Three Reasons Corsi Matters

The advanced stats movement in hockey is gaining serious steam, but there are still some doubters out there.  If you are one of those doubters, I invite you to check out three small tables I put together to help convince you that Corsi does matter.


Table 1: Making the Playoffs

You can't win the Stanley Cup if you don't make the playoffs, right?  Here's a table I put together that outlines how many out of each of the top sixteen Corsi For % teams in a given season qualified for the playoffs.

Season	# of Top CF% Teams That Made Playoffs
07-08	11/16
08-09	12/16
09-10	13/16
10-11	11/16
11-12	13/16
12-13	12/16
13-14	9/16

 
 The numbers for this season aren't great, but if you take the previous six seasons combined, 75% of teams that were in the top sixteen in the league in CF% in a given season made the playoffs.  In other words, if you are in the top portion of the league in puck possession, you have a 3 in 4 chance of making the playoffs in a given year.  Those aren't bad odds at all.


Table 2: Making it Deep

It's one thing to make the playoffs, but it's another thing to go on a deep and meaningful playoff run.  In a game like hockey where there are few methods that can really truly predict what will happen, Corsi does provide one way to predict playoff success.  I like to call this the 56% rule - below are the five teams since the 2007-2008 season to post a 56 CF% or higher in a given year.  As you'll notice, each team had meaningful playoff success.

Season	Team	CF%	Result
07-08	Detroit Red Wings	58.7%	Won Cup
08-09	Detroit Red Wings	57.3%	Lost in Finals
09-10	Chicago Blackhawks	56.5%	Won Cup
12-13	Los Angeles Kings	56.3%	Lost in Conference Finals
13-14	Los Angeles Kings	56.8%	Won Cup

Table 3: Winning the Cup

The Stanley Cup is the ultimate goal.  Here is how each Cup winner since the 2007-2008 season faired in CF% in the regular season.

Season	Cup Champion	CF%
07-08	Detroit Red Wings	58.7%
08-09	Pittsburgh Penguins	48.1%
09-10	Chicago Blackhawks	56.5%
10-11	Boston Bruins	50.7%
11-12	Los Angeles Kings	54.8%
12-13	Chicago Blackhawks	54.1%
13-14	Los Angeles Kings	56.8%

Only one team in that seven season span won the Cup with a CF% below 50% in the regular season.  Five out of seven Cup champs had a CF% of at least 54.1%.  What more could you need to know?


Final Thoughts

Corsi is not the be-all end-all.  This article is proof of that.  Like I said, hockey is a wildly unpredictable game.  There are always going to be outliers and other means of having success.  But I also think that this article proves that Corsi is an important piece to the puzzle.  The proof is right there.  Whichever table you look at, a significant portion of successful teams are high-end in puck possession ability.  Corsi doesn't always determine who is going to have a successful season, but it usually does.  And for that reason, Corsi does matter.


Statistics courtesy of Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com