Using a 15 game sample, I will be attempting to create a game for the current Carolina Kraken team. To do this, I went through each game and took a look at which players have made a contribution to the offense. We’re running with a mixture of modes and averages to see how they’ll shape up in a new scenario. We'll go period by period to determine what will happen in our hypothetical game against a given team. Let’s call them the Wheaton Chimeras (Fun fact: Wheaton, Minnesota is the geographical midpoint between all of the non-Carolina SMJHL teams!)

The game begins, and the Krakens are looking to make an impact right away. On average, the team is going to get 1.46 points scored in the first. Let’s have some fun and round up, letting them have 2 against the Chimeras. In our data set, there are ten individuals with scores in this period that are eligible for our two scores here, those being:

Wolfe (4)
Hellström (4)
Kozlov (3)
Panico (2)
Oda (2)
Friedland (2)
Grimstad (1)
Foley (1)
Vitecek (1)
Nilsen (1)

So looking at the most common occurrences within the data, it looks like Wolfe and Hellström will get to take our two lucky shots. But we know that you can’t do it alone. So let’s look at who will be assisting. Out of the 22 goals scored in the first, 17 of them had two people credited with the assist, so we’ll grab four people here to help out from the list of 16 people credited with first period assists.

Lilja (4)
O’McGuiness (4)
Foley (4)
Kozlov (3)
Wolfe (2)
Murray (2)
Friedland (2)
Grimstad (2)
Fruit (2)
Vitecek (2)
Oda (2)
Panico (2)
Cunningham (2)
Bergen (1)
Voskoboynikov (1)
Vrieze (1)

This would indicate in our game, we’ll have Lilja, O’McGuiness, Foley and Kozlov helping out Wolfe and Hellström.

This set of four has some major synergy based on the data, as these names pop up together a few times. We’ll pair Foley and Kozlov for an assist for Wolfe, as this duo have shared assists two times within the data set for the first period in Games 3 and 15. This leaves Lilja and O’McGuiness with the assist for Hellström, a set that popped in the data as well in Game 4.

In the second period, the Krakens are on average getting off 1.06 shots. We’ll call it 1 for this game. We once again have ten scorers to choose from:

Hellström (3)
Wolfe (2)
Murray (2)
Panico (2)
Friedland (2)
Vitecek (1)
Nips (1)
Kozlov (1)
Grimstad (1)
Bergen (1)

Looks like Hellström is really hungry for a win against Wheaton, scoring for us again here in the second. On the assist front, 10 out of 15 Kraken scores in the second had two people, so we’ll pick another duo from our list of 13 players credited with second period assists.

Grimstad (4)
Fruit (3)
Foley (3)
Bergen (2)
Vitecek (2) 
Panico (2)
Nilsen (2)
Wolfe  (1)
Murray (1)
Larry (1)
Lilja (1)
O’McGuiness (1)
Voskoboynikov (1)

Grimstad is getting slotted in for sure, but we don’t have a set methodology for dealing with ties. In the spirit of “sharing is caring”, we’ll give this one to Fruit though, since Foley got the chance to be involved in our first round.

In the final period, Carolina hasn’t performed quite as strongly, averaging only .8 shots in this time frame. But, since this is their show, let’s give them one just for fun. We have 8 eligible goal scorers for this period.

Hellström (3)
Friedland (2)
Foley (2)
Murray (2)
Wolfe (1)
Vitecek (1)
Lilja (1)
Kozlov (1)

Okay, so turns out that Hellström really hates Wheaton, because she’s coming through with the hat trick against them. Hellström does have one hat trick within the data set, so it’s not an impossibility. So who’s going to help her send it home?
We’ve got 12 choices on this one.

Lilja (4)
Cunningham (2)
Friedland (2)
Foley (2)
Hellström (1)
O’McGuiness (1)
Bergen (1)
Vrieze (1)
Kozlov (1)
Murray (1)
Oda (1)
Nilsen (1)

Lilja makes it in, and I regret having not established a better method for ties now. Let’s take a look at total assists for our three tied friends.

Cunningham (4)
Friedland (4)
Foley (9)

Alright, Foley it is.

Presuming that Wheaton hasn’t outperformed Carolina’s defense, and has managed to match the Kraken’s 4 points, fear not. Carolina has zero OT losses in our data set, so we can give them the win! Better luck next time, Wheaton.



807 words total, 621 with player lists removed.

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