Not another Corsi discussion...

[vikingGoalie]

http://blog.triblive.com/chipped-ic...factors-in-penguins-possession/#axzz2rdBcKhYG

dunno if everyone's seen this yet or not.
I have some issues with CORSI, but it is a little bit concerning when you hear a stat like Malkin's CORSI has dropped to 5.46 this year vs 16.04 last year.

I'm pretty on the fence on how relavent these stats are, and as always stats are only part of a picture. Still I don't like the trend portrayed in this article even if it's only a small part of the story.

Click to read more...

 

[IcedCapp]

haha Rossi talking Corsi

hahahahaha

PS - please don't let me laughing at Rossi take away from a good discussion. Sorry. I'm going to read it as soon as I finish wiping my eyes.

 

[Dying Alive]

haha Rossi talking Corsi

hahahahaha

PS - please don't let me laughing at Rossi take away from a good discussion. Sorry. I'm going to read it as soon as I finish wiping my eyes.

Jesse Marshall wrote that, not Rossi. You can tell 'cause it's not written in crayon.

 

[IcedCapp]

Jesse Marshall wrote that, not Rossi. You can tell 'cause it's not written in crayon.

****, you're saying I should have read it BEFORE i laughed?

Fine. I'm going now.

 

[LetangInTheSO]

haha Rossi talking Corsi

hahahahaha

PS - please don't let me laughing at Rossi take away from a good discussion. Sorry. I'm going to read it as soon as I finish wiping my eyes.

This. Corsi is a pretty dubious statistic to begin with, IMO, and I really think this board should ban material written by Rossi.

I almost completely disregard +/- and Corsi. I'd be more interested in a statistic that tracked guys' ice time in all 3 zones rather than shot attempts/goals for/against. Even that statistic would only be marginally more useful than the good old fashioned eye test.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Rossi isn't the one talking about it.

I see I'm late.

 

[Tender Rip]

Of course, this is where we are not allowed to chip in on the relative drawbacks of Jokinen on Malkin's line....

 

[IcedCapp]

okay, at the suggestion of DA, it wasn't written by Rossi and it's actually quite interesting.

I'm not so much concerned about Malkin's dip as I am the team-wide dip in both corsi and offensive zone time.

I'm not sure the injuries are to blame, because my eyeball test would tell me that while the team may not have been better at possessing the puck in the offensive zone during the injuries, they were much better at dispossessing the opponent of the puck.

You would have to look at the numbers for that specific time period to be sure, of course, and I don't think we have the power to do so, but that would be the most-telling stat.

In fact, I'd love to see the Penguins' Corsi numbers cut into three chunks: beginning of year, heavily-injured period, and post-injuries (post Christmas break).

Only then could I be totally sure of what significance, if any, the injuries, etc... have had on the Penguins "woes".

Last thing I'd add is: this is nothing knew. A lot of people, you know, the ones who keep getting yelled at, "IT'S JUST A REGULAR SEASON GAME, EVERYONE LOSES A REGULAR SEASON GAME" have been harping on these points for a while. While we may not have been using corsi numbers to do so, you don't have to use advanced metrics to see that the Penguins aren't possessing the puck nearly enough to be considered an elite team.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

Read the comments:

"kane crosby gibbons 1st line kunitz malkin neal 2nd line yokinin sutter magna 3rd line glass vitaly 4th line.we miss vitaly baddly just as bad as my spelling. I forgot adoms on the 4th line.the speed of the first line would be scary and kunitz fits great on the second line.the 3rd line whould be a threat every game."

 

[Winger for Hire]

Read the comments:

"kane crosby gibbons 1st line kunitz malkin neal 2nd line yokinin sutter magna 3rd line glass vitaly 4th line.we miss vitaly baddly just as bad as my spelling. I forgot adoms on the 4th line.the speed of the first line would be scary and kunitz fits great on the second line.the 3rd line whould be a threat every game."

How nice of Rossi to comment.

 

[DegenX]

Guessing that stretch where Neal was out and Geno had JJ and Kobasew on his wings has something to do with that.

And also, this ...

Of course, this is where we are not allowed to chip in on the relative drawbacks of Jokinen on Malkin's line....

 

[IcedCapp]

Guessing that stretch where Neal was out and Geno had JJ and Kobasew on his wings has something to so with that.

And also, this ...

this could be the salient point.

If you look at the worst players on the Penguins by Corsi: Chris Conner, Tanner Glass, Taylor Pyatt, Craig Adams, Chuck Kobasew - all have spent at least a little time in the top-6.

