NHL Heat map

@StatsbyLopez posted a photo on Twitter from a recent presentation where I showed an NHL heat map. So I thought I'd give a quick explanation of said heat map.

First, here's the heat map:  it's for all 5-on-5 shots in the NHL: 

 

The size of each rectangle represents the number of shots taken at that location (bigger rectangle = more shots).  The color represents the percentage of shots that were goals (red = high percentage, blue = low percentage). 

Trade deadline article at ESPN.com

Ryan Wagman (@RAWagman) and I recently wrote an ESPN.com article on trade deadline fixes for each of the Atlantic Division teams.  Check it out here if you have ESPN Insider, or here if you are a member at HockeyProspectus.com.  For the other divisions, there are links on the right hand side of the ESPN article.

Disclaimer: we finished the article before the Pens' flurry of trades.  We picked Adrian Aucoin for the Pens, suggesting the Pens biggest need was a depth defenseman.  Since then the Pens acquired a different defenseman, Doug Murray, so that sort of coincides.  Of course, the Pens did some other stuff too. 

Why "Greater Than Plus Minus"?

When I started thinking of a website name, I had a lot of "great" ideas:

anarcticicehockey.com
nhlnumerals.com
infrontofthenet.ca
nhlprospectus.com
thehockeybook.com (by limbolion)

Little did I know they were similar to existing website names.  The other ideas that I had clearly illustrated my lack of creativity in word-related endeavors... I studied mathematics for a reason.  So I polled some friends, who were much more creative than me.

Introduction

Welcome to GreaterThanPlusMinus.com! 

GTPM is a place for friends, colleagues, analysts, and fellow sports fans to discuss and analyze sports, and especially hockey.

While most discussion will be quantitative on some level, we'll discuss other stuff too.  And while hockey will be a focus, we'll talk about baseball and other sports too. 

Enjoy!

Brian