NHL’s online data vault gets an overhaul

The National Hockey League is stepping up its statistical game.

Starting this week at nhl.com, fans will have access to stats of every team and player since the league’s inception in 1917. Previously an incomplete source for historical numbers, nhl.com has added roughly 15 million data points from games between 1917 and 1987.

Several statistical categories have undergone a significant renovation. For example, nhl.com now has data for goals by strength (power-play goals, short-handed goals, even-strength goals) from 1932-33 to present, as opposed to 1967-68 to present.

Stats that had a brief life in the NHL, such as the third and fourth assist or the three-minute penalty, are also included.

As well, the NHL and eliteprospects.com, a go-to source for prospect and international hockey stats, have partnered to enhance nhl.com’s non-NHL info. Auston Matthews’s bio page, for instance, now features everything you need to know about his lone pro season in Switzerland.

While nhl.com’s stats tab is getting a major update, the NHL says its foray into puck- and playertracking — an area of experimentation for the league during the 2016 World Cup of Hockey and a space the NHL has not conquered, unlike the NBA — is still being vetted.

“We continue to look at various player and puck tracking technologies,” Gary Meagher, the NHL’s executive vice-president of communications, told Postmedia in an emailed statement.

In Aug. 2015, former NHL COO John Collins told Sportsnet the financial burden associated with installing chip technology into pucks is immense.

“We were struggling with costs. The chip added … $200 per puck, which would not allow you to do the things you like to do with them,” he said.