Post-Game Talk: Leafs Win 4-1 | "Corsi Enthusiasts Hate Them!"

[Budsfan]

Corsi isn't supposed to stand on it's own.
You're supposed to look at Corsi, and assess it together with other statistics/observations.

The leafs have terrible possession/Corsi ratings. It's pretty much common sense that if you possess the puck far more often, have far more shots, and allow far less shots... you'll probably win more often.

If your Corsi rating is very low, but you're still winning, you need to look at other statistics and try to assess why.
And it's very obvious with the leafs. Bernier up till recently was putting up numbers that if kept constant over the whole season, would be the best statistics in all of world history.

If you believe that Bernier will continue to put up the best statistics ever in all world history, then you have nothing to worry about. The Corsi rankings won't matter. Not with goaltending like that.

But if you think that it's possible that Bernier's statistics may drop from the best EVER to a more reasonable level... well... thats' when the weaknesses in the team exposed by the Corsi ratings may come back to haunt us.

I personally think that our goaltending will come back down to earth... but our Corsi ratings will improve. This I think will balance out to us being a pretty strong team that started the season with a bit more points then they deserved.

I agree on your assessment of "Avanced Stats" Corsi and Fenwick and almost all statistics should be used in conjunction with other statisics and I was going to post a similar observation.

People using statistics, tend to use only portions of of stats, mostly to prove their side of an arguement and most statistics by themselves, are misleading, or of no value.

Brian Burke.....

“Statistics are like a lamp post to a drunk-useful for support, but not for illumination.â€

 

[BonMorrison]

Whilst I love this whole "prove Corsi wrong" thing we got going, the posters who are actually just calling all of it ******** is kind of irking me. Again, they're complimentary statistics not fully engrained statistics.

 

[Hotlanta]

Whilst I love this whole "prove Corsi wrong" thing we got going, the posters who are actually just calling all of it ******** is kind of irking me. Again, they're complimentary statistics not fully engrained statistics.

The one I don't get is the turnover statistic. It can be skewed positively by a team that has horrible puck possession. For some reason fans think low turnovers makes you a good puck possession team, when in reality, if you don't ever have the puck, you can't turn it over.

 

[Darch]

List of positives from this game:

-we scored more than them

List of most important stats in the NHL

-scoring more than the other team

 

[Pi]

List of most important stats in the NHL

-scoring more than the other team

Exactly.

You want to win a playoff series? You have to win 4 games before the other team does...the goal isn't to make sure your corsi is better than the other team.

You want to win a hockey game? Score more than the other team.

One of these days...I know we'll get our ass handed to us because we're too sloppy to start the first period but until that day comes, we're winning and putting 2 points in the bank.

 

[EDDIE20*]

List of most important stats in the NHL

-scoring more than the other team

This should be stickied!

For all those nerds who ply up stats and figures... It's so simple - You score more goals than the other team, you win. You score less goals than the other team, you lose. It ain't ****ing rocket science.

 

[Trainspotter]

If your Corsi rating is very low, but you're still winning, you need to look at other statistics and try to assess why.
And it's very obvious with the leafs. Bernier up till recently was putting up numbers that if kept constant over the whole season, would be the best statistics in all of world history.

If you believe that Bernier will continue to put up the best statistics ever in all world history, then you have nothing to worry about. The Corsi rankings won't matter. Not with goaltending like that.

Hmmm...not to put too fine a point on it, but you're wrong. For instance, even if Bernier had a Sv% of .915 (his career average) we still win a number of those games. PHI had 32 shots and would've therefore scored less than 2 goals. The Leafs had 3. NSH had 36 shots and would've scored just 3 goals. The Leafs had 4. In both cases, the team scored more goals than necessary to beat those teams if Bernier plays at his average.

 

[Wasp]

The one I don't get is the turnover statistic. It can be skewed positively by a team that has horrible puck possession. For some reason fans think low turnovers makes you a good puck possession team, when in reality, if you don't ever have the puck, you can't turn it over.

