American Hockey League – Early Season Update

These two visualizations include data through the games of 3/1/21. One visualization shows how each team in the league is currently performing through the first few weeks of the season while the other shows the performance of qualified goaltenders with at least 3 games played. In the first visualization, team goal differential per game (the difference between goals for and goals against divided by games played) is on the horizontal axis, percentage of possible points earned on the season (in place of win percentage due to different number of games played and overtime/shootout loss points) on the vertical axis. Size represents games played and color represents penalty minutes per game (blue is low, red is high). The Chicago Wolves are off to a phenomenal start (split affiliation this year with Carolina and Nashville). Not only are they off to an incredible start, but they are playing fun hockey to watch with lots of goals and physical play (penalty minutes). Henderson (Vegas) is a close second behind Chicago. The visualization also shows that teams like Toronto (Toronto), Hartford (NY Rangers), Syracuse (Tampa Bay and Florida), and Bakersfield (Edmonton) (among others) likely deserve a bit more success in terms of earning points (winning games) than they currently have.

The second visualization shows the early season goaltending leaders. Logan Thompson of Henderson and Beck Warm of Chicago have been stellar with save percentages greater than or equal to 94%! Thompson, who put up 23 wins and a save percentage of 93% in South Carolina of the ECHL last year, also boasts a goals against average of 1.81. Warm, a product of the WHL, is starting his professional career after playing last year for the Tri-City Americans and Edmonton Oil Kings. To round out the top three goalies on the chart, we have Dan Vladar of Providence (who was also tremendous in the 2019-20 season - #75 pick of Boston in 2015). We also see a couple of promising goaltenders struggling in this early season as Ilya Samsonov (Hershey - #22 overall in 2015 by Washington) and Samuel Montembeault (Syracuse - #77 overall in 2015 by Florida) have good pedigrees, but their performances have been disappointing so far.

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