Good stuff. I think that context is equally important to every statistic in hockey. Beyond the obvious steps of breaking the game down by situations (EV, PP, SH, empty net) and levelling the field with ice time or some such … at EV: where you started your shifts, who were usually playing with and against, if you were being sent over the boards against tired legs, if you are on the ice as PP’s expire or the next shift after … these things matter just as much to EV+/- and points as they do to Corsi. Of course the context will mathematically correlate more strongly with Corsi because it contains less randomness than those other stats.

Corsi is currently the best measure of territorial advantage, but it doesn’t take into account the impact a player has on the shooting%s, most fans wildly overestimate that impact anyways IMO.

In the case of Marc-Andre Bergeron, amonst regular defenders (20games played and not a rookie) he also played the softest quality of competition. And he lead the Wild defense corps in Corsi, +/-, EVgoals/60 and EVpoints/60. Of the same bunch the Wild were also more likely to score as a team at EV when Bergeron was on the ice, and least likely to get scored against.

I like Bergeron more than most, and I think Lemaire used him to his strengths. Still, there is no way and hell that he is the best overall even strength defenseman on any NHL team.

It shows the impact of context methinks. And you could do the same for every player on the list. BTW: Let’s all hope that there isn’t really any truth to the rumour that the Oilers are intereted in Nikolai “shiny dime” Zherdev.

Also, Pronger has much better EV numbers than Scott Neidermayer since he’s been in ANA, by any measure. But if you look at the context it is obvious why they chose to keep Scott. He’s simply a better hockey player, and it ain’t close.

Dirk

Strictly speaking it’s -.35 corsi for every extra faceoff in the defensive zone. +.35 corsi for every extra faceoff in the offensive zone.

Of course if you listed out all the players and ran regressions until you got a best fit, you’d find a number that is nearer double that. This because usually, but certainly not always, the guys who are getting that gig are also getting another 10 kinds of difficult ice time, some of which are listed above. So imo it’s best if those stats are kept separate and people just make the effort to understand and see what is going on in the games for the player’s on the team they cheer for. Or if they are combined with a “.6” factor, people understand that this correction is too low for Zetterberg and too high for Malhotra … ie. that there is no magic bullet.

Just to comment on one of the points at the end of your post:

Gagner’s zoneshift (if that’s what we’re calling it) was one of the most favorable on the Oilers last year along with Cogliano, Nilsson, and Penner, assuming I remember correctly (for some reason I can’t access the data right now). So I don’t know if MacT was using him any differently than Hitch used Voracek, or if he just didn’t have as many opportunities to send out a line for an OffZone draw. Either way, I guess he still had more Dzone starts in relation to Ozone starts than Voracek, and that would surely have an affect on his numbers.