Misha Donskov

Director of Hockey Operations

Black Knight Sports & Entertainment
Misha, I am extremely proud of what weve been able to accomplish together over our three years
working together. During my time in hockey I believe Ive developed a good understanding of how to
communicate statistical information effectively. Among the best statistical analysts in hockey there is
relatively little disagreement on players or methods used. We all use some sort of regression of
individual shifts or scoring chances, with all of the players on the ice and any other factors which may
influence success on the ice (faceoff zone, home/away, etc) and try to parse out credit and fault to
each one of these factors. I believe what will define our success is our ability to penetrate the real-life
decision making of management. With Las Vegas I feel like you are in a unique position to do that, which
is why Im most eager in working with you again.
Based on my experience in hockey, I feel that the key to effective communication of analytics lies in the
cohesion of analysis and the amount of confidence the organization has in the information being
provided. Cohesion means that all of the complex statistical work that has to go into the back-end must
result in a clear and informative final answer, expressed in two ways: an assessment and the amount of
confidence in that assessment. Analytics in hockey are of course not perfect, and thats why confidence
measures are so crucial. Management must know to what degree any analysis is certain of its findings.
Take two players where one is rated higher than the other by our system. The model may have a 90%
certainty one is better than the other or a 10% certainty of that, based not on the rating but the
confidence the model has on the individual ratings. This is why computing error is such a vital part of any
modern analytics department. By producing a rating system (similar to NHL video games), complex
mathematical work can be done while still providing simple, deliverable output on the front end.
Further, I believe that a key feature of a successful analytics department in accessibility. I want staff to
feel like they can be a part of the process, and that they can extract meaningful information themselves
from our resources. Below Ive put an emphasis on allowing users to work with the tools themselves,
and the ability for staff to seek out and do their own analysis when theyre curious. In my experience,
some of the best ideas for analytics come from those within the game who often dont have the
programming skills to act on their intuition alone to research their ideas. The following is an adjusted
version of what I was going to deliver to you for Hockey Canada. It is a full season schedule of tasks
culminating in the 2017 expansion draft. This is not meant as a definitive list of tasks but rather as a
starting point for discussion of what I can bring to the organization and the direction is wants to go with
analytics. I feel that in that time we can build the best analytics department in hockey.
Timeline:
Online Portal Shell (Oct 1 2016)
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Online site. Password protected

Basic stat breakdowns, graphs. Similar level of content to HCAP

Goals: Acquaint hockey ops users with general look and feel of online analytics hub. Allows end
users to envision how they want the final product to look and operate.

Mobile App Launch (Dec 1 2016)

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Can be used on Apple, Windows and Android devices

Analytical ratings and breakdown of NHL, AHL, ECHL and North American junior hockey
players.
Gameday scouting tool: Scout selects game he is at, top analytics players and players of
interest (selected by FO) are displayed first

Goals: Allow scouts to use app for second half of season. Establish additional needs and tweaks
to allow complete functionality in time for draft.

A screenshot from my iPhone 6 of Pocket Rocket, the app I developed for the Canadiens. A variety of filters from
below produce a list, clicking on a player from the list shows his profile above.

1st Edition of Expansion Draft Report Tool (Jan 1 2017)

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Part of online portal

Similar to General Fanagers popular expansion draft tool, but with the option to order
players, colourize groups of players, add notes and include any of our available statistics into
the report. Templates can be saved and distributed

Goals: Allow front office personnel to visualize potential expansion draft scenarios. Potentially
develop system into something that can be used draft day.

Tableau and Excel functionality Seminar (Mar 2017/whenever convenient)

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Either in-person or via skype, to any front office members who may use analytics
themselves
1) An introduction to tableau, the program that will be used in our portal. Although coding is
required for the more involved work, simple graphs and charts can be made via drag and
drop and other tools with no coding required. Teams like the Ottawa Senators use tableau in
this way for non-hockey ops related purposes, while organizations like the Texas Rangers
and San Jose Sharks have non-analytics members of the front office who use Tableau
themselves for using and distributing information. Visualizations created can be exported
and shared, or made to be a page on the online portal.
2) Using our Windows Azure database, users can create excel spreadsheets with information
directly sourced from the database. Since the spreadsheet is connected in this way, the user
can refresh the information at any time, so that the spreadsheet is always up to date.

Goals: Enabling end-users to work with the data and analytics themselves will empower them to
seek out and develop an understanding of what this information has to offer. Working on our
weekly reports last season, I now appreciate how useful and efficient #2 can be. By offering
analytical solutions to our coaches and management in as easy and convenient a way as
possible, we can establish long-lasting and impactful tools for the organization.

Figures 1: By dragging Shot Type onto the Color icon, the user colourizes the shots by shot type, with a legend created to the
bottom. This example shows how easy it is to visualize useful data in tableau, even to the beginner. Figures 2: Screenshots of
excel spreadsheet connected to a SQL database. The user need only select the table he wants presented from a list, then clicks
Refresh in the top left whenever necessary for the latest update.

NHL Draft Portal Launch and PDF Reports (April 1 2017)

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An added component to the online portal, along with PDF reports to be added alongside or
sent via email at managements discretion.
A tool that produces the most in-depth analytical information on NHL draft prospects,
alongside a PDF ranking report which compares players rankings in a variety of different
scout rankings and analytical opinion. CHL, USHL and NAHL available currently, NCAA, major
junior A and European leagues possible projects.

Goals: Provide scouting team with league-leading statistical information. Pad player
coverage of lesser-scouted prospects.
Left: An
example of a
PDF report on
upcoming NHL
draft prospects
in european
leagues. It
summarizes
their expected
position and
their position in
terms of
analytical
ranking.

Below: A
prototypical
NHL draft
portal, showing
Juolevis player
profile.

Potential Long-Term Projects

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Franchise Hockey Manager-based Portal. I am friendly with some of the developers of FHM,
a video game that lets you play as GM of a hockey team. Using their platform, we could
work off the template of their video game to create a real-life front office management
center. I have had brief conversations about the idea and they would be open to
collaboration. As we would just be using the infrastructure with our own database powering
it, it would be relatively easy to accomplish.

Machine learning. My current model uses differential equations and ridge-cox regression.
Machine learning is a new type of analysis that churns through a dataset and artificially
develops its own optimized regression functions. BigML, a machine learning platform, is one
program I have experience in, however there are many services and people capable of this
kind of work.
Supplemental data providers. Companies like Powerscout, Sportslogiq and Stathletes track
their own data on top of what the NHL currently tracks. I am a big proponent of this type of
information. I would lobby for this type of data to be integrated into our existing models.
There are also community-based tracking like the passing project, or we could track data
ourselves so that we can specifically tailor it to the needs of coaches and management.

Ad-Hoc Analysis and Research Projects

Along with these scheduled tasks Id like the opportunity to provide research and analysis on
specific things, either in a blog-type form on our portal or delivered directly to you. I found this
to be a successful approach last year with the Canadiens. Topics would either come from me or
be prompted by staff. Examples of analysis could be topics like looking at aging curves for a
specific type of player, or looking at how # of days rest and/or travel effect on-ice performance.