Outside of just having a rotating assortment of players in the top-6 making it hard to create chemistry and stability, these players are bad at possessing the puck. So bad, in fact, that they are able to undo the powers of Crosby and Malkin, at least to some degree.

But that can't explain all of it. There have certainly been games where Crosby and/or Malkin have played poorly. Yes, they are playing under less-than-ideal circumstances, but they still control them, and they have to be better.

We could also talk about Brooks Orpik and Rob Scuderi being bad at puck possession, but I feel like that topic might be too edgy.

 

[billybudd]

Interesting.

Worth noting that Jacques Martin's teams, iirc, always run a bit cold with Corsi (not CORSI...it's a guy's name, not an acronym) and Bylsma's, historically, a bit hot, so Martin-inspired changes will account for some of this discrepancy. Penguins smoked the Habs on things like Corsi and score close Fenwick, but still lost. Same was true the next season with Tampa, except it was more extreme in that the Penguins positive Fenwick differential may have been a record for a team that ended up losing during the period of time in which it has been tracked.

Reason for this is Martin's overall strategy was always to manipulate shot quality (which does exist) instead of competing on volume like a Boudreau/DB team would do. Martin is why the Penguins collapse so low, leaving the points alone, which prolongs cycles, but also drops the average quality of a shot like a rock.

Interesting nonetheless. My guess is Marshall didn't touch on the third and fourth lines because he didn't want to depress everyone.

 

[DegenX]

this could be the salient point.

If you look at the worst players on the Penguins by Corsi: Chris Conner, Tanner Glass, Taylor Pyatt, Craig Adams, Chuck Kobasew - all have spent at least a little time in the top-6.

Outside of just having a rotating assortment of players in the top-6 making it hard to create chemistry and stability, these players are bad at possessing the puck. So bad, in fact, that they are able to undo the powers of Crosby and Malkin, at least to some degree.

But that can't explain all of it. There have certainly been games where Crosby and/or Malkin have played poorly. Yes, they are playing under less-than-ideal circumstances, but they still control them, and they have to be better.

We could also talk about Brooks Orpik and Rob Scuderi being bad at puck possession, but I feel like that topic might be too edgy.

All of that factors in to it, as does billybudd's point about JM's teams stats. That's the problem with these sort of articles that just look at the end result and doesn't attempt to take in to account any contributing factors.

And while I was perhaps a little more generous than Tender Rip by including Kobasew, the truth is watching Jokinen play certainly suggests that he'd have a negative impact on that line stat wise. Even in the stretches where he's playing well, he still tends to float and give up the puck rather easily. There's a reason Geno will often try to force a pass to Neal even if JJ is wide open. But that's just going by watching the games, I honestly haven't looked at Corsi or Fenwick for that line as a whole.

 

[vikingGoalie]

Interesting.
... Corsi (not CORSI...it's a guy's name, not an acronym) ...

my bad..

 

[AjaxTelamon]

That really is the opposite of an in-depth article right there.

I think a prime issue is the lack of flow and ability to gain momentum our bottom six inflicts upon the team. A lot of your shot totals come from periods of extended pressure, and the breakdowns caused by sustained pressure. We do not have sustained pressure this year aside from what one line can produce. The 1st line, at times (mainly with Neal on it) could consistently produce these kinds of shifts due to complementary players on the line. Malkin's line cannot often produce this kind of pressure.

The terrible bottom six means the top lines are trying to do far too much with their shifts, and end up making stupid turnovers, or working far too hard just to move the puck to the O zone. Malkin especially suffers from this.

If we see some combination of Gibbons, JJ, and Megna with Sutter, you'll see that line produce a lot more pressure and shots, and that should help the top lines as well.

 

[wgknestrick]

Malkin's dip in Corsi is related to Neal being out a third of the season. Neal is pretty much Malkin's OV because he shoots a ton. If you remove all the +shots for, your Corsi will drop.

Take Neal out and replace him with Kobasew....wah wah Corsi.

 

[billybudd]

That really is the opposite of an in-depth article right there.

Marshall's great. Check him out at faceofffactor.com. He'll diagram scoring chances, go into deep detail about forechecks, layering, convergence...all sorts of good stuff.

But you have to understand the Trib's greater readership isn't going to be invested enough to be familiar with very in-depth work.

In that particular forum (trib website), it's probably best that he write it as an "advanced stats for dummies" type deal.

