fastRhockey
fastRhockey is an R package for accessing hockey data from the NHL (National Hockey League) and PWHL (Professional Women’s Hockey League) via public web APIs. It provides structured data frames of play-by-play, schedule, standings, roster, draft, player stats, and team data. The package also includes integrated expected goals (xG) models trained via XGBoost.
Part of the SportsDataverse family of R/Python packages for sports analytics.
Key Features
-
NHL Data – Game feeds, boxscores, play-by-play with shifts, schedules, standings, rosters, draft picks, player/team stats, playoffs, and broadcast information via
api-web.nhle.comandapi.nhle.com/stats -
NHL Edge Analytics (33 functions) – Skater, goalie, and team advanced metrics from
api-web.nhle.com/v1/edge/...covering shot location, shot speed, skating speed, skating distance, zone time, comparisons, landing pages, and top-10 leaderboards. Each wrapper accepts an optionalseasonargument and falls back to the current season via the/nowform -
NHL Records API (25 functions) – First-time integration with
records.nhl.com/site/api/for franchise totals, player/skater/goalie career and real-time stats, draft lottery, hall of fame, trophies, awards, attendance, venues, officials, and combine data -
NHL Stats REST (19 dedicated wrappers) –
nhl_stats_franchise(),nhl_stats_players(),nhl_stats_glossary(),nhl_stats_country(),nhl_stats_skater_leaders(),nhl_stats_goalie_leaders(),nhl_stats_skater_milestones(),nhl_stats_goalie_milestones(), plus the originalnhl_stats_skaters()/nhl_stats_goalies()/nhl_stats_teams()/nhl_stats_draft()/nhl_stats_seasons()/nhl_stats_misc()family - PWHL Data – Schedules, standings, play-by-play, player box scores, team rosters, stat leaders, player profiles, game logs, career stats, player search, league leaders, transactions, streaks, playoff brackets, game summaries, and scorebar via the HockeyTech API
- xG Models – Expected goals predictions for NHL play-by-play data using XGBoost models (5v5, special teams, penalty shots)
-
Helper Aggregators – Convenience functions inspired by
nhl-api-pythat combine multiple endpoint calls into a single tidy frame:nhl_game_ids_by_season(),nhl_all_players_by_season(),nhl_player_career_stats(),nhl_team_summary_range(),nhl_skater_summary_range(),nhl_goalie_summary_range() -
Full Season Loaders – Nineteen NHL loaders covering play-by-play (full + lite), schedules, season + per-game rosters, player/skater/goalie/team boxscores, game info, scoring & penalty summaries, three stars, scratches, linescores, shifts, officials, shots-by-period, and shootouts (
load_nhl_pbp(),load_nhl_pbp_lite(),load_nhl_schedule(),load_nhl_rosters(),load_nhl_game_rosters(),load_nhl_team_box(),load_nhl_player_box(),load_nhl_skater_box(),load_nhl_goalie_box(),load_nhl_game_info(),load_nhl_scoring(),load_nhl_penalties(),load_nhl_three_stars(),load_nhl_scratches(),load_nhl_linescore(),load_nhl_shifts(),load_nhl_officials(),load_nhl_shots_by_period(),load_nhl_shootout()); for PWHL, fifteen loaders covering play-by-play, schedules, season + per-game rosters, player/skater/goalie/team boxscores, game info, scoring & penalty summaries, three stars, officials, shots-by-period, and shootouts (load_pwhl_pbp(),load_pwhl_schedule(),load_pwhl_rosters(),load_pwhl_game_rosters(),load_pwhl_player_box(),load_pwhl_skater_box(),load_pwhl_goalie_box(),load_pwhl_team_box(),load_pwhl_game_info(),load_pwhl_scoring_summary(),load_pwhl_penalty_summary(),load_pwhl_three_stars(),load_pwhl_officials(),load_pwhl_shots_by_period(),load_pwhl_shootout())
Note: PHF (Premier Hockey Federation) functions are deprecated as of v1.0.0. The league ceased operations; use PWHL functions instead.
Installation
You can install the CRAN version of fastRhockey with:
install.packages("fastRhockey")You can install the development version from GitHub with:
# You can install using the pak package using the following code:
if (!requireNamespace('pak', quietly = TRUE)){
install.packages('pak')
}
pak::pak("sportsdataverse/fastRhockey")If you would prefer the remotes installation:
if (!requireNamespace('remotes', quietly = TRUE)){
install.packages('remotes')
}
remotes::install_github(repo = "sportsdataverse/fastRhockey")Quick Start
library(fastRhockey)
# NHL
nhl_schedule(season = "20242025")
nhl_standings(season = "20242025")
nhl_game_feed(game_id = 2024020001)
# NHL Edge advanced metrics
nhl_edge_skater_detail(player_id = 8478402) # Connor McDavid, current season
nhl_edge_goalie_save_percentage_detail(player_id = 8475883)
nhl_edge_team_zone_time_details(team_id = 10) # Toronto Maple Leafs
# NHL Records API
nhl_records_franchise()
nhl_records_draft_lottery_odds()
nhl_records_skater_real_time_stats_career(limit = 50)
# Helper aggregators
nhl_game_ids_by_season(season = 2025, team_abbr = "TOR")
nhl_player_career_stats(player_id = 8478402)
nhl_team_summary_range(start_season = 2023, end_season = 2024)
# PWHL
pwhl_schedule(season = 2025)
pwhl_standings(season = 2025)
pwhl_pbp(game_id = 27)
pwhl_player_info(player_id = 28)
pwhl_leaders(position = "skaters", season = 2025)
pwhl_game_summary(game_id = 27)
# Full season loaders
load_nhl_pbp(seasons = 2024)
load_nhl_schedule(seasons = 2024)
load_pwhl_pbp(seasons = 2024)
load_pwhl_schedule(seasons = 2024)
load_pwhl_team_box(seasons = 2024)
load_pwhl_skater_box(seasons = 2024)
load_pwhl_scoring_summary(seasons = 2024)
load_pwhl_penalty_summary(seasons = 2024)
load_pwhl_game_info(seasons = 2024)Documentation
You can find the documentation for fastRhockey on GitHub pages.
You can view CSVs of historical boxscore and play-by-play on the fastRhockey data repo, as well as the process for scraping that historical data.
Citations
To cite the fastRhockey R package in publications, use:
BibTex Citation
@misc{howell_gilani_fastRhockey,
author = {Ben Howell and Saiem Gilani},
title = {fastRhockey: Functions to Access Professional Women's Hockey League and National Hockey League Play by Play Data.},
url = {https://fastRhockey.sportsdataverse.org/},
doi = {10.32614/CRAN.package.fastRhockey},
year = {2025}
}