Calculating Point Shares

I. Introduction

In 2002, Bill James introduced the Win Shares system to the world of baseball. The goal of the system was to estimate the number of wins (actually, win shares) "created" by each player.

Three years later, I used James' work as the foundation for a similar system for basketball.

Since the system seems to work well in both baseball and basketball, I decided to apply the idea to hockey. Some of the ideas I came up with were motivated by research done by hockey analysts Tom Awad, Iain Fyffe, and Alan Ryder, among others.

* If you believe that any attempt to attribute team success to individual players is an abomination, then read no further, as this article will be of no interest to you.

II. What is a Point Share?

III. Marginal Goals For and Marginal Goals Against

IV. Crediting Offensive Point Shares to Skaters

V. Crediting Goalie Point Shares to Goalies

VI. Crediting Defensive Point Shares to Skaters

VII. Putting It All Together

VIII. Does This Work?