Research & Analysis

Lake-backed Swedish studies and public-league analytical notes — all in one Research feed. Prefer pieces marked as MotherDuck-sourced when you need citable numbers.

SHL clubs beat coaches: returning cores win, age does not, and 2026/27 still looks like last year’s top four

Sep 1, 2026

52 SHL team-seasons. Roster continuity correlates 0.32 with points share; mean age does not. Coaching changes barely move the needle. We cannot rank 20 years of GMs from available staff data. A transparent prior for 2026/27: Frölunda, Växjö, Skellefteå, Rögle.

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SHL timeout sequel: Färjestad hammers the button, Växjö barely touches it

Aug 31, 2026

Part 3 of the timeout study — which SHL clubs used the 30-second break over five seasons. HV71 in half their games, Växjö in 23%. Timrå and Örebro mostly press it while trailing; Malmö and HV71 do not.

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SHL referees are not interchangeable: penalty rates for 23 officials over five seasons

Aug 31, 2026

Same 1,854 SHL regular-season games as our timeout study. League average 5.52 penalties per game. Among officials with 150+ assignments, Tobias Björk sits at 5.82 and Johan Wedin at 4.94. First public cut at the “referees are noise” claim — assignment rates, not who-called-it.

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SHL timeout sequel: the coaches who never leave it in the pocket

Aug 28, 2026

Part 2 of our timeout study — which SHL coaches used the 30-second break most over five seasons, the quiet 2021/22 dip, and why the empty-net gamble still looks like a bad lottery ticket.

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Do SHL Timeouts Actually Work? What 1,303 Coach's Timeouts Over 5 Seasons Reveal

Aug 26, 2026

No hockey knowledge needed. We looked at every timeout coaches used in Sweden's top hockey league over five seasons (1,303 of them). Almost all are used late, by a team that is losing, to set up one last desperate gamble — and it rarely works. Explained in plain language, with simple charts.

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Not all SHL clubs develop juniors the same — three seasons of JITS%

Aug 12, 2026

Junior ice-time share (JITS%) across SHL grundserie 2023/24–2025/26. Skellefteå averages 14.7% U20 skater TOI; Färjestad 2.5%. Same league, very different development bets.

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