I am trying to understand this Corsi stuff for the first time.
Last year didn't Tallinder face the easiest competition, while Volchenkov faced the hardest?
Seriously help me out with this would like to at least have an understanding of it.
(possible wall of text incoming, sorry in advance
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Yeah, last year Tallinder had relatively easy minutes, but he also performed very well in those minutes. It was a shortended season and he was injured and out of the lineup often (another reason his value is probably way lower than I'd think), so I didn't want to use that as an example of his true talent (it certainly counts, though). In general, I feel like last season is a bit of a throwaway since lots of D were in an out of the lineup often.
I'll try not to get too carried away, but "corsi" in general is like +/-, except with shot attempts (goals + shots on goal + shots blocked + missed shots) instead of goals, and only at even strength. So when a guy has a corsi number of say, 20, that means when he was on the ice at even strength, his team directed 20 more shot attempts at the opponent's net than the opponent's shot at his own net. It doesn't say anything about the quality of those shot attempts, but it works as an indicator of puck possession, since you need to have the puck in order to try and shoot it. So the higher corsi number a player has, the more time he team spends with the puck when he's on the ice. It's been proven to be more effective at predicting future success than points or many statistics involving goals, since goals and scoring are driven heavily by shooting percentage, which can fluctuate pretty highly from season to season.
"Corsi rel" just means relative corsi, which tells how many more (or less) shots the team attempted with that player on the ice, compared to how many shots the team attempts overall. So it's an indication of whether the team does better or worse than the team-wide shot attempt average when a player is on the ice at even strength. High is good, low is technically bad, but like all stats, depends on context.
To help with context, other ratings were developed to try and determine whether a player was generally playing difficult or easy minutes. Corsi QoC is simply the average corsi number of all the opponent skaters that the player in question was on the ice against. So a higher number means that the player in question was on the ice (at even strength) against better possession players of other teams. Zone starts are also taken into account, because it's more difficult to start in the defensive zone than the offensive zone. There's also corsi QoT, which is like QoC except it measures the corsi of a player's teammates, to try and see how much help he may have gotten from his team.
So now, if you look at this page:
http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_stat...3+5+4+6+7+8+13+14+29+30+32+33+34+45+46+63+67#
Tallinder has the highest corsi rel on the team, which means the Devils outshot their opponents most heavily whenever Tallinder was on the ice. However, his corsi QoC and corsi rel QoC are both negative, which means he was generally out against poor possession players, making his good corsi a little less meaningful. On top of that, he started in the offensive zone 55.8% of the time (this stat doesn't include neutral zone draws), which was only behind Harrold and Zidlicky, so it's safe to say that overall he had pretty easy minutes.
Volchenkov's corsi rel QoC was also negative, so even though his regular corsi QoC was positive, the skaters he played against tended to play worse than the rest of their team. Volchenkov also started more often in the offensive zone than the defensive zone, and although his corsi rel isn't negative, it still isn't great considering his minutes were also easy. In general, if a player is playing easy minutes, you want to see that he's playing great in those minutes, instead of just treading water.
I hope that was at least a little bit helpful, if not there's a lot of really helpful articles I can dig up explaining possession stats and why they can be useful. Sometimes you'll also see corsi and fenwick (fenwick is the same thing as corsi, except it doesn't count blocked shots as shot attempts since blocking shots can be considered a positive skill) listed as a percentage, so a corsi-for percentage (CF%) of 55%, for example, is telling you that the team directs a majority of all shot attempts at the opponent's net, instead of allowing them. Please ask questions if you have them, I have no idea if I did a good job explaining this stuff or not.
) -- I think once people wrap their heads around corsi, that'll be the new stat to embrace. The charts can still be a little bit convoluted when it comes to teams/players you don't follow closely, though.
