KingDeathMetal
Registered User
There is a lot of evidence to suggest that smart NHL clubs are way beyond Corsi and shot attempts at this point. Many of them employ their own stats people to come up with new metrics that are not shared publicly, and the video breakdown is so advanced now that you can literally dissect every play. They don't have to settle for Corsi to craft a narrative about a player, because they can literally examine everything. While we all clamor for meaningful zone time stats to measure actual possession times, there are probably a bunch of teams who already do it internally.
The fact is, what we call "advanced stats" are simply a walking stick for a blindfolded fan in a vast forest. They are nice numbers, definitely helpful, but there is so much more that we're not seeing, so much more that teams ARE seeing internally, and even more yet to be seen and analyzed in the future, as the stats movement progresses. I can't place my hand on the Corsi bible while we still don't have any kind of real advanced passing data, or intricate numbers on shot range and goaltender movement. There is so much that we don't know, the "corsi is the best we have!" line just doesn't cut it for me.
Also remember that while we can draw some general predictions from Corsi, individual teams can and do stray from that info. Also, teams drive their Corsi percentages in different ways. The Kings and Islanders are both elite possession teams, but they don't get there the same way. Same with Tampa. Some teams use speed and forechecking, others use size and strength along the boards. Why does it matter? Because an inferior possession team might be a bad style matchup for a better, slower possession team. The Rangers are a great example. Behind Tampa Bay, they're probably the fastest team in the league with the best neutral zone transition game. They can use this advantage to gain the odd man rush, move the puck across ice, force goaltender movement, and set up high scoring opportunities that might have accounted for their higher shooting percentage this year. That's not a fact, but it could be one possible explanation for their high PDO (that and outstanding goaltending which has been the norm for NYR).
The Ducks are usually a poor Corsi team as well, but their size and aggression can be tough for some better possession teams to handle.
Then among the strong Corsi teams, you have the Isles who are great at CF% but also give up a lot of shot attempts too, whereas the Kings and Lightning are better at shot suppression. It's just that the Isles got WAY more shot attempts than they gave up. Halak has very good high-risk save percentages from what I've seen, but he has lower % on mid and low risk shots, and the Isles were a weak penalty killing team on top of that. So the overall low team save percentage compared to league average (a record high .915% this season) hurt the Isles considering all the shot attempts they allow.
Same thing hurt the Kings to an even greater extent. Jonathan Quick was terrible. If he even put up mediocre numbers, the Kings would have cruised to a playoff spot. On the flipside, if the Islanders had a Braden Holtby in net to make up for some penalty killing and shot suppression deficiencies, they might have cruised to the President's trophy.
So there is a lot to consider beyond shot attempts, which most of us know already. What am saying is that there are probably other metrics that can explain the finer points of hockey beyond shot attempts, and many of those metrics, if they exist, are internal top secret info. The whole analytics discussion gets a lot more interesting once the NHL goes the way of the MLB and NBA and actually publicizes everything.
As for these playoffs, and all playoffs, it will always come down to goaltending and shot accuracy over the small sample size period. If Corsi predicts playoff success, then you're saying Corsi predicts the great PDO playoff teams, because like the regular season, that's who triumphs. The high Corsi reg season teams who won recent Stanley Cups all had insane playoff PDO numbers and many strong possession teams post weak Corsi numbers in the playoffs. The fact Cup winners over the last 8 years all had good Corsi except Boston, really doesn't mean much when you consider that two teams account for half of those winners (and it's a small sample anyway). The Kings and Hawks have more than just excellent Corsi. In 2012, the Kings had Jonathan Quick playing out of his mind. In 2014, their playoff PP% was unreal. They're also physical as hell. So it's a lot more complex than just, "they had awesome Corsi numbers through 82 games".
The fact is, what we call "advanced stats" are simply a walking stick for a blindfolded fan in a vast forest. They are nice numbers, definitely helpful, but there is so much more that we're not seeing, so much more that teams ARE seeing internally, and even more yet to be seen and analyzed in the future, as the stats movement progresses. I can't place my hand on the Corsi bible while we still don't have any kind of real advanced passing data, or intricate numbers on shot range and goaltender movement. There is so much that we don't know, the "corsi is the best we have!" line just doesn't cut it for me.
Also remember that while we can draw some general predictions from Corsi, individual teams can and do stray from that info. Also, teams drive their Corsi percentages in different ways. The Kings and Islanders are both elite possession teams, but they don't get there the same way. Same with Tampa. Some teams use speed and forechecking, others use size and strength along the boards. Why does it matter? Because an inferior possession team might be a bad style matchup for a better, slower possession team. The Rangers are a great example. Behind Tampa Bay, they're probably the fastest team in the league with the best neutral zone transition game. They can use this advantage to gain the odd man rush, move the puck across ice, force goaltender movement, and set up high scoring opportunities that might have accounted for their higher shooting percentage this year. That's not a fact, but it could be one possible explanation for their high PDO (that and outstanding goaltending which has been the norm for NYR).
The Ducks are usually a poor Corsi team as well, but their size and aggression can be tough for some better possession teams to handle.
Then among the strong Corsi teams, you have the Isles who are great at CF% but also give up a lot of shot attempts too, whereas the Kings and Lightning are better at shot suppression. It's just that the Isles got WAY more shot attempts than they gave up. Halak has very good high-risk save percentages from what I've seen, but he has lower % on mid and low risk shots, and the Isles were a weak penalty killing team on top of that. So the overall low team save percentage compared to league average (a record high .915% this season) hurt the Isles considering all the shot attempts they allow.
Same thing hurt the Kings to an even greater extent. Jonathan Quick was terrible. If he even put up mediocre numbers, the Kings would have cruised to a playoff spot. On the flipside, if the Islanders had a Braden Holtby in net to make up for some penalty killing and shot suppression deficiencies, they might have cruised to the President's trophy.
So there is a lot to consider beyond shot attempts, which most of us know already. What am saying is that there are probably other metrics that can explain the finer points of hockey beyond shot attempts, and many of those metrics, if they exist, are internal top secret info. The whole analytics discussion gets a lot more interesting once the NHL goes the way of the MLB and NBA and actually publicizes everything.
As for these playoffs, and all playoffs, it will always come down to goaltending and shot accuracy over the small sample size period. If Corsi predicts playoff success, then you're saying Corsi predicts the great PDO playoff teams, because like the regular season, that's who triumphs. The high Corsi reg season teams who won recent Stanley Cups all had insane playoff PDO numbers and many strong possession teams post weak Corsi numbers in the playoffs. The fact Cup winners over the last 8 years all had good Corsi except Boston, really doesn't mean much when you consider that two teams account for half of those winners (and it's a small sample anyway). The Kings and Hawks have more than just excellent Corsi. In 2012, the Kings had Jonathan Quick playing out of his mind. In 2014, their playoff PP% was unreal. They're also physical as hell. So it's a lot more complex than just, "they had awesome Corsi numbers through 82 games".
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