Corsi and Fenwick Power Rankings through Dec. 18

Here are the updated power rankings through yesterday. If you are unfamiliar, I get these by using a logit model to take into account schedule, score effects and special teams.

The big movers this week were the Kings and Jets. The Kings are an interesting case as they jumped up this week largely on the back of their performance against the Red Wings, who have topped these and other Corsi/Fenwick based power rankings since early in the season. This is somewhat odd since the Kings got beat 8-2. In that game, the Kings put up a Corsi of +8, 54.4% at even strength. We expect a team to win the territory battle when they are behind, but given how good the Red Wings have been those are still strong numbers. They also had two more shots on the power play than the Red Wings.

Winnipeg is more straightforward - they played a weak schedule: Minnesota, Washington and Anaheim all at home. While they got two wins out of that, their possession numbers were bad. At even strength with the score tied they put up a Corsi percentage of 47.1%, 48.7% for Fenwick. They were worse taking all even-strength time, which is to be expected given score effects. Still, their shooting stats were pretty weak when you consider how bad their opponents were as a group and that they were playing at home.

Corsi Rank	team	Corsi%	Fenwick	Fen Rank
1	DET	57.6	57.5	1
2	VAN	56.1	55	4
3	PIT	55.9	55.3	3
4	STL	55	55.5	2
5	BOS	53.8	53.4	7
6	COL	52.7	52.4	8
7	S.J	52.6	53.5	6
8	CHI	52.5	53.7	5
9	L.A	51.5	50.2	12
9	PHI	51.5	51.7	9
11	PHX	50.9	50.2	12
12	N.J	50.8	50.8	10
13	WSH	50.2	49.7	16
14	CBJ	50	50	15
15	OTT	49.7	49.1	18
16	FLA	49.6	49.5	17
16	WPG	49.6	50.4	11
18	MTL	49.4	50.2	12
19	CGY	48.9	48.2	21
19	TOR	48.9	48.5	20
21	DAL	48.2	49	19
22	BUF	47.4	45.8	27
23	CAR	47.1	46.8	25
24	NYI	46.9	47.7	22
25	EDM	46.5	47.3	23
26	NYR	46.2	47.2	24
27	T.B	46.1	46.7	26
28	ANA	45.8	45.1	29
29	NSH	45.5	45.5	28
30	MIN	43.2	43.8	30

I'm working on testing this with older data, and quite likely will be tweaking the formula to improve the way I deal with special teams.

Power Rankings through December 11th

First off, you, dear reader, have my humblest apologies for the lack of update last week. I made a bonehead move and didn't save my name database and by the time I had everything set up again it was late in the week so I decided just to wait until the end of the weekend. In the future, I'll try to make updates every Sunday night and if that fails I'll make them on Monday with results through Sunday.

As I explained in the previous version, these rankings use a simple logit model to account for schedule, score effects and special teams. The numbers you see in the chart represent the expected even-strength score-tied Corsi/Fenwick if the team played each team once, at home and away, and the total number of shots per game stayed the same.

Before getting to the rankings, here are a few notes, comments and anecdotes.

- Things have stabilized for the most part. The average team's rating has moved up or down only 0.6 percentage points for both Corsi and Fenwick. That's with the addition of about 6-8 games per team.

- Minnesota continues to amaze and... bewilder. Their rating dropped off the most in the league since the previous version, going from a mighty expected Corsi rating of 45.1% down to 43.2%, a drop of 1.9 percentage points moving them down to worst in the league in both Corsi and Fenwick. Their record in that time? 7-0-0. Is Tebow secretly suiting up for them?

- The team with the second-biggest drop in rating is Washington. The model has the Caps' effects-adjusted Corsi at 50.4%, a drop of 1.2 percentage points. The last time I did these rankings was just before Boudreau was sent packing in favor of Hunter, so the change is all on Hunter's watch. The Capitals have put up a Corsi of 45.2 since Hunter took over. Six games is a meaningless sample size, but it'll be something to keep an eye on.

- Remember when people were talking about the Stanley Cup hangover for both Boston and Vancouver? With Boston's fantastic November and Vancouver's great last 4 or 5 weeks, both have pulled themselves up in the standings after somewhat slow starts. They are both in the top 5 in the Corsi ranking. I don't think anybody expected the Canucks, at least their skaters, to forget how to play hockey but that is an improvement for Boston - the Bs were pretty average last year.

