Every hockey number starts at the boxscore. Slashing starts with a harder question: not what a player scored, but what he was actually worth — everything he created, minus everything he cost while he was on the ice. These six principles are how we get there.
01
Principle 01
OUTCOMES ONLY.
Slashing measures what changed the scoreboard. Not what could have. Not what almost did.
Shots that miss, hits that look impressive, passes that go nowhere — these are actions without outcomes. They are real. They are not measurable at the level of a contract decision.
Every input into this model has a direct line to the final score. If it does not touch the scoreboard, it does not touch the number.
This is not a limitation. It is a discipline. Proxy statistics exist because outcome data used to be too thin to work with. Slashing sources every outcome — offensive and defensive — directly from the NHL official record. The outcomes are there. We use them.
We measure what crosses the line.
02
Principle 02
SCRUB THE DATA FIRST.
Before any weight is applied. Before any model runs. Before a single number reaches a contract table — the data gets scrubbed.
508 empty net goals removed this season before the model begins. They are the first lie the boxscore tells. An undefended net requires zero skill. Scoring into one tells you nothing about a player. It inflates his total, inflates his contract ask, and inflates your mistake.
This season's Rocket Richard Trophy winner had 8 empty net goals. The runner-up had 0. Remove them and the award goes to a different player entirely. That is not a footnote. That is the entire point.
508 empty net goals. At a market rate of $277,384 per adjusted goal, that is $140.9 million in cap value the boxscore was never honest about. That money does not disappear — it gets redistributed to the players who actually earned it against a goalie. The scrub reveals where it belongs.
The scrub is not optional. It is the first step. Everything that follows is built on clean data.
Empty-Net Scrub — 2025·26// THE FIRST STEP
Empty Net Goals Removed508
Cap Value Made Honest$140.9M
Rocket Richard Winner — empty-net goals8
Runner-up — empty-net goals0
Strip the empty nets and the award changes hands. Zero is the honest number.
03
Principle 03
LUCK DOESN'T NEGOTIATE CONTRACTS.
Every shot attempt carries a probability of scoring — determined by where it came from, how it was taken, and what happened in the sequence before it. Slashing has built its own expected goals model, validated against over 341,000 shots across three complete NHL seasons, to assign that probability to every scoring opportunity in the league.
A player consistently converting high-danger chances is demonstrating repeatable skill. A player posting big numbers on low-quality attempts is carrying a luck premium — and that premium will cost you on a five-year deal.
We own the model. We own the methodology. No external dependency, no borrowed weights. Dozens of contextual features reach far beyond where a shot was taken — into the full sequence that surrounds it. It stands with the best expected-goals models any NHL analytics department has built.
Luck doesn't negotiate contracts. But with Slashing, it finally has a number.
The Model
EXPECTED GOALS — BUILT FROM SCRATCH
Validated across 341,000 shots and 3 complete NHL regular seasons — and the full context surrounding each one. Each shot gets a probability. The gap between expected and actual is the truth about a player's skill.
xG Shot-Quality MapWhere the chances came from — and how often they should have gone in. Every dot is a shot attempt, weighted by location, sequence, and context.
04
Principle 04
WEIGHTED BY CONTRIBUTION.
The boxscore assigns one point to a goal and one point to the player who passed to him. Same number. Same weight at the contract table.
That is not honest — and it is only the beginning of the problem.
By the time a goal reaches Slashing's contribution layer, it has already been weighted by what it meant: the game situation when it happened, the quality of the chance that produced it, and the moment in the game it landed. That weighted value is what gets distributed. A go-ahead goal in the third period on a high-danger shot arrives at this layer worth significantly more than a garbage-time tip-in. The assists off it inherit a fraction of that elevated value — not a fraction of a flat 1.
Scoring a goal is execution under pressure. A primary assist is creation — the player who found the shooter and made the play possible. A secondary assist is a touch somewhere earlier in the sequence. Three different acts. The boxscore collapses them into one column. Slashing does not.
The contract you sign is for production. Slashing shows you what kind — and what it was actually worth when it happened.
