You’ve probably seen a hockey box score before, maybe even on television. The colorful box score summarizing the important statistical information in an NHL game is a familiar sight around the world of ice hockey.
But how exactly do you go about reading one of these summaries?
Whether you’re a hockey buff or just happen to follow the game on television, here’s a quick and easy guide to reading a hockey box score.
Table of Contents
Focus On The Basics
The first thing to do before you begin to read, or re-read, a hockey box score is to focus on the basics. Know which player is which and what team they play for. Knowing these basic facts will make reading the rest of the information much easier.
The next thing to do is to determine if the game was won or lost. Sometimes there will be some controversial calls or some strange occurrences that don’t always match the final result on the ice. But in general, the team that scores the most goals wins the game. The final result will not always be reflected by the score at the end of the game, so it’s best to just go with what you know.
The Three Columns
Once you’ve got your basic facts down, you can begin to examine the contest more closely. To do this, you need to refer to the three columns that make up the box score. These are goals, assists, and plus/minus. Each column has a bold heading that summarizes the contents in that column.
The first column is goals. This is the raw number of goals that were scored during the game. Remember, in hockey, the team that scores the most goals wins. Knowing this will help you determine who exactly was responsible for scoring the goals. (i.e. a forward scores a goal, and the team is credited with the goal, regardless of who was at the other end of the shot.)
The second column is assists, and this is the number of times that a player directly assists another player in scoring a goal. An assist does not have to be a goal to be counted, so keep an eye out for these types of events.
The third column is the plus/minus (-/+) score. This represents the team’s relative performance compared to a hypothetical average team in that game. The average team would have a -/+ score of zero. (0/+) a team performs better than average (Positive), while (-/+) a team performs worse than average (Negative). To understand what this column means, think about the last time you played soccer (or football, for that matter).
The average team would have a -/+ score of zero because there’s no difference between them and the opposing team or the team they’re playing against. A zero score would mean that the team played exactly as well as the average team. If a team’s score is positive, then they had a better performance than the average team and if it’s negative, then they had a worse performance.
One of the important things to note about the plus/minus score is that a team’s overall performance is not necessarily displayed by this number. For instance, a team could have the best record in the league but one of the worst plus/minus scores. This indicates that even though they have the best record, they had a bad game on the other end of the ice and they need to improve their play to have a good standing in the standings. (More on these standings later.)
Pay Attention To The Score In The Context Of The Game
The last thing you want to do before you start looking at the stats is to focus on the score by itself. Remember, a single score can sometimes be misleading, especially since there were multiple scores that occurred during that game. For this reason, it’s best to look at the score in the context of the game itself. (i.e. what exactly happened before, during, and after the game.)
What did the home team do that helped them win the game? Did the goalie steal a goal or two? Was the power play effective or ineffective? All of these questions can be answered by simply comparing what happened in the game to what was planned. (i.e. if the power play was expected to be effective but wasn’t, it could potentially be a reason why the team lost the game.)
What did the away team do that helped them win the game? In the same way that you need to examine the home team to understand why they won or lost the game, you need to look at the behavior of the opposing team when they were on the road. (Did they score a lot of goals?) How did they fare on the power play? Were their shots effective or ineffective? All these questions and more can be answered by simply going back and looking at how the other team performed. (i.e. if they had a lot of power play opportunities but only scored one goal, it could be a sign that they had some good opportunities but weren’t able to put the puck in the net.)
The Player Ratings
Finally, at the end of the game, we have the player ratings. These are simply the numerical ratings that were assigned to each player based on their performance during the game. The goalie and the rest of the players (except for the two goal scorers) are rated on a scale of zero to ten; the higher the number, the better the player’s performance. (i.e. a ten is an excellent rating, a nine is an excellent rating, etc.)
For the most part, the player ratings are self-explanatory; you don’t need to have a microscope to decipher them. But now and then, you’ll come across a number that can leave you confused. (i.e. if we’re not mistaken, Eric Staal had an eight rating one game and a ten rating in the next game. So, what happened?) This is what I recommend that you do: when you see a number that seems a little bit too good or bad to be true, it’s usually a good idea to check the player’s previous games to see if the number is consistent. (i.e. if Staal had a bad game before his ten-rated performance, it could be a sign that his numbers are inflated.)
With all these tips and tricks of reading a hockey box score, now you’re prepared to dive in and begin examining the data. Hopefully, this article will assist you in making the most out of all the data and numbers that you’ll come across during your time in the hockey world. (Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.)