When you’re watching a game on TV or listening
on the radio, one of the stats you hear most often is shots on goal.
However, as we all know from this Boston-Montreal series, shots alone aren’t
everything. Corsi ratings, which examine more than just shots that hit the
net, are growing in popularity as it’s a relatively new way to measure a
player’s contribution. Here are the numbers for the Habs this past season.
The chart below features 3 sets of numbers:
On-Ice Corsi, Off-Ice Corsi, and Relative Corsi, calculated as On-Ice minus
Off-Ice. For those who aren’t too familiar with Corsi, it factors in not
only shots on net (goals and saves) but also shots that missed the net as well
as shots that were blocked by the opposition. The numbers are listed on a
per-60 minute basis so that everyone’s on the same playing field. I’ve
omitted any player who didn’t play at least 5 games for the Habs as that’s just
too small a sample size to work off of.
| Player | On-Ice Corsi | Off-Ice Corsi | Rel. Corsi |
| Max Pacioretty | 23.09 | 0.68 | 22.4 |
| Alexandre Picard | 18.57 | -1.1 | 19.7 |
| Brian Gionta | 12.57 | -1.12 | 13.7 |
| Benoit Pouliot | 11.29 | 0.76 | 10.5 |
| P.K. Subban | 9.23 | -1.1 | 10.3 |
| Yannick Weber | 10.66 | 0.7 | 10 |
| Scott Gomez | 8.01 | 0.63 | 7.4 |
| James Wisniewski | -0.29 | -6.76 | 6.5 |
| Mathieu Darche | 11.09 | 5.09 | 6 |
| David Desharnais | 3.04 | -1.24 | 4.3 |
| Ryan White | 1.54 | -0.83 | 2.4 |
| Andrei Markov | 8.49 | 6.88 | 1.6 |
| Tomas Plekanec | 3.98 | 3.59 | 0.4 |
| Lars Eller | 1.9 | 2.57 | -0.7 |
| Tom Pyatt | -1.65 | 2.44 | -4.1 |
| Andrei Kostitsyn | -0.56 | 3.76 | -4.3 |
| Roman Hamrlik | -0.18 | 5.38 | -5.6 |
| Jaroslav Spacek | 2.7 | 8.47 | -5.8 |
| Mike Cammalleri | -2.67 | 4.24 | -6.9 |
| Hal Gill | -2.47 | 5.63 | -8.1 |
| Brent Sopel | -15.81 | -4.83 | -11 |
| Jeff Halpern | -6.22 | 6.34 | -12.6 |
| Josh Gorges | -2.14 | 10.79 | -12.9 |
| Travis Moen | -9.57 | 5.99 | -15.6 |
| Paul Mara | -19.96 | -4.32 | -15.6 |
| Dustin Boyd | -16.76 | 10.99 | -27.8 |
For those wondering how to interpret this,
let’s look at Gomez as an example. His +8 on-ice rating means that when he
is on the ice (at even strength as special teams are not factored in Corsi), the
Habs are generating 8 more shot attempts than their opponent per 60 minutes.
It’s reversed defensively where a negative number is better.
Looking at the results, it’s interesting to see
Pacioretty at the top, primarily due to his on-ice Corsi rating. Most of
us fans would agree that he was having a breakout season offensively, this just
adds to that argument. Of those in the top-5, Picard was the most
surprising to me as I don’t really think of him as a defenceman that helps to
generate much offence but rather more of a minute munching depth guy. The
fact his off-ice rating actually helped his relative one has me wondering if I
may have been too harsh on him at times in the weekly Player Rankings in each HW
Recap. Of course, this doesn’t paint the entire picture (what solo stat
really does?) but it was an eye-opener nonetheless.
At the bottom end, it’s primarily the defensive
pluggers as expected though Cammalleri’s negative on-ice Corsi is a little
disappointing given his reputation of being an offensive player. If the
opponent is generating more shot attempts than the Habs when Cammalleri is out
there, that’s not good. (As an aside, his on-ice Corsi in the postseason
is even lower at -7.2.) Out of the bottom-5, only Mara’s off-ice rating
improved his relative one, which just makes me want to see him in the playoff
lineup even more than I already wanted.
Note: For those interested in the postseason
stats,
click here, courtesy of Behind The Net where the stats used here also came from.