Number Crunching: The Good, The Bad, & The Mediocre

I'll admit it. I can be a nerd at times who occasionally likes to over-analyze things. That is why I was excited when I was introduced to Corsi Numbers by Japers' Rink. Corsi Numbers or Corsi Ratings are quickly becoming the OPS of hockey (for all you baseball stat geeks out there). The Corsi Number is similar to traditional plus/minus, only it measures shots directed towards both goals while at even strength rather than goals scored. Hockey Numbers does a much better job of explaining it than I ever could, so I will let them explain it to you:

"Corsi number is the number of shots directed towards the net while the player is on the ice. The number can be broken down into whose net the shots are directed towards (their own net (-) and their opponent's net (+)) similar to the plus minus statistic. The hope of course is that the Corsi plus minus would correlate well with the regular plus minus, but because the numbers will be 16x larger than plus minus numbers they'll be about 4x more accurate than the plus minus numbers."

The metric was first developed by Jim Corsi.

No, not that Jim Corsi.

I've been doing some number crunching to see how the Bruins rank through the first 6 games using this metric and this is would I have found:

The Good
Michael Ryder +19
Dennis Wideman +18
Marc Savard +17
The BadShane Hnidy -16Stephane Yelle -16Mark Stuart -15
The MediocrePetteri Nokelainen 0
Like any statistical metric, the stat has some flaws, but anyone who has watched the Bruins play this year would have a hard time arguing that so far this isn't a good general barometer of who has played well overall and who has played poorly.