Here is the table:

Corsi Rank	Team	Corsi	Fenwick	Fen Rank
1	DET	57.6	57.4	1
2	VAN	55.6	54.9	3
3	PIT	55.4	54.9	3
4	STL	54.9	55.8	2
5	BOS	54.1	53.3	7
6	CHI	52.6	53.9	5
7	COL	52.5	52.2	8
8	S.J	52.4	53.6	6
9	PHI	51.7	52	9
10	PHX	50.7	50.1	14
11	WPG	50.6	51.3	10
12	CBJ	50.4	50.5	13
12	N.J	50.4	50.6	12
12	WSH	50.4	49.9	15
15	L.A	50.2	49.1	18
16	MTL	50	50.8	11
17	FLA	49.9	49.5	16
18	OTT	49.8	49.3	17
19	CGY	49.5	49.1	18
20	TOR	48.7	48.2	21
21	BUF	48.3	46.3	26
22	DAL	48	48.8	20
23	CAR	47.7	47.4	23
24	EDM	46.6	47.9	22
25	NYI	46.2	46.6	25
26	T.B	46.1	46.3	26
27	NYR	46	46.8	24
28	NSH	45.5	45.4	28
29	ANA	44.8	44	29
30	MIN	43.2	43.9	30

Weekly Power Rankings #1

Every Sunday night, I will be posting updated objective power rankings. Instead of only focusing on 5-on-5 play with the score tied, for each of Corsi and Fenwick I use a logit model to take into account score effects, schedule and special teams. Using the numbers the model spits out, I generate what each team's expected even-strength score-tied Corsi and Fenwick percentages would be if they played a balanced schedule. It is important to note that my model ignores goaltending. Also, while it adjusts for special teams, it does not reward or punish teams for getting there. So teams that are mediocre on the power play but get there a lot or bad on the penalty kill but very disciplined will be underrated.

As usual with these sorts of things, they should get better as the season goes on and we get more data.

A handful of teams jumped out, that I'd like to comment on:

- Colorado has put up decent, much-improved possession numbers at even strength. In special teams they have been above average getting pucks toward goal on the PP and very strong suppressing shots on the PK. They have not gotten the goaltending or bounces at either end. I think this ranking overrates them, but a deeper look points to them being better than I initially thought. Perhaps mediocre is more accurate than bad.

- The Jets are another team that this ranking puts substantially above where they are in the standings. They have put up better than average possession numbers but whatever combination you like of bad bounces in their own zone and bad goaltending has done them in. They have also haven't been disciplined, ranking dead last in the league at times shorthanded. If the team hadn't moved, this would be familiar to Jets fans since they had a similar pattern in the second half of last season.

- They won't win the rest, but I think we can expect the Canucks to continue their rise and pull themselves up near the top of the standings.

- The Rangers are in trouble. They've had an unsustainably high save percentage and a ridiculous shooting percentage at even strength (9.9%), both of which are almost certain to drop. They are getting dominated 5-on-5 and are fourth worst in the league in shooting rate 5-on-4 (BTN). I don't see them making the playoffs.

Here is the ranking, sorted by Corsi%

Rank	Team	Corsi%	Fenwick	Fen Rank
1	Detroit Red Wings	57.9	57.6	1
2	Vancouver Canucks	56	55.1	3
3	Pittsburgh Penguins	55.3	54.8	4
4	St. Louis Blues	55.1	56.5	2
5	Boston Bruins	54.1	53.1	6
6	Chicago Blackhawks	53	54.4	5
7	Colorado Avalanche	52.8	52.4	8
8	San Jose Sharks	51.8	52.7	7
9	Washington Capitals	51.6	50.7	12
10	Philadelphia Flyers	51.4	51.6	10
11	Winnipeg Jets	51	51.8	9
12	Florida Panthers	50.8	50.2	13
13	Montreal Canadiens	50.7	51.5	11
14	Ottawa Senators	50.1	49.9	14
15	Phoenix Coyotes	49.7	48.9	18
16	Los Angeles Kings	49.7	48.4	19
17	Columbus Blue Jackets	49.5	49.6	16
18	New Jersey Devils	49.5	49.9	14
19	Buffalo Sabres	49.2	47.6	24
20	Calgary Flames	49.2	49.3	17
21	Toronto Maple Leafs	48.1	47.8	22
22	Carolina Hurricanes	47.9	47.7	23
23	Edmonton Oilers	47.4	48.1	21
24	Dallas Stars	47	48.4	19
25	Tampa Bay Lightning	46.3	46.5	25
26	New York Islanders	45.6	45.3	28
27	Minnesota Wild	45.1	46	26
28	New York Rangers	45.1	45.8	27
29	Nashville Predators	44.6	44.5	29
30	Anaheim Ducks	44.5	43.9	30