1. Predicting NHL Player Contracts
Matt Cane
@Cane_Matt
Hockey Graphs | Puck++

2. Predicting Contracts: Why?
Long Term salary cap planning
Teams have limited resources to identify and pursue free agents
Useful for players to know what statistically similar players have been paid
Don’t want to leave money on the table
Can help identify teams who overpay vs. market, or find cheap free agent talent
Can help identify players whose price (dollars) is different from their value (wins)
Bonus: Provides something for strangers on the internet to yell at you about when you suggest that their favourite player is overpaid
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

3. Past work Run models over the past 3 off-seasons
: Linear Regression, UFA Skaters only
: Beta Regression, UFA + RFA Skaters
: Random Forest, UFA + RFA + Goalies
Other models:
Manny Perry: k-Nearest Neighbours
Luke Solberg Regression w/ WAR/Game Score/TOI
Chris Watkins Regression
Carolyn Wilke: Salary Cap Bands
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

4. The Model
Uses Random Forest to predict adjusted cap hit percent at time of signing:
Adj. Cap Hit Percent = (Cap Hit – Min. Cap Hit)/(Max Cap Hit – Min Cap Hit)
Model player salary using:
Prior Year and 3-Year Total Stats from NHL.com
Past Contract History (Last Cap Hit)
Contract Timing (Before a player hits FA or after)
Free Agent Status (UFA vs RFA, Buyout)
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

5. What’s new? Predict both term and salary
Include term as a predictor in the salary model
Use Z-scores by season rather than absolute totals as predictors
Model buyouts separate from other players, assume buyout contracts are for 1 year
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

6. Is the new model any good?
For all Free Agents signed after July 1st, 2017 (excluding extensions before FA):
Term model predicts 49.4% of contract lengths correctly
Model
Mean Absolute Error
Mean Absolute Percentage Error
Old Model
$582K
38.0%
New Model w/ Predicted Term
$529K
30.3%
New Model w/ Weighted Average Term
33.1%
New Model w/ Actual Term
$429K
28.5%
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

7. What does the new model struggle with?
Many things!
Predicting the super high-end players
Players like Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews tend to be undervalued
For most players, as term increases predicted salary increases
Some cases this makes sense (bridge vs. long-term deals)
Other cases we’d expect more term would mean less money
The Olds
Harder to model older players since many retire
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

8. How can we use this data?

9. Who were the most overpaid players this off-season? (aka GM errors)
Cap Hit
Expected Cap Hit
$ Above Expected
Jack Eichel
10.0M
7.4M
2.6M
Leon Draisaitl
8.5M
6.5M
2.0M
Marc-Edouard Vlasic
7.0M
5.1M
1.9M
Evgeny Kuznetsov
7.8M
6.2M
1.6M
Erik Gudbranson
3.5M
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

10. Who were the most underpaid players this off-season? (aka model errors)
Cap Hit
Expected Cap Hit
$ Below Expected
Adam Pelech
1.6M
3.2M
Radim Vrbata
2.5M
3.9M
1.4M
Patrick Sharp
0.8M
2.1M
1.3M
Cody Franson
1.0M
2.2M
1.2M
Connor Brown
3.3M
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

11. Predicting Next Contract Term
The model is fairly certain Matthews will get a long-term deal, but Marner’s prediction is divided.
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

12. Sens Key Free Agent Projections
Long-Term Cap Planning (Or are the Sens at risk of losing Erik Karlsson?)
Karlsson is a Free Agent in
Projected Contract: 8 years, 7.6M
Current Cap Commitments:
: $39.7M (6F, 2D, 2G)
Other Key Free Agents:
~21.3M to retain
Assuming 80M Cap in :
11.5M for ~4 forwards and ~3 defencemen
Sens Key Free Agent Projections
2018
Term $
Turris 8
6.4
Stone 5
6.3
Ceci 6
4.7
2019
Brassard 2
3.9
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com

13. Future Work Improving Term Model
Tends to default to 1 year deals in too many cases
More “subjective” variables:
3-Star Selections
NHL Award Voting
Captaincy
Term with Team
Better Adjustments for Injuries and Early Career players
Second year players don’t have the same three year stat profiles
Connor McDavid’s injury changes his stat profile
Including advanced metrics and “one number” metrics for player value
Corsi, WAR, K, etc.
@Cane_Matt | puckplusplus.com | hockey-graphs.com