Mr. Debakey made a comment in the article I wrote on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins home/away corsi splits that I wanted to explore a bit further. In it, he posted the Oilers raw even strength scoring chance differentials through 16 games. Through those raw numbers, it's obvious that the kid line is generating a great deal of offense. But we know Tom Renney is working overtime to put the kid line in the best position possible to generate offense. So, as JLikens did for raw Corsi, we can come to a better understanding of the team's numbers through adjusting scoring chances for zonestarts.
Adjusting the scoring chance data for starting position puts the kid line, the players who have received the greatest benefit from Renney's line matching and zonestart work, on equal footing with the veteran line, who have carried the load for the Oilers thus far.
Thanks to the incomparable George Ays, we can do that.
George took the data from his own scoring chance project for the Rangers, plus the data from Neil Greenberg's data for the Capitals and modeled scoring chances as JLikens modeled Corsi. While the sample size is extremely small and subject to enormous variance, George should be able to zero in on a more targeted number as the Scoring Chance Project wraps up 2011-12. The results of of George's model shows "...an offensive zone start would be worth 0.425 scoring chances."
In light of that, I've taken Mr. Debakey's raw numbers and applied George's formula to level the playing field and find the Adjusted Chance Differential per 60.
TOI - even strength time on ice; Raw CD - total even strength scoring chance differential; CD/60 - raw scoring chance differential per 60 minutes of even strength time; ZSNet - offensive zonestarts minus defensive zonestarts; Adj Raw CD - raw chance differential adjusted for zonestarts; Adj CD/60 - adjust scoring chance differential per 60 minutes of even strength time. The tables are sorted by Adj CD/60.
| Forward | TOI | Raw CD | CD/60 | ZSNet | Adj Raw CD | Adj CD/60 |
| Ales Hemsky | 59.1 | 3 | 3.046 | -11 | 7.68 | 7.792 |
| Ryan Jones | 200.48 | 9 | 2.694 | -27 | 20.48 | 6.128 |
| Shawn Horcoff | 226.56 | 2 | 0.530 | -45 | 21.13 | 5.595 |
| Ben Eager | 82.56 | 9 | 6.541 | 4 | 7.30 | 5.305 |
| Jordan Eberle | 202.08 | 31 | 9.204 | 36 | 15.70 | 4.662 |
| Eric Belanger | 178.08 | 10 | 3.369 | -5 | 12.13 | 4.085 |
| Ryan Hopkins | 208.32 | 29 | 8.353 | 35 | 14.13 | 4.068 |
| Taylor Hall | 196.2 | 26 | 7.951 | 33 | 11.98 | 3.662 |
| Ryan Smyth | 237.92 | -3 | -0.757 | -36 | 12.30 | 3.102 |
| Magnus Paajarvi | 150.92 | 8 | 3.180 | 1 | 7.58 | 3.012 |
| Sam Gagner | 109.8 | 4 | 2.186 | -1 | 4.43 | 2.418 |
| Lennart Petrell | 130.65 | 3 | 1.378 | -3 | 4.28 | 1.963 |
| Linus Omark | 58.85 | 4 | 4.078 | 5 | 1.88 | 1.912 |
| Anton Lander | 138.56 | 7 | 3.031 | 7 | 4.03 | 1.743 |
- Shawn Horcoff has been remarkable thus far. At this level of performance, he's worth every bit of his $5.5 million cap hit.
- The changes Ryan Jones has made to his defensive game and his time with Horcoff and Smyth have turned his underlying stats upside down. Will he sustain that attention to defense now that he's been separated from the vets?
| Defenseman | TOI | Raw CD | CD/60 | ZSNet | Adj Raw CD | Adj CD/60 |
| Ryan Whitney | 50.84 | 4 | 4.72 | -5 | 6.125 | 7.23 |
| Corey Potter | 218.82 | 24 | 6.58 | 6 | 21.45 | 5.88 |
| Theo Peckham | 142.92 | 14 | 5.88 | 0 | 14 | 5.88 |
| Ladislav Smid | 260.64 | 22 | 5.06 | -4 | 23.7 | 5.46 |
| Tom Gilbert | 277.92 | 19 | 4.10 | -10 | 23.25 | 5.02 |
| Andy Sutton | 147.73 | -2 | -0.81 | -15 | 4.375 | 1.78 |
| Cam Barker | 187.2 | 8 | 2.56 | 6 | 5.45 | 1.75 |
| Jeff Petry | 134.91 | 7 | 3.11 | 13 | 1.475 | 0.66 |
- Corey Potter is playing out-of-this-world hockey. I don't expect it to continue, but it's been an amazing run.
It's still early and this is an extremely small sample size (my personal opinion is that scoring chances trends are impossible to count on under 600 minutes of ES time), but it's worth nothing how much of an impact zonestarts have on scoring chances and it's something to watch as the Smyth - Horcoff - Hemsky line shoulders the load for the rest of the season.