Evaluating Single Game Performances Using Game Score

"Who had the best game?" It's a question that gets asked a lot, and after an impressive win like Seattle's 5-3 victory over Florida on Sunday, there are quite a few candidates to consider. When that very question was posed to Dave Hakstol, he listed numerous players from the roster, starting with Mason Appleton.

"I was happy to see 'Apps' get the game-winning goal," Hakstol said. "I think that's important for him. He played well, he played hard, and (then he had) the result."
The goal was a pretty one to be sure. A "prototypical 3-on-2" as Appleton described it, passes from Adam Larsson, Vince Dunn, and Alexander Wennberg set up the Green Bay native for a beautiful finish, and he did not fail.

Goals rightly draw attention, of course, but Hakstol intentionally mentioned Appleton's body of work in the entire game, not just his score. In addition to the game-winner, in 18:04 of ice time, the forward also had an assist, five shot attempts (including three on target), a hit and two takeaways. As a total effort how does that measure up? We're back to our question of who had the best game - is there a way to quantify that?

Let's dig in.

In 2016, Dom Luszczyszyn, now with The Athletic, developed a measure called "Game Score." His goal was to use publicly available stats that you find on an NHL stat sheet, assign a weight to each, and combine them in a meaningful way to evaluate how productive a player was within in a single game. (You can find the original calculation HERE; it was updated in 2019, that write-up is HERE.)

"(Game Score) is meant to answer, 'who had the best game' by adding proper perspective to a combination of a player's total contributions and into an easily understood all-in-one stat," Luszczyszyn wrote.

Which brings us back to Appleton.

Thanks to Cole Palmer's site, Hockey Stat Cards, we can get Game Score calculations shortly after any NHL game concludes.

Here's a look at the top 10 skaters in the Florida-Seattle game (full stat card HERE):

Appleton earned a Game Score of 2.33. That isn't just the highest score of the game, it was a season-best for the player, and the best Game Score of any skater in ANY game on Sunday. A very good game, indeed.

And while Game Score is meant to be a one-number measure, if we want to dig into it a little bit more, we can see what elements went into each player's value on any given night using Impact Cards. These break down a player's score into categories of offensive, defensive, and individual contribution. Here's Seattle's from Sunday's game.

We see that Appleton was a big driver of offense both for his team and as an individual. We can also see other things like the fact that Colin Blackwell, Marcus Johansson, and Jeremy Lauzon were significant contributors defensively within their own performances.

While Game Score is a pretty cool measure, it's important to remember what it is and what it is not. It IS a great way to look at a single game and see who made contributions and in what way. It's also a great way to encompass more than just points into player evaluation.

Game Score also IS only based on publicly available data, so things like transitional play, passing, etc. can't be factored into a player's number.

And most importantly, Game Score is NOT a reflection on a player as a whole. One game simply doesn't provide enough of a look at all that a player can do, how they contribute, and how they've sustained abilities over time. For example, even outside this game, Appleton has been a top five driver of shot quality for his team this season (per Evolving-Hockey.com). Per Sportlogiq, he also makes an impact moving the puck, ranking second among Kraken skaters in controlled exits and top three in zone entries with a shot coming after.

But it is cool to see that when our eyes tell us that a player has an incredible performance like Appleton did against Florida, that we can quantify it. And if we end up having that discussion of who had a good game, Game Score can help us sort it all out.