For those of us that believe outshooting the opponent is the most surefire way to victory in the NHL, the LA Kings signing of Alexei Ponikarovsky should set off fireworks.
In his book, Moneyball, Michael Lewis referred to Kevin Youkilis’ as “The Greek God of Walks”. For NHL GMs, Ponikarovsky could be Ukrainian for “Net-peppering Ninja”.
I mentioned Ponikarovsky in an article about the NHL’s Most Intriguing Free Agents purely because he’s a phenomenal Corsi player and 5-on-5 scorer. In terms of 5v5 play, he averaged 2.27 points per 60 minutes and outshot his opposition by 18.99 attempts per 60 minutes. He’s also scored over 20 goals in 4 of the last 5 seasons despite playing for the abysmal Maple Leafs.
For those of you thinking to yourself that he just had a lucky season, Ponikarovsky’s Corsi over the last three seasons has been as follows, which is outstanding:
2009/10 18.99
2008/09 10.04
2007/08 14.82
At left wing, he will replace the departed Alexander Frolov. Frolov was a decent scorer in his own right and definitely was a decent possession player as well, but not in the same way.
That said, if the LA coaching staff is in any way of the Corsi-persuasion, they will pair Ponikarovsky with Anze Kopitar (8.94) and Justin Williams (16.78) to create a line capable of uber-possession.
We can add up last season’s Corsi number for those three players to get a measure of possession value for the line. The only other regular lines I could find in the NHL with similar values were in Washington, Chicago and Detroit. Take a look at the table below to see where this line would slot in the league.
Hossa-Ladd-Sharp 58.2
Homstrom-Franzen-Datsyuk 55.8
Toews-Kane-Brouwer 49.2
Ovechkin-Backstrom-Semin 45.3
Ponikarovsky-Kopitar-Williams 44.7
Based on last year’s Corsi value, the Kings new line could rank 5th in the league on combined Corsi, and even better considering that Andrew Ladd is now with the Atlanta Thrashers.
Corsi detractors will say that a shot attempt isn’t everything. It could be blocked, miss the net or just be stopped by the goaltender. That is all true. Corsi supporters will argue that if a shot is never put towards the net, a goal can’t be scored, which is also true. Corsi also has a very high correlation to scoring chances. Obviously outscoring is a measure of both outshooting and converting on a higher percentage of shots.
Ponikarovsky’s career shooting percentage is a respectable 11.4%, while Williams (9.4%) and Kopitar (12.7%) are above average as well. By no means am I claiming that the LA trio has the same goal-creating talent that Washington’s top line does, but it’s not just a shoot-and-hope group either.
No matter what your view is on possession hockey, it’s hard to argue with the models used by the Blackhawks and the Red Wings over the past few years. Control the puck, put it towards your opponents net as often as possible and use offensive puck control as to limit defensive liability.
With the signing of Ponikarovsky, the Kings may have just taken a monstrous leap towards the same strategy, and it’s worked pretty well for Detroit and Chicago over the past few years.
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Has there been any study on how much a player’s Corsi is dependent on his teammates / varies when it changes teams?
I don’t know of any studies to that effect, but I’d love to see one. We do however have a stat for the Corsi Quality of Teammates to evaluate the levels of “Corsi skill” that a player has had as linemates.
Ponikarovsky’s Corsi QoT last year was 7.159, which put him at 30th in the league for forwards that played at least 40 games in 2009-10. The top of that list is dominated by players from Chicago, Detroit and Washington.
Ponikarovsky also played relatively offensive minutes (54.7% of shifts started in the offensive zone) and against average competition, but Williams and Kopitar also play those types of minutes against slightly harder competition.
My guess would be that his Corsi will be similar or even slightly better if put with that pairing.
The issue with Corsi QoT in this context is that if there is a team effect on Corsi, it’ll also apply to the teammates… so if there is a “team effect” for Corsi, it’ll also apply to his linemates, so it would not necessarily be a measure of their “pure” skill either. Corsi Rel has a similar issue (it depends on the Corsi strength of the rest of the team).
I am, however, more curious about team effects such as coaching rather than teammates. I’ve had a look at Montreal’s numbers (what can I say, I’m a fan) and the Habs really do seem to have a depressing effect on their players’ Corsi (they almost invariably get worse upon joining and better upon leaving) and it’s made me wonder if going from a team that emphasizes puck possession to one that, well, doesn’t, couldn’t affect a player’s Corsi in a way that has little to do with the players’ skills.
In other words, importing high-Corsi players from high-Corsi teams may not necessarily result in a better puck possession game for your team, there may be other factors at play.
Yeah – the “team effect” you’re mention is something that I also wonder about. In this case, Ponikarovsky is going to decent Corsi team as well.
I think this applies in all team sports though. It is fundamentally impossible to completely seperate the individual’s performance from the teams. The best we can say is that the player performed this way, under these conditions, with these teammates, etc. That’s where the Relative stats do provide some insight, just not team-to-team.
Coaching definitely has an impact, and Montreal is probably one of the best examples of this. Just looking at Zone Starts is an excellent example as well. Bruce McCurdy had a great example of this over at Copper n’ Blue this week.