18 Skaters

Individual Expected Goal Differential There are a few public models that estimate the number of goals a skater is “expected” to have scored. The models do that by calculating the probability of a skater’s shot attempts becoming goals based on certain criteria (such as the location where a shot was taken, type of shot,  etc. ). In this post I use the expected goals data from  Natural Stat Trick . A skater won’t always score the exact number of goals that he’s “expected” to score, and that’s where Individual Expected Goal Differential (or “ ixGd ”) comes in. A skater’s ixGd compares his actual goals to his expected goals over a period of time. The calculation is simple: ixGd = Actual Goals / Expected Goals When a skater scores more goals than expected his ixGd will be greater than 1.0. When he scores fewer goals than expected his ixGd will be less than 1.0. It can be easier to think of these numbers as percentages: an ixGd of 1.15 is like 115%, and an ixGd of 0.85 is like 85%. O...