That's the problem with so many of these advanced statistics—they make assumptions about which stats are positive and which ones are negative without considering that the opposite just might be true.

Take shots, for example. Shots aren't always a positive outcome to a situation. The point of a shot is to have it go in the net, not to generate a meaningless shot statistic. A weak shot from the wing, or from the point with no traffic, has an incredibly low probability to score. If you can create more scoring chances with less shots, wouldn't that be a better outcome than having a high shot number with less goals?

Possession, and in turn Corsi, is another example. Possession is only positive if it can contribute to a scoring chance. A 2 minute bout of cycling in the offensive zone that results in a low probability shot and save will look great in Corsi / shot stats, but in the end it will rarely produce a goal.

If the Leafs can keep this up, it might actually produce a new wave of statistics similar to when baseball people realized the inherent flaws in the stats they thought were important (Average, RBI, ERA, Wins), or the current trend in basketball towards point-per-shot charts and the value of a certain shot vs. another. What if all of the stats we think are important, simply aren't?

 

[FlareKnight]

Whilst I love this whole "prove Corsi wrong" thing we got going, the posters who are actually just calling all of it ******** is kind of irking me. Again, they're complimentary statistics not fully engrained statistics.

Well doesn't help when some people supporting the whole Corsi thing present it as some revelation from the gods of math. The people not using it in any sort of complimentary way just put everyone else on the defensive and force them to pick a side.

 

[SteveV*]

I wonder what these advanced stats would have said about those Pat Quinn teams.

 

[Raym11]

dear fans of other teams, we have won 6 of 7 games



That is the only advanced stats the leafs care about.

 

[ULF_55]

I keep hearing people want to pick up another defender?

Why?

Bernier will continue to have a .946 save percentage, and set a new record like the other 10 goaltender currently sporting the best save percentages in 10 years.

There is nothing in their record that suggests the Leafs need to improve anything. Other than coming up against the best goaltender in the league and losing, the Leafs are perfect.

Can anyone point out any stats more important than wins indicating any improvements are needed?

 

[Chandrashekhar Limit]

Like the Jordan Eberle "Unsustainable" ones? That's bad voodoo man.

Yep, similar to those ones.

Reeks of troll.

Completely agree.

How is this one?

That's pretty sweet. Kinda subtle in a way, but that's what makes it great IMO.

 

[Budsfan]

The other thing about Corsi, is that Fans really shouldn't be concerned with using it, it was invented by a coach, to improve his players.

I can see a coach using it and saying to a player, your defence is pretty good but your not taking enough shots on net, maybe if you do we can get more tip ins, or some of those shots, may find the back of the net.

One player stands out in my mind, was Kaberle, he was good on D but infuriating, when he was on the point taking a shot, or for the lack there of, is more to the point, opposing players knew if he got the puck it was a 50/50 chance, or less, that he would take shot and it always seemed, he was looking to take a shot, that would at least be on the net and have good chance of going in.

 

[Grant]

Hope to god we can keep all 4 of Phaneuf, Franson, Gardiner and Bolland past this year.

Personally I would like to find room for Raymond in there as well. Will be tough though.

 

[4evaBlue]

Does anyone actually use corsi outside of hockey bloggers that need some reason to justify their existence having never played the game before?

This does not compute. You have 18k+ posts and have not noticed people constantly referring to that useless stat to prove an awful point? Like, how good of a two-way player Grabovski is, etc.

 

[Cor]

Being at the game last night, opened my eyes at to just how bad the atmosphere at the ACC is. There was maybe 2 or 3 go leafs go chants, and less then 40% of the lower bowl (at least) is just gray and black and looks disgusting.

After the Minny goal, I stood up and jokingly chanted "Bernier's better" and realized all the businessmen were on their phones texting. Some people laughed and a few chanted as well. (My buddy is a huge Reimer fan, so he got pissed at me)

Having been to Leaf games in Ottawa, Detroit, and Buffalo... the atmosphere for the Leafs in Ottawa is a WHOLE LOT better then the atmosphere in Toronto

 

[Damisoph]

I don't need Corsi or Fenwick to tell me the Leafs can't continue winning 6 of 7 all season.

