If you think it’s hard to tell how you’re doing at your job, imagine being a hockey goalie. Let’s say you block every shot in a game. Was that performance due to your superior skills? Or maybe just to a lack of skill in your opponents?

Evaluating ice hockey players' performance is getting easier, for goalies and their teammates. Advances in data collection—including video that can be slowed down and analyzed—and the application of more sophisticated statistics are allowing analysts to better assess how all players contribute to team performance on the ice. Among the more exciting outcomes are data-rich maps of the rink that can reveal especially successful shots or strategic passes.

“Back in the day, like decades ago, we could only really credit players for goals, and maybe assists and stuff like that,” says Namita Nandakumar, co-author of a recent review of trends in hockey analytics in the Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application. “Now research shows that there are other aspects of the game that you can be consistently better or worse at.”

 …