 

[IcedCapp]

Marshall's great. Check him out at faceofffactor.com. He'll diagram scoring chances, go into deep detail about forechecks, layering, convergence...all sorts of good stuff.

But you have to understand the Trib's greater readership isn't going to be invested enough to be familiar with very in-depth work.

In that particular forum (trib website), it's probably best that he write it as an "advanced stats for dummies" type deal.

Yep. Your average newspaper-reading-fan (which is probably much larger than you think) doesn't want to read about advanced stats or understanding sports in-depth. They judge everything on wins or losses and the "is MAF a HoFer?" thread would seem totally normal to them.

It's certainly one way to go about your fandom.

 

[Valarukar]

Didn't bother to read the article, but it's pretty apparent why our corsi isn't as good as it used to be. We can't cycle like we used to and we don't forecheck like we used to.

 

[tinkezione]

Didn't bother to read the article, but it's pretty apparent why our corsi isn't as good as it used to be. We can't cycle like we used to and we don't forecheck like we used to.

Corsi brings living for sports writers these days, I suppose that's why you get so much of that every day. Still, doesn't beat watching the games.

 

[AjaxTelamon]

Marshall's great. Check him out at faceofffactor.com. He'll diagram scoring chances, go into deep detail about forechecks, layering, convergence...all sorts of good stuff.

But you have to understand the Trib's greater readership isn't going to be invested enough to be familiar with very in-depth work.

In that particular forum (trib website), it's probably best that he write it as an "advanced stats for dummies" type deal.

Then it's probably best to just not get into it at all in that forum. Corsi has become the everyman's "advanced" stat, and can be one of the most misleading stats there is in terms of correlation to individual player performance or actually winning hockey games. The Rinkstats blog did a pretty decent analysis of this recently, and their study showed that you would only pick the winning team under 50% of the time using Corsi, while Fenwick was just over 50%, if memory serves.

If they want something that's simpler and correlates better to winning, they should just look at shot differential, or team shooting %:

2012-2013: Goals: 162 Shots: 1438 S%: 11.27%
2013-2014: Goals: 167 Shots: 1604 S%: 10.41%

Not that big of a disparity, and more than explained by the extended injury to Neal and lots of AHL'ers in the lineup.

Our Stanley Cup 2008-2009 season was right in the middle, for reference:

2008-2009: Goals: 258 Shots: 2381 S%: 10.84%

 

[billybudd]

Raw corsi sucks on a team level due to score effects, variations in shot quality and the fact that not every team deploys the same strategy.

In a 0-0 game between a Boudreau-coached team and a Babcock-coached team, it'll tell you whose guys are executing the game plan almost every single time. In a game between Deboer's Devils and Bylsma's Pens where the Debbies are up 2-0, Corsi/fenwick won't tell you a damned thing.

Unfortunately, shot quality is prohibitively difficult to model and there's too much variation between one game situation and another to come up with a one-size fits all solution. Best is probably GVT for individual players, but even that is notoriously poor at measuring goaltending performance and, as a counting stat, is heavily weighted by ice time. So if a coach is prone to resting his best players in a game they've got in hand, GVT shellacks the players for it.

Guess what I'm saying is Corsi/Fenwick and its modified cousins are better than nothing.

 

[cygnus47]

We were doing great at the beginning of the year in Corsi and Fenwick close, the crappy bottom 6 due to injuries and the revolving door of top 6 wingers is at fault here. Plus we had positive possession players in place of Scuds and Orpik for a long period which helps greatly.

 

[Pancakes]

Fenwick Close is a better team stat than Corsi and it suggests the Pens are a good puck possession team.

What Fenwick Close essentially tracks is what percentage of even strength shots a team takes when the game is close or tied. The Pens take 51.9% of shots in such situations, good for 11th in the league.

The reason Fenwick Close is better than Corsi is Fenwick Close accounts for things like score effects where when a team is down by several goals they start pushing the attack more and taking more chances. And obviously teams that are up tend to sit back.

As a team, we're a good possession club. Combine that with our lethal special teams and adequate goaltending and you have the explanation for why we are where we are.

e:

While we may not have been using corsi numbers to do so, you don't have to use advanced metrics to see that the Penguins aren't possessing the puck nearly enough to be considered an elite team.

We're not elite at puck possession but still pretty good, and like I said when you couple that with our great special teams you have a pretty damned good hockey team.

That said, if we made some trades, we could potentially elevate our puck possession to top 10 or even top 5 in the league. Combine that with our special teams and boy would teams dread playing us.