 

[Damisoph]

Being at the game last night, opened my eyes at to just how bad the atmosphere at the ACC is. There was maybe 2 or 3 go leafs go chants, and less then 40% of the lower bowl (at least) is just gray and black and looks disgusting.

After the Minny goal, I stood up and jokingly chanted "Bernier's better" and realized all the businessmen were on their phones texting. Some people laughed and a few chanted as well. (My buddy is a huge Reimer fan, so he got pissed at me)

Having been to Leaf games in Ottawa, Detroit, and Buffalo... the atmosphere for the Leafs in Ottawa is a WHOLE LOT better then the atmosphere in Toronto

Yep, 5-7k in Ottawa or Montreal make more noise than almost 20k at ACC

 

[Penalty Kill Icing*]

Dude calls in TSN Radio and says:

"I went to the game last night. I feel cheated because I paid for tix, parking and Leafs got outplayed and outshot."

I guess this guy likes games where Leafs put up 40-10 shots but lose the game 2-0.

 

[Cor]

Dude calls in TSN Radio and says:

"I went to the game last night. I feel cheated because I paid for tix, parking and Leafs got outplayed and outshot."

I guess this guy likes games where Leafs put up 40-10 shots but lose the game 2-0.

I don't even think the Leafs were outplayed, (with the exception of the first period). People need to understand shots aren't the gospel.

Do you want 5 shots and no goals because you are just throwing pucks at the net... or 1 shot 1 goal because you set up chance?

 

[Warden of the North]

Dude calls in TSN Radio and says:

"I went to the game last night. I feel cheated because I paid for tix, parking and Leafs got outplayed and outshot."

I guess this guy likes games where Leafs put up 40-10 shots but lose the game 2-0.

I heard that. The best part was when he said "the Leafs should have crushed them" then O'Neill said "Dude, they did. They won 4 to 1"

 

[colchar]

Corsi isn't supposed to stand on it's own.
You're supposed to look at Corsi, and assess it together with other statistics/observations.

The leafs have terrible possession/Corsi ratings. It's pretty much common sense that if you possess the puck far more often, have far more shots, and allow far less shots... you'll probably win more often.

If your Corsi rating is very low, but you're still winning, you need to look at other statistics and try to assess why.
And it's very obvious with the leafs. Bernier up till recently was putting up numbers that if kept constant over the whole season, would be the best statistics in all of world history.

If you believe that Bernier will continue to put up the best statistics ever in all world history, then you have nothing to worry about. The Corsi rankings won't matter. Not with goaltending like that.

But if you think that it's possible that Bernier's statistics may drop from the best EVER to a more reasonable level... well... thats' when the weaknesses in the team exposed by the Corsi ratings may come back to haunt us.

I personally think that our goaltending will come back down to earth... but our Corsi ratings will improve. This I think will balance out to us being a pretty strong team that started the season with a bit more points then they deserved.

Can you write a post, any post, without resorting to ridiculous hyperbole? You remind me of the undergrads I used to teach who liked to make grandiose sweeping statements in essays because they thought that those statements were impactful or made them sound intelligent when the reality was that those statements just made them sound silly.

 

[colchar]

Dude calls in TSN Radio and says:

"I went to the game last night. I feel cheated because I paid for tix, parking and Leafs got outplayed and outshot."

I guess this guy likes games where Leafs put up 40-10 shots but lose the game 2-0.

Please tell me you're kidding.

ETA: Apparently you weren't kidding. With regards to the guy who called in - as I've said countless times, sometimes the worst part about being a Leafs fan is other Leafs fans.

 

[Ari91]

I heard that. The best part was when he said "the Leafs should have crushed them" then O'Neill said "Dude, they did. They won 4 to 1"

When you're a large fanbase, you deal with dumb people outside of the fanbase as well as within it