Comparing Low 1st Round Picks and High 2nd Round Picks in the NHL

By. Minchan Han

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This is my first Data Science/Machine Learning Project!

I have collected draft data from Hockey-Reference.com to evaluate the value of the 16th - 45th picks.

1. How valuable are Low 1st Round Picks and High 2nd Round Picks relative to each other?

2. How valuable are these picks relative to the rest of the draft?

3. Is there any truth to the theory that beyond the very top picks of the draft, every draft pick is worth the same? Do they provide the same chance of producing a valuable player?

We will analyze our data to try and answer our questions, and at the end, we will train a predictive model to try and predict which players (drafted 16th - 45th overall in the 2006-10 drafts) will reach X games played based on where they were drafted!

Cells 1 - 12 = Data Analysis

Cells 13 - 31 = Predictive Model

Content preview:

Special thanks to Hockey Reference for the data. Links to the filtered data is included in the notebook

(Low 1st Round = 16th - 30th Picks | High 2nd Round = 31st - 45th Picks)