About Colton Orr’s Corsi…

Every now and then I’ll have a compounded add-on to the game thread. Usually the morning after a game is Steve’s space for the LFR, but we have a SERIOUS DISCUSSION going in the comments of the Leafs-Penguins recap pertaining to Colton Orr’s solid Corsi number on Saturday.

Colton Orr’s solid WHAT? Yes, as mentioned by Jeff O’Neill on the post-game show Saturday, Colton Orr lead the Toronto Maple Leafs in Corsi against the Penguins. With Orr on the ice, the Maple Leafs directed 10 shot attempts at the Penguins net and had just 1 against. The 90.9% rate was the best on the Leafs, and the +9 raw number was the second best among all players in the game, behind Joe Vitale’s +10. ExtraSkater.com has all the excellent nuggets.

What does it mean, man?

What Colton Orr’s Corsi number means is that the Leafs held onto the puck a lot when Colton Orr was on the ice, and they generally had the puck in the offensive zone. That’s all it really means, and it shows that the Leafs fourth line had a lot of success pinning the puck in deep and establishing a cycle—or rather, doing all the things that line wasn’t doing when I was criticizing them. There’s not a lot of value in single-game possession results, particularly when they go against a trend. If this Colton Orr line with Jay McClement and Carter Ashton start putting together more shifts like this over a decent stretch of games, it’s probably worth mentioning further.

We did mention in the preview how poorly the Penguins do in possession when either Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin are not on the ice. Last night, Orr’s primary matchup was the third line for Pittsburgh: Brandon Sutter, Chuck Kobasew and Tanner Glass. The combined Corsi rate of those three players going into last night’s game was 42.3%, so one could make the argument that those players have made a habit of getting hemmed in their own zone all season.

One could also point out that Orr was on the ice for six offensive zone faceoffs and just two defensive zone faceoffs. From “open play”, or the play between the first zone exit after a faceoff, Orr’s Corsi was a little less dominant. It was still however, impressive, and this is one of the reasons I’m very impressed by Carter Ashton this season. He has a lot of speed to go along with his size and physicality. It’s an element he didn’t have to his game in the last couple of seasons but you can tell the skating work he’s done with Barb Underhill has paid dividends. He’s a lot quicker into the zone and the Leafs recover a tonne of pucks on the dump-in.

Here are the zone entry statistics from last night with Orr on the ice. Note how much more successful the Leafs were at getting pucks into the zone. The Penguins depth players are generally “dump and chase” players, but Jay McClement has had some success at carry-ins this season. I tend to believe that his poor Corsi rates last season are more because of the style of game Randy Carlyle has him play as opposed to his talent.

By team:

And by individuals:

For “Shots” by the way, I’m using unblocked attempts, or Fenwick. Orr’s Fenwick during the game last night was +7/-1, so the Leafs generated one unblocked shot for during the six offensive zone faceoffs taken.

You can see it was mostly McClement driving that line last night. Ashton adds an element to that line that Frazer McLaren doesn’t. Orr looked like a reasonable hockey player last night when he was getting the odd shift and not chasing around the other team’s goons. He looked like a guy that would absolutely eat up beer-leaguers, unlike last season. McLaren’s Corsi, by the way, was the lowest on the Leafs last night.

Part of the reason I was against re-upping Orr and McLaren in the summer is just because of guys like Ashton, or Josh Leivo, or David Broll, or any of those other Leafs that are top six on the Marlies but don’t have a lot of potential other than “depth NHLer”. Add Troy Bodie and Trevor Smith on minimum salary to that mix and there’s no real reason to carry around a fighter. The Leafs third line last night played like a third line should play, being first onto pucks and focusing on wearing the other team down with a cycle rather than trying to hit and fight anything that moves.

And the weird thing is that it works! People say that “the work done by good energy players doesn’t show up in the numbers” but it did last night. If you’re keeping the opponent in their own zone, as the Leafs did, then the other team can’t take shots! That’s exactly what Corsi measures: zone time. It doesn’t account for quality of shots, but it accounts for the amount of time spent in the other team’s zone.

Now, as you can tell by the entry numbers, the Leafs let the Penguins into their zone a little more than indicated by shot attempts alone. If the third line played like this for 10 games, obviously they wouldn’t be putting up 90% Corsi rates every night, but they may come in at over 50. Let’s just wait until that actually happens before we anoint McClement-Ashton-Orr the best third line in hockey.

Incidentally, Ashton’s Corsi rate this season is 57.0%, the best on the Leafs. He’s only played 52.6 minutes, but he’s been excellent in his role in the early going. I’m not sure how much that number means going forward, but he’s earned himself the opportunity to play regularly on the Leafs through the Western road swing. Orr’s Corsi, at 43.2% on the season, shows that through much of the season, he’s been doing exactly the opposite of what he did against Pittsburgh.