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An honest look at Corsi

I somehow feel like I'm started the whole "Anti-Corsi" kind of sentiment on this forum, when I engaged in some heated discussion with some of the guys over at Matchsticks and Gasoline, so I want to get a couple things straightened up. There's a little too much "Anti-Stats" (the mathmatical kind, not the awesome center) on this board lately for my liking. As I do appreciate and see the value of statistics. So consider this little discussion/tantrum stemming from that.


My initial beef with Corsi was in the way it was being talked about and interpreted at times over at M&G. I felt like anything that didn't correlate with what Corsi would indicate would  happen was being written off by some as pure luck. I thought that some were ignoring that there are aspects of the game that Corsi doesn't make a very good measurement on (goaltending and special teams, for example), and those were being written off as "luck". Also it was being talked about as some sort of prognosticator, and I felt like that was inaccurate as well, especially within a sample size of 20-30 games.  When I started mocking it I was mocking the way some were overlooking some of the limitations.

Overlooking the really useful parts of Corsi (of which there are a lot) is just as problematic. And I feel like we have fallen into a trap of being "Anti-corsi" to the point of not seeing those useful parts. Corsi is a wonderful stat, and can really tell you a lot about your team, and how much time it spends with the puck. It's not the end all be all measurement, but ignoring it completely is not wise at all.

Corsi is not a bad stat. At all. In fact it's a very very good one, and a hell of a lot better than anything else out there (and Fenwick is an even better one).  Let's not go overboard with the hatred of it.

 

Ok, I just had to get that off my chest.

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