Skater Point Projections Using The NHL's API
Introduction People occasionally ask me how to access the NHL’s API and use the data to make skater projections. This document describes a way to get started doing that using the R programming language. The projection methodology here is ultra simple: use 2-year rate stats and 1-year time-on-ice data to predict each skater’s points for the upcoming NHL season (2024-2025). The raw projections are pushed to Google Sheets where they can be fine-tuned as desired (but the simple raw projections are surprisingly good for many skaters). The process described here is only the beginning of what can be done with data pulled from the NHL’s API. It’s possible to get detailed data and build more complicated models. Hopefully this document provides an entry point for people who are interested in such things but who don’t know how to get started. Note: I show R code below but I don’t explain it. This document is not intended to teach you how to program in R. I strongly encourage you to learn a prog