The Analytics With Avery Blog

Olympic Heartbreak

February 27, 2026

Canada's long-awaited return of NHLers at the Olympics ended in a devastating overtime loss to the United States, as missed chances, mistakes, and elite American goaltending turned a gold-caliber performance into a heartbreaking silver. I give a recap of the tournament from a Canadian perspective, along with my thoughts on what went right and what went wrong.

Breakouts, Bounce Backs, and Bottom-of-the-Graphs

January 9, 2026

At the midway point of the 2025–26 NHL season, player performance across the league has varied widely, from unexpected breakouts to strong bounce-back campaigns and disappointing downturns. This post highlights one forward, defenseman, and goaltender from each category to explore some of the biggest swings in player performance this season.

USA, Sweden, and Finland Olympic Roster Projections

December 31, 2025

After projecting Team Canada’s Olympic roster, I now turn my attention to the other three countries that participated in last season’s 4 Nations tournament: the United States, Sweden, and Finland.

Team Canada Olympic Roster Projection

December 29, 2025

With the 2026 Winter Olympics approaching and Team Canada’s roster set to be announced on December 31, this post outlines my projected Canadian Olympic roster—built with role fit, chemistry, and experience in mind, not just raw skill.

Determining Stanley Cup Contenders From Regular Season Lineups

July 4, 2025

Can a team's overall regular season lineup performance help predict playoff success more than the standings? In this post, I introduce a contender scoring system I built from 17 seasons of NHL data to evaluate which teams had the strongest lineup entering the playoffs. The results show that by looking beyond just the standings, we can uncover stronger indicators of postseason performance and identify teams that are truly built for a Cup run.

The Offensive Value of Assists Compared to Goals

May 14, 2025

In this post, I look into the question of how valuable primary and secondary assists really are compared to goals in terms of NHL offensive production. Using a method inspired by a 2014 post from Tyrel Stoakes, I test various assist weight combinations to find which best predicts a future goal contribution metric devised for this process. The results offer a clearer picture of how assists should be weighted in player evaluations, with some interesting implications, especially for secondary assists.