from Travis Yost of TSN,
One of the interesting debates following last season was whether or not team Corsi% – the percentage of shots in a team’s favour over a given period of time – was still a meaningful driver of game outcome.
This discussion, in part, started during the regular season. I think the genesis of this was a very tight distribution of talent across the league. Outside of Washington (great) and Colorado (terrible), it was often hard to discern which teams were legitimately good or bad. Creating a hierarchy of the other 28 teams was a difficult exercise – far more difficult than in years past.
The argument that team Corsi% had lost its predictive nature seemed to strengthen as the Pittsburgh Penguins ran through the Eastern Conference en route to a second consecutive Stanley Cup. Pittsburgh was a strong team all year, but a 51.5 per cent Corsi% over 82 regular-season games ended up as one of the lowest marks for a championship team in the modern era. And the other conference finalists – Anaheim and Ottawa in particular – weren’t world beaters here either. So, is something up?
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