This is my senior project, "Lighting the Lamp: Calculating Individual Contribution in Hockey". It was completed in November, 2020 at Carleton College.
In hockey, it can be quite difficult to effectively evaluate how an individual player contributes to his team. Traditional metrics, such as plus-minus, don't typically tell the full story. This is because metrics like this are only marginal effects, meaning they don't take into account everything else that is happening on the ice. When a goal is scored, not every player neccessarily contributed equally to that goal. This paper outlines a method for calculating partial effects for individual player contributions, and evaulates which players in recent history have contributed the most to their teams. This paper also discusses the uses for these new metrics, and where hockey, and other sports, can build on these ideas.
The paper can found in the "Comps_Final.pdf" file.
The "Performance.R" file shows the R code for the performance analysis. The "Salary.R" file shows the R code for the salary analysis.