Hockey statistics have come a long way in the past ten years, as there are numerous people doing interesting work both on the internet and in team’s front offices. However, the one common complaint with analytics in the NHL is that we’re limited to what the league makes available. These being only your basic stats like shots, faceoffs, hits, blocked shots, and goals (duh). People have made great discoveries using these stats & even made predictive models out of them, but there is an appetite for more detailed stats, especially at the micro-level.
This is where some fans go the extra mile and track their own events to get a more accurate picture of what happens during the game.