The Real Example
COREY PERRY · 17 GOALS · $2M CAP · #67 OUT OF 817
The boxscore sees 17 goals. Slashing sees something different: 13 of those goals came from high danger, 11 of them took the lead or tied the game. By the time they reached the contribution layer they were already carrying elevated weight from shot quality and game importance. A garbage-time tip-in and a go-ahead goal in the third are both one goal on the scoresheet. They are not the same credit at the contract table. That is why a 41-year-old depth forward at $2 million ranks #67 out of 817 ranked players by Net Impact Score. The context travels with the production.
Contribution WeightingThree different acts. Three different weights at the contract table.
05
Principle 05
BOTH SIDES OF THE ICE.
Every analytics tool you have seen measures what a player produces. None of them show you what he gives up while he is on the ice.
A player who scores 30 goals but is on the ice for 35 high-leverage goals against is not a 30-goal player. His scoring is quietly being handed back at the other end. That side of the ledger has never appeared in a contract table. It appears in ours.
Penalties belong on that ledger too. A burst of speed that draws a hooking call creates a power play — real value, even when the scoresheet credits the goal to someone else. A careless penalty that hands the other team a goal is a real cost. Slashing weights both, and they follow the player in his number.
Slashing tracks both sides across every game of the season. The gap between what a player produced and what he gave up is the truth a season total can never show you — the difference between a player earning his contract and a player consuming it.
Net Impact Score — McDavid, Full Season Arc// 2025·26
The gap between the two lines is what you are paying for. Net Impact Score = total production minus total cost. Both sides of the ice. Every game.
Net Impact Score — Draisaitl, Full Season Arc// 2025·26
Same team. Same ice. Scroll up. Look again. The gap tells you everything.
06
Principle 06
NOW. NOT CAREER.
Raw career totals never expire. A player's best seasons accumulate alongside his worst. The 40-goal year from three seasons ago is still in his number. It still opens contract negotiations. Agents still lead with it.
Slashing evaluates what a player is producing this season against what he costs this season. Not what he produced at 24. Not his peak. What he did from October to April — right now — against the cap hit his team is carrying today.
Age curves matter. Trajectory matters. A player in year four of a six-year deal with two declining seasons behind him is not the contract you signed. The data should tell you that. The boxscore never will — it just keeps adding.
Slashing tracks year-over-year trajectory. The trend line is part of the output. A cap anchor is identifiable before it becomes a problem you cannot move.
The Comparison
THIS SEASON'S PRODUCTION VS THIS SEASON'S CAP HIT
Not career totals against AAV. Not peak production against current cost. What he did this year divided by what he costs this year. That is the only honest comparison.
Trajectory
THREE SEASONS OF DATA — AND GROWING
A player trending up looks different from a player trending down — even if their current totals are the same.
The arc of a career is visible in the data. We show it.
The Output
SIX PRINCIPLES. ONE NUMBER.
Six principles. One number. That number is the Net Impact Score.
Everything on this page — the scrub, the model, the weighting, both sides of the ice — collapses into a single per-60 metric. What a player actually produced. What he cost while he was on the ice against it. The gap between them, normalized for time.
Map that number against his cap hit and you have something no boxscore has ever given you — an honest answer to the only question that matters at the contract table.
Not career totals. Not peak seasons. Not points accumulated on a line that included McDavid. What he did this year, weighted for what it meant, on both sides of the puck — against what his team is paying today.
A player who earns his contract looks different from a player who is consuming it. The data has always known the difference. Until now, no tool showed it.
The Architecture// FOUR DIMENSIONS
Every goal — scored and allowed — passes through a proprietary multi-layer model before it ever reaches a contract table. Four dimensions, each built entirely from our own data:
01 — Game Importance
What the goal was worth to the outcome of the game.
02 — Shot Quality
How hard the chance was to convert — our own expected-goals model.
03 — Timing
When in the game it happened — and how much that swung the result.
04 — Both Sides
Every goal allowed while he was on the ice, weighted on the same scale — plus the cost of the penalties he takes and the value of the ones he draws.
It resolves to one number — the Net Impact Score, per 60 minutes — mapped against the cap hit. The dimensions are simple to describe; the weights and the way they combine are proprietary. We show you the answer. The engine stays ours.
THE ENGINE IS BUILT. LET'S TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DO WITH IT.
Whether you are evaluating a contract, preparing for a negotiation, or making a decision that cannot be undone — Slashing gives you an honest, independent read before it matters most. Reach out.
