Making the rounds late yesterday and early this morning, after what was a fantastic debut in preseason, is No. 8's thoughts on our most beloved of fancy stats. Corsi.
Missed his take? Here it is.
"Bunch of crap"
Meh. To some yes, but to others it is definitely a calculation worth tabulating and utilizing to your advantage.
Namely the Los Angeles Kings, the Chicago Blackhawks, the New York Rangers etc. etc. etc.
I can definitely see how a player like Doughty or Erik Karlsson or any other extremely talented young player doesn't give two craps about corsi or fenwick. These guys are just playing the game they've always played. Do you think they go back in the locker room each night and analyze their zone entries and corsi numbers? Nope. Do they get out of the locker room and high five each over a beer for great Fenwick on the night? Nope. The utilization of these stats, the attention to detail regarding these things, that's the coaches job. That's the GMs job.
For those who still aren't familiar with the world of corsi or fenwick, here is a simple breakdown of the highest order for you. It's possession. It's advanced plus-minus, where every shot on goal is measured for you, while every shot against is conversely counted against you. It really is as simple as that. Of course, most of the advanced stat nerds bring in other things like zone starts, quality of competition, PDO, etc. So there are a ton of other factors that play along with corsi and fenwick when it comes to rating the overall value of a player. For the most part though, it is a simple possession based metric that measures how many chances you create while on the ice versus how many you give up in certain situations.
While it seems like a fairly volatile stat with a lot of swings, over the course of an 82-game regular season we have a pretty good idea of what teams and players are A) capable of holding the puck, and B) capable of creating chances while limiting chances against. Most times those teams are successful ones. For example, the top 10 teams in Fenwick % last year were:
(And fenwick is simply corsi except it removes blocked shots from the equation. Why? Because shot blocking is considered a skill of its own, and it shouldn't penalize the offensive player.)
Best Fenwick For % teams in 2013-14
1. Los Angeles
2. Chicago
3. San Jose
4. St. Louis
5. New Jersey
6. Boston
7. NYR
8. Vancouver
9. Detroit
10. Tampa Bay
Not bad right? Of those 10 teams, 8 made the playoffs. Not bad right? How about the bottom of the league?
Worst fenwick for teams in 2013-14
25. Calgary
26. Washington
27. Colorado
28. Edmonton
29. Buffalo
30. Toronto.
One playoff team, and the one that had a goalie, Semyon Varlomov, utterly stand on his head all year. You could also say the same about Toronto, who punched way above their weight due to unreal goaltending from Jonathan Bernier and James Reimer. Clearly it was not a sustainable formula considering Toronto ended up missing the playoffs. Much to the dismay of Steve Simmons, who is a noted anti-corsi media member.
Ouch.
But back to the topic at hand.
While I myself am still very timid when it comes to ingraining these advanced statistics into every analysis of hockey play, they are valid in too many ways to ignore. That's just for me though, the guy sitting at his computer chair, tracking the game. For a player it's just another number that really bears little significance to them. Goals, points, ice time, not screwing up. Those are the things that a player is thinking about.
Jon Rosen of LA Kings Insider caught up with Dwight King this week and asked him about advanced stats.
Q: Are such concepts – possession stats, analytics, “fancy stats” – discussed amongst coaches and the team?
“They discuss having the puck and keeping the puck,” King said. “They might not word it as ‘possession stats,’ but I think every team addresses that part of the game. The more you have it, the more you’re on offense, and the better chance of winning you have, so it’s pretty clean.”
“Once in a while [the analytics are] brought up, and you kind of get a grasp of what they are. I really don’t understand it totally, so I can’t elaborate on it too much, but I’m sure there’s a purpose to it to some degree.”
The full article and interview can be found right here
Well put by King. There is a purpose to it to some degree, but these aren't things for the players to understand honestly. It's more coaching and managing.
