Quality of Puck Possession: Anaheim Ducks

There has long been the argument of “so you had the puck, but did you do anything with it?” against using shot attempts (otherwise known as Corsi) as a proxy for puck possession. The question of shot attempt quality has largely been vacant from shot attempts analysis. However thanks to the efforts of A.C. Thomas and Sam Ventura of WAR On Ice we now have a new statistic to bring into view.  They have defined a means to measure shot quality through their Scoring Chances statistic. I won’t get into the details of what qualifies as a Scoring Chance, I will let their own Blog handle that. Suffice to say that a scoring chance is a shot that has a high percentage chance of scoring.

Recently in our NHL Analytics Power Rankings the Anaheim Ducks have consistently been ranked outside the top ten but have been league leaders in the standings. I took it upon myself to do further analysis as to why this was occurring. Corsi Quality - ANA

Simply put the Ducks are among the leagues elite teams when it comes to limiting scoring chances and by extension quality of possession. This was done by simply determining the amount of a team’s shot attempts which were also scoring chances. At 44.4% quality possession against the Anaheim Ducks ranked behind only the New York Rangers, Nashville Predators and Florida Panthers.

It is interesting to break this down even further to the individual player level to see which players are driving quality possession for and which players are limiting quality possession against. It is almost comical to see Dany Heatley and Eric Brewer as the top players for the Ducks in terms of Puck Possession Quality plus-minus (which is show as CQ+/- in the table). However keep in mind that both he and Eric Brewer have played less than seven games each.

Among the Ducks regular players their best at providing quality corsi/possession for are Corey Perry, Patrick Maroon, Ryan Getzlaf, Tim Jackman, Cam Fowler and Sami Vatanen. All of these players are right around the Corsi For Quality of 50%. Which means that nearly 50% of the time they have the puck in the offensive zone they are generating scoring chances.

At the other end of the ice the best Ducks at limiting quality of possession for the opposition are William Karlsson, Nate Thompson, Matthew Clark, Devante Smith-Pelly, Ben Lovejoy, Jakob Silfverberg and Tim Jackman. They are all holding the other team to getting scoring chances less than 43% of the time they have the puck.

The last measure included in the Corsi Quality Plus-Minus rating. This just takes the CFQ% and minuses the CAQ% from it, which gives an indication of the players overall impact on quality of possession for the team. In terms of this the best players for the Ducks were Corey Perry, Tim Jackman, William Karlsson, Ryan Getzlaf and Devante Smith-Pelly.

So what is the actual value in creating this statistic? Essentially a player could have a 52% Corsi For but what good is having the puck when you are not generating scoring chances. Yes you will eat time off the clock but if you are behind in a game you need players that can hold the puck and create chances to come back for the win. So having a good Corsi is still valuable, but players with a higher rate of scoring chances within their Corsi (shot attempts) are the most valuable of all.

About Mike Burse

Mike will make the numbers make sense in the NHL for Puck Drunk Love.

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