How Ken Hitchcock uses analytics and what that means for Devin Shore

The day after each game Ken Hitchcock has an analytics package waiting for him.

Before viewing the video from the prior night’s game, the Dallas Stars coach will go through the numbers that have been sent to him by a company in Canada.

“I trust this information because I made them do it,” Hitchcock said. “This isn’t a package they presented to me, this is a package where I said, ‘This is what I want it to be.’ This is strictly to help me to understand what happened the night before.”

Sometimes the analytics surprise him, for example according to his numbers the Stars played a better game than the results showed in 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. Other times the numbers line up with what the coach thought happened.

Hitchcock also does his own analytical work, tracking certain metrics, while watching the video.

So what is he looking for and what is arriving on his desk each morning?

“If I give them to the world, everyone would have them,” Hitchcock said.

So we aren’t getting a specific answer, what about something more broad?

“They’re stats specific to what I want, they’re called synergy stats,” Hitchcock said. “They’re (a) stats package that are very relevant in the flow of the game.”

So what about those shot-based metrics, which tend to dominate more of the conversation in the analytic community?

For Hitchcock relying on shots to determine a players worth is a false-positive.

The team may have the puck for 30 seconds, but never fire a shot. On the flip side a team could take three or four quick shots from bad angles and boost their Corsi (essentially plus-minus in shot attempts) that aren’t helping the flow of the game.

“I think that part of Corsi is misleading,” Hitchcock said. “It’s to me the number I’m looking for is the analytics we have, which is extended zone time.”

That brings us to Devin Shore, the Stars forward that is somewhat at the heart of this debate.

In 39 games this season Shore has the second-worst CF% at 46.92 (Jason Dickinson is last, but he’s only played five games). When he’s on the ice at even strength the Stars are minus-53 in shot attempts, and his minus-17 plus-minus — a stat that has taken a back seat to more advanced metrics — is the worst of any NHL forward that doesn’t play for the last-place Arizona Coyotes.

(Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson is currently last in the NHL with a minus-29, in the lead for what former NHLer Mike Commodore once called the “NHL Masters Champion.”)

So what about Shore? How does Hitchcock juggle those public-facing numbers and what he sees on the ice?

“The stats are misleading, he had two games where he was minus-seven, and he’s been on the ice for six empty net goals, so there you go,” Hitchcock said.

Ok, so if we take away a minus-four game against the Colorado Avalanche on Oct. 24 and another dash-4 on Nov. 16 against the Tampa Bay Lightning Shore is at minus-9. And the Stars have allowed six empty-net goals with Shore on the ice, so that would bring him back to minus-3.

That’s still below-average, but it’s better than the minus-17 he’s carrying at the moment.

It also doesn’t explain the shot metrics. Six empty net-goals and two overall bad games aren’t the reason Shore has poor Corsi or SAT (shot attempted) numbers. He’s played 39 games, those would be averaged out and would be a minor blip if he were driving possession on a nightly basis, right?

Not the case for Hitchcock, who said those shot-based metrics aren’t a good barometer of Shore’s work. Instead he’s looking at extended zone time.

“What that does is set up the next shift for you. You’ve got momentum, for me it’s more about setting up the next shift,” Hitchcock said. “If I looked at Shoresy’s situation right now, there is opportunities we want to see him take advantage of to extend the zone time more. And we think at the end of the day when you extend zone time, either you’re getting another chance or the next lines getting one, but somebody is getting it. And that’s what he’s been doing.”

(For the record, I’ve asked Shore about his analytics in the past. He doesn’t worry about them.)

So it appears that extended zone time is one of the key overall metrics that Hitchcock uses to measure success on his team, and Shore is part of his long-term solution.

And while we don’t know that those other metrics are, Hitchcock said using a certain four or five metrics you can determine which team will win on a nightly basis, and that’s what his analytics package is comprised of.

“The game is won in a certain element of the game, a certain area of the ice, that’s where the game is won and lost,” Hitchcock said. “That’s the basis. You can be 90 percent accurate if you do something in certain areas of the game you’re going to win. I want that information the next morning before I look at the video. So I want to know, what did we do well?”

Is it really that simple? Winning those four or five areas virtually locks up a victory?

“In order to win you have to control this part of the game. If you control this part of the game you win, 90 percent of the time,” Hitchcock said. “Now, occasionally you might lose the special teams game or whatever, but you control this part of the game you win. And the teams that control that part of the game they’re playoff teams.”

And the Stars want to be one of those playoff teams, not just this season but in the long term. And for Hitchcock checking off the boxes in the proper analytics, and telling players how and why it works, are the key to setting a culture within the franchise.

“To me there is making the playoffs once in a while and then there is setting the long-term structure of your hockey club. How are you going to be a playoff team to become a championship team over a five or six-year period?” Hitchcock said. “My job, no matter how long I coach, my job is to set the table for years. To set a foundation that the players have a clear understanding of this is how you play to be successful.

“In the middle of this thing I want to win hockey games and I want the team to make the playoffs, but I have to set a foundation,” Hitchcock added. “That’s the duty of the coach, that’s looking beyond yourself. That’s the unselfish view of coaching that you have to have, you’re the custodian of the conscious of the team and you better have that in your heart. If you don’t have that in your heart you make a mess for everybody.”