As promised, here are our tabulations for each of the teams participating in the 2016 World Cup of Hockey.  Advanced Bracton scores have been calculated for team rosters as of September 9.  The tournament starts September 17.  We will update this column then with our final predictions based on the ultimate rosters.  Note – a single elimination format is dissimilar to a seven game series.  As such, we are unsure whether the sample size will be at all large enough to be meaningful.  However, it will be fun to see some hockey for a change instead of enduring near 100 degree (+38) every day for two months!

We took player Advanced Bracton scores form their teams last year and accumulated the totals for the team as constructed, where available.  What we found interesting is that the Pittsburgh Pengiuns of last year had a better AB than every team in Group A and Group B is stacked; potentially every team in that group has a better AB than the top team in group A.  Hmmm.

We also note that for players for whom statistical data we use to build the Advanced Bracton score was not available in many cases. This bespeaks to our central tenet; there is not enough emphasis on mistake minimization worldwide and that this area of analytics is ripe for more rigor.

GROUP A –

US – with Backes +13.19, without Backes +28.37

Europe – +9.01

Canada – +5.55 – No Jamie Benn hurts

Czech Republic – not enough information, but for the players on whom we have data – 2.16

GROUP B –

Sweden +50.27 – adding Rakell, excellent move

Under 23 North America +43.17 – this includes -14.09 for Murray and no information for 2 players

Russia – +28.14 – no information on 4 players

Finland + 9.50 with no information for 5 players