Advanced Stats and Corsi - Another look. (Mod Warning - Keep it Civil)

[Canada4Gold]

This was posted on the main board GDT 2 nights ago, I found it really interesting

http://www.extraskater.com/reports/team-game-data?sort=corsi_pct&sit=all

16 or the 18 most dominating games Corsi wise, the team who dominated lost.

 

[achtungbaby]

This was posted on the main board GDT 2 nights ago, I found it really interesting

http://www.extraskater.com/reports/team-game-data?sort=corsi_pct&sit=all

16 or the 18 most dominating games Corsi wise, the team who dominated lost.

That's unsustainable. Seriously, that's weird.

 

[thewave]

Need some raw numbers.

Time with puck
+zone D/N/O
+Shots for
+Goals for
+hits for against

Time without puck
+Zone
+Shots against
+Goals against
+hits for against

Who has this informations?

 

[ponder]

We've been outplayed in the vast majority of games all season long (all decade long, for that matter). A combination of luck, very good finishers and very good goaltending allowed us to start the year with a good record, but it's just not sustainable. Corsi is far from perfect, but it does a decent job of identifying which teams have the puck a lot, and which teams rarely have the puck, and puck possession DOES translate to wins pretty well in the long run. Lots of 12 year olds were screaming "LOLOLOLOL **** CORSI HAHAHA!!!", but in reality the criticism that the Leafs simply weren't a very good team despite their strong record were spot on.

 

[achtungbaby]

I can post some tonight if no one gets around to it by then. It's a pain in the butt to do on a phone. In the meantime, behindthenet.ca can be navigated.

 

[BayStBullies]

Corsi has proven to be a useful tool when identifying strengths and weaknesses of teams and players.

Even when the Leafs were winning early on, and Power Rankings were still rankng the Leafs lower then the NHL standings because they based their playoff predictions and strengths based on Corsi.

Winning while defying the stats of being consistently outworked, outplayed and outshot will eventually play out as expected and isn't sustainable over time.

Being critical of your team even in wins has merit as there are early warning signs of pending trouble if things are not corrected.

There isn't a stat for out-worked. It's nice that you took some interest in the subject though; keep at it! Next time include some examples...

 

[Semantics]

I also find it funny how the Corsi people now blithely refer to an 8 game losing streak with no points at game 70 of an 82 game season as somehow "proof" that they were right all along about longterm unsustainable trends. It doesn't work like that, but keep patting yourselves on the back.

Except that kind of is how it works. If the Leafs had played those 8 games at the start of the season and been out of a playoff spot from the get go, I bet you'd have been on the "they need to improve their Corsi" bandwagon this whole time.

 

[number72]

I also find it funny how the Corsi people now blithely refer to an 8 game losing streak with no points at game 70 of an 82 game season as somehow "proof" that they were right all along about longterm unsustainable trends. It doesn't work like that, but keep patting yourselves on the back.

This is a fair point and a gambler's fallacy bias the corsi crowd is making because after the Kings win, corsi "predicted" the leafs would end with 92 points or so.

The leafs did worse then even then corsi would have predicted.

 

[Semantics]

This was posted on the main board GDT 2 nights ago, I found it really interesting

http://www.extraskater.com/reports/team-game-data?sort=corsi_pct&sit=all

16 or the 18 most dominating games Corsi wise, the team who dominated lost.

When a team gets a lead they often sit back and just try to kill the remaining minutes. There are some exceptions in this list, such as the Leafs win in Anaheim, but I believe most of them can be explained that way.

That's why single game Corsi numbers aren't super meaningful, or any stat for that matter. It's important to aggregate across a lot of games. Corsi CLOSE is also probably a bit more telling if one does need to look at a small sample size.

 

[Warden of the North]

We've been outplayed in the vast majority of games all season long (all decade long, for that matter). A combination of luck, very good finishers and very good goaltending allowed us to start the year with a good record, but it's just not sustainable. Corsi is far from perfect, but it does a decent job of identifying which teams have the puck a lot, and which teams rarely have the puck, and puck possession DOES translate to wins pretty well in the long run. Lots of 12 year olds were screaming "LOLOLOLOL **** CORSI HAHAHA!!!", but in reality the criticism that the Leafs simply weren't a very good team despite their strong record were spot on.

And yet if it wasnt for a two week stretch of hockey we'd be comfortably in a playoff spot.

 

[thewave]

There isn't a stat for out-worked. It's nice that you took some interest in the subject though; keep at it! Next time include some examples...

Need a camera that measures tempo or heart rate monitors on players that feed into a system that charts this.

Leafs should invest in this technology. See who is a coaster

 

[Epictetus]

The fact that Leaf management intentionally ignores\denies a tool that can lead to better results is what is truly upsetting.

Same people, same results.

 

[ponder]

And yet if it wasnt for a two week stretch of hockey we'd be comfortably in a playoff spot.

I've heard this said about the Leafs an insane number of times over the last decade. "We played like a playoff team over part of the season, just need to find that consistency!" The losing streaks are every bit as indicative of the team's quality as the winning streaks.

We have improved from a bad team to a below average team, but that's still all we are. 19th in the league in points, 21st in the league in goal differential. Last year we were 9th in the league in points, but it was a short season and a tonne of teams were virtually tied in points. Despite being 9th in the league in points, we were just 2 points ahead of 17th in points. We were still very much average, and I'm not sure we would have sustained our position over a full season. We are definitely better than we used to be, but still have major work to do to become a consistent, solid playoff team, nevermind a legit contender.

 

[Semantics]

And yet if it wasnt for a two week stretch of hockey we'd be comfortably in a playoff spot.

And if it wasn't for a two week stretch of hockey at the start of the year, we'd be comfortably picking #5 overall. See how that works?

