There's a correlation between bulk of shots and goals that's intuitive which also shows up on paper. You keep discounting shots as an indicator of goals because it's not concrete and the numbers don't align perfectly 1st in shots: 1st in goals, 2nd in shots: 2nd in goals, 3rd in shots: 3rd in goals, and so on, but that will never happen. Hockey is not a science and no one is trying to make it a science, people are just looking for any possible edge they can when building a roster in a game that's largely dictated by a poop ton of nuanced factors that GMs can't prepare for such as goalie hot streaks, strange puck bounces, player injuries, and so on.
I understand your aversion to Corsi. You don't like a stat where you get kudos for something you may have had nothing to do with. That's a fine argument. I don't agree with it, but I get you in that sense. But now you are arguing against SOG correlates with goal scoring, which is something that just doesn't make sense intuitively or on paper. Look back at the data you think you just picked apart. The 2nd-4th top goal scoring teams were top 6 in shots. The 3rd in goal scoring was still in the top half of shots and the first in goal scoring was just one off the half way marker. The only real outlier is the 23rd in shots making the top 6 list, but the data is just accurate enough to be useable.
Winning is the only thing that matters. And at the end of the day goals cause winning. But how can you put yourself in a position to win games when constructing a team? You can't discount looking at shots. If you only look at the last year's goal production you may end up signing a guy like Jiri Tlusty or Matt Belesky that broke out for an impressive number of goals for big money when really their goal scoring pace was unsustainable according to their shot:goal ratio. That's the best way to get a bad contract and it has happened countless times.
- Victoro311
Vic I've simply put out there that this theory of more shots = more goals is not correct.
The above had 'averages' over a year as an argument that I refuted with simple logic.
That's without even going into the actual goals scored V rate of shots math.
If a game has 4/5 goals scored all scored in the first period with a shot total of 10, then by games end that total is 35 & the opposition only scores 1 goal off 20 shots having shot 10 as well first period, are you going to tell me it was because more shots were taken they scored more goals? If so your not correct. They could have stopped shooting @ 10 shots with 5 goals. The thing that is important is that if they are shooting the opposition is not which comes back to puck control & possession if they are controlling the puck before shooting.
Now you changed your argument to building a team etc - I'm just saying more shots does not equal more goals. There are so many other factors in a goal that are not considered & it's a 'general' statement that is accepted as gospel by analytical people.