It's like baseball in a sense. Do you think a player knows his exact batting average against lefties? Or his OBP? No. Do you think he knows his spray chart? No. He just knows the simple facts of whether or not he struggles against certain things or not. The exact science of it is not important. That is information for the manager to know and utilize.
Do you think Drew Doughty knows what his fenwick for % is? Do you even think he knows or cares what it means? No. He just knows that he has the puck a lot, he's on the ice when the team scores a lot, and he's a damn good hockey player. He and Muzzin both. The simple approach to it by the player is understandable. In all honesty, if a player came up to me as a manager and was like, "Hey coach, I am batting .183 against lefties, you should probably sit me out." Or "Hey coach my zone starts are a little heavy defensively and my PDO is down, you should probably switch that up." I would tell them to go home, relax, and stop thinking so hard about everything.
When a prominent young player comes out and says, "Corsi is crap" he really isn't in a position to know and understand the value of it. That's not to say that he is dumb. It is simply saying that Doughty just needs to be Doughty and not worry about that sort of stuff. Clearly that's what he does considering he is one of the best defensemen in the league and doesn't give a lick about this stuff.
We are getting into an era right now of statistical analysis in hockey. Some people are seeing value, some aren't. There were several hires by teams this offseason of prominent hockey analytics folks, and for the first time in recent memory it seems like people are taking it more and more seriously. While the players and certain media members may not be adopting it yet, it's attaining a level of validation in the league.
The Kings are a team that is built on possession. They've blown away a lot of the advanced stats the last several years. They've also risen to the upper echelon of the NHL and now won multiple championships. They've done it with players who thrive in these sort of advanced statistical categories. Guys like Dwight King, Jeff Carter, Jake Muzzin, and Anze Kopitar. Chicago has been strong under the same formula, as has Boston, Anaheim, and St. Louis. While it isn't the "Corsi hockey league" as Steve Simmons puts it, it is a league that is starting to be dominated by possession metrics. When one team starts to have success with it, it's only common that GMs attempt to mimic it across the league. A proven winning formula, right?
With that in mind, to expand and elaborate on my own point using Doughty's quote, we might be losing sight on the value of just simply talented players. Maybe it's a reach that I am drawing that from such a simple statement as it being "a bunch of crap." We sometimes place too much value on these things.
Yesterday, I was listening to Mick Kern and Mike Ross on Hockey this Morning on Sirius XM NHL radio and they had a question for the listeners: Pick one goalie and one forward/defenseman to build your franchise around. At the end of about a solid 30-45 minutes of tweets and call-ins only one person had mentioned Alex Ovechkin. Few had mentioned Steven Stamkos until Mick blew up in jubilation at the mention of him.
While this is a blog I am planning for a different day, it seems that we have come to a point where we are maybe valuing pure goal scorers and pure snipers less and less in today's game. Maybe some of it has to do with the way teams are winning these days. Teams like Chicago and Los Angeles, and not teams like Washington, Pittsburgh, or Edmonton.
You can't really argue with results too much.
As a growing supporter of advanced stats and its place in hockey, I see how Doughty can say that he has a certain distaste for the stat. After all it's a stat he doesn't pay attention to, and it doesn't really change how he or defense partner Jake Muzzin play the game. They just do it. (Get at me Nike)
However, even if Doughty doesn't value the validity and usefulness of corsi, we probably should. The Kings have two cups while leading the league in these categories, and it has made them a favorite for a third. So either Dean Lombardi is the luckiest corsi recruiter in the world, or he too values the idea of possession based metrics in hockey. While intelligent and hard working, the arrogant, know-it-all attitude on twitter and social media of the Tyler Dellows of the advanced stat world might turn some people off to this stuff. But know that for every Tyler Dellow there is also a Dean Lombardi or a Stan Bowman. Guys who are quietly considering these stats in their offices somewhere and building championship teams with them.
If it's crap...it's some of the most compelling crap out there right now.
I mean, who doesn't want to picture this:
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