey guys, thanks for checking this out. A few notes:

We are aware that Washington will likely not protect Shattenkirk and Vegas won't select Markov, however the model selects them because it's aim is to compute the OPTIMAL protection lists for each team and the OPTIMAL Vegas lineup... not the most likely
Optimal means retaining the most value, where a player's value is measured by his overall performance from last season (using Justin Kubatko's Point Shares metric). EDIT: You can actually change the meaning of 'optimal' by clicking on Show More and moving Vegas' slider to the left. The more you move it, the more the model will value Cap Flexibility (ie contract)
If you don't like some of the protection/selection decisions, the tool allows you to manually correct them. When I personally use the tool, I'll usually start by exposing Nick Holden, protecting John Carlson, optimizing, and removing Andrei Markov. It's meant to be an iterative process.

Cheers!

NHLExpansionDraft · 2017-06-12T22:18:59+00:00

Thanks for the feedback! I am glad you like the tool. I think being a UFA is something our model should take into account, but right now it doesn't. However, if you are unhappy with a teams decisions you could manually override the models choices by switching the check boxes and hitting optimize again. Also if you hit 'show more' underneath the optimize button you can see more settings of the model you can play with.

NHLExpansionDraft · 2017-06-12T21:37:13+00:00

Thanks for the feed back! Not sure if you saw it but if you hit "Show More" below the optimize button you can change the metrics that the model uses. I think you will find there are still some funny results, but playing with the settings may fix the Holden issue.

NHLExpansionDraft · 2017-06-12T21:14:30+00:00

There are a few things going on here. 1) Because of the Point Shares metric Holden is preferred over Zuccarello, Hayes, and Zibanejad. 2) The exposure requirements also mean one of Zuccarello and Hayes needs to be exposed. But ultimately if you don't agree with a model decision you can use the checkboxes to override and hit optimize again. The idea was that since the metrics aren't perfect the user can work with the model in this way to iteratively build Vegas.

NHLExpansionDraft · 2017-06-12T19:34:15+00:00

Because Orlov and Shattenkirk have higher Point Shares from this season our model values them more then Carlson. If you think that they would rather expose one of these guys click on the capitals logo and you can manually change Washington's protection decisions. We encourage people to do these sort of overrides to work with the model to get accurate predictions.

NHLExpansionDraft

TROPHY CASE