Defying Corsi Logic by @SabresStats

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To date, the 2015-16 Buffalo Sabres have been an anomaly.

At least in the eyes of advanced statistics they have been.  The term Corsi refers to the number of shots attempted by a team.  If you have more shots attempted (including those blocked and those that miss the net) than your opponent, you are deemed to have a positive Corsi.  This tends to indicate that you had possession of the puck more than your opponent and therefore, in some way, outplayed your foe.

It is expected that the team with the higher Corsi would win more often than lose.

We’re 24 games into the season for the Sabres and that has not been the case for the Blue and Gold.  They’ve had a negative Corsi in each of their last 6 victories.  In their 10 wins, the Sabres have an overall Corsi of -93, while in their 14 losses, they have a positive Corsi of +53.

Furthermore, their worst performances (in terms of Corsi) have more often than not come in victories.  So far this season, the Sabres have had 6 games where they had a Corsi of -15 or worse.  They’ve managed to come away with the win in 5 of those contests.

To make it even more confusing, the opposite is also true.  When the Sabres have their best Corsi performances, they tend to lose the game.  They’ve had 4 games where they had a Corsi of better than +15, and they managed to win just one of those games as well.

What is a possible explanation for these wacky numbers?

You could argue that a team that is trailing would be pushing harder to get pucks on net than the team that is trying to protect a lead.  They may have fallen into a conservative game plan that doesn’t value offense as highly.  However, that still goes against the concept of Corsi itself.  Corsi is designed to show which team carried the play over the course of the entire game.  So unless the team that wins takes the lead early and then holds onto the lead with amazing goaltending, while facing a barrage of shots the rest of the way, the results don’t add up.  The team that has the higher Corsi, especially in extreme cases should have a better chance to win the game.

The charts above would seem to indicate that when the Sabres are outplayed they actually have a better chance of winning than losing.  Huh???

The extremes show that, but the overall numbers aren’t quite as telling as the extremes shown above.  Overall, in the ten games that the Sabres have had a positive Corsi differential, they have a record of 4-5-1.  In the 14 games that they have had a negative Corsi differential, their record is 6-7-1.

It is also completely possible that this is truly an anomaly and it will correct itself over the course of the remainder of the 82 game schedule.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a stretch of several games where the team with the higher Corsi wins.

In conclusion, it appears that the Corsi result (to this point in the season) is no indication of the success of the team.  The Sabres have virtually the same record whether they have a positive Corsi or a negative one.

So the next time you are watching the game on MSG and they show you that the Sabres have a horrific Corsi number after the first period, don’t fret.  It doesn’t mean they are going to lose the game.  In fact, they might just have their opponent right where they want them.  I, for one, don’t care whether they have a positive Corsi or not, I just want to see them win.

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LET’S GO BUFFALO!