 

[Warden of the North]

I've heard this said about the Leafs an insane number of times over the last decade. "We played like a playoff team over part of the season, just need to find that consistency!" The losing streaks are every bit as indicative of the team's quality as the winning streaks.

We have improved from a bad team to a below average team, but that's still all we are. 19th in the league in points, 21st in the league in goal differential. Last year we were 9th in the league in points, but just 2 points ahead of 17th in the league in points - I'm not sure we would have sustained our position over a full season. We are definitely better than we used to be, but still have major work to do to become a consistent, solid playoff team, nevermind a legit contender.

I agree we have a lot of work to do.

I just hate the arguement "Leafs only win because of goalscoring and goaltending". EVERY team wins because of those two elements, in particular goaltending. Why is that the Leafs are the only team in the league where having goalscoring and stellar goaltending is viewed as a detriment?

 

[achtungbaby]

And yet if it wasnt for a two week stretch of hockey we'd be comfortably in a playoff spot.

Without our great start we're in lottery territory.

 

[LeafDangler]

I agree we have a lot of work to do.

I just hate the arguement "Leafs only win because of goalscoring and goaltending". EVERY team wins because of those two elements, in particular goaltending. Why is that the Leafs are the only team in the league where having goalscoring and stellar goaltending is viewed as a detriment?

It's not at all. But building a cup contending team (that's what we're trying to do isn't it?) takes more than that. Analytics can help us identify not only what we're bad at but what we're good at as well.

 

[achtungbaby]

I agree we have a lot of work to do.

I just hate the arguement "Leafs only win because of goalscoring and goaltending". EVERY team wins because of those two elements, in particular goaltending. Why is that the Leafs are the only team in the league where having goalscoring and stellar goaltending is viewed as a detriment?

I wouldn't call it a detriment but even the staunchest leaf supporter would admit we're not a very well rounded team. The way we play offense isn't very defensively responsible if that makes any sense.

 

[WilliamNylander]

I agree we have a lot of work to do.

I just hate the arguement "Leafs only win because of goalscoring and goaltending". EVERY team wins because of those two elements, in particular goaltending. Why is that the Leafs are the only team in the league where having goalscoring and stellar goaltending is viewed as a detriment?

Because the Leafs allow the most shots and shot attempts against in NHL history. No other team relies on goaltending as much as we do, its not even close

 

[cack]

I also find it funny how the Corsi people now blithely refer to an 8 game losing streak with no points at game 70 of an 82 game season as somehow "proof" that they were right all along about longterm unsustainable trends. It doesn't work like that, but keep patting yourselves on the back.

Corsi does not tell anyone who follows hockey anything they do not already know. Bad teams suck, average teams might or might not make the playoffs and stacked teams will dominate and probably win the championship. Perhaps they want a thank you letter for finally catching up with the rest of the world.

 

[Mess]

There isn't a stat for out-worked. It's nice that you took some interest in the subject though; keep at it! Next time include some examples...

You're correct there isn't a direct stat, but rather a conclusion based on the facts/stats and confirmed via eyesight.

If your 30th in shots against per game in the NHL and have a negative shot differential of ~10 per game also the worst mark in the league. If your opponent is creating more scoring chances and surrendering less, doesn't that imply you're being outworked and outplayed regularly?

If Leafs were dominating the game clock and shot clock then they wouldn't be on the wrong end of being outplayed belief.

Take yesterday for example shots 41-25 and Jets kept the Leafs hemmed in their own zone a large portion of game and won easily 4-2 (including a gift goal to TO). Did you not believe the Leafs were outworked, outplayed and outshot in this game?.

 

[nuck]

And yet if it wasnt for a two week stretch of hockey we'd be comfortably in a playoff spot.

If your goalie has to substantially outplay your opponent's goalie on a routine basis then its only a matter of time. All streaks end, although when the top line is filling the net it creates an additional cushion. I think the club always knew they were playing with fire but Nonis and RC had no solutions. The advance stats are interesting but you don't need to know anything about relative Corsi or QC to know that giving the other team 6 or 8 more chances to score every night is a losing strategy. So long as they win there is no urgency to make a change. Now there is some urgency.

 

[WilliamNylander]

And yet if it wasnt for a two week stretch of hockey we'd be comfortably in a playoff spot.

its called regression to the mean

 

[ponder]

I agree we have a lot of work to do.

I just hate the arguement "Leafs only win because of goalscoring and goaltending". EVERY team wins because of those two elements, in particular goaltending. Why is that the Leafs are the only team in the league where having goalscoring and stellar goaltending is viewed as a detriment?

It's more that hot shooters and hot goalies are streaky, while things like puck possession, solid team d and physicality are pretty stable. It's very rare for a team with weak defence, soft players and poor puck possession to be a top team in the NHL, because the moment your top shooters and/or your goalie go on a bit of a cold streak, you suck. The consistently good teams win with great puck possession and strong defensive play, because even when the bounces aren't going your way, you can still win a lot of games with a team like that.

If you have pretty solid puck possession and team defence, but your strength is elite finishers and goaltending, that's absolutely fine - you've likely got a great team. BUT if you're relying on great finishing and goaltending to bail you out of consistently terrible puck possession and team d, then you're looking at an unsustainable formula. That's not the kind of team that can win a high percentage of games all season long.

 

[number72]

Without our great start we're in lottery territory.

Without an 8 game losing streak we are in the playoffs


But I realize some say Corsi predicted the leafs failure this year. but what about last year? Or what about the habs, flyers and Avalanche this year?

I think corsi tells us the team is not elite but it does not do a great job at catching a number of teams that win despite getting outshot. Corsi is another piece of the puzzle that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't