I just wanted to re-visit league-wide Corsi percentages at even-strength for teams in tied or one-goal games. Chicago continues their dominance on the shot board, while Toronto is improbably second:
| Up 1 | Tied | Down 1 | |
| chi | 2.3 | 8.5 | 16.1 |
| tor | -0.7 | 3.6 | 5.5 |
| nj | -2.4 | 3.1 | 2.9 |
| det | -0.6 | 3.0 | 4.0 |
| bos | -0.2 | 2.7 | 5.1 |
| phi | -0.6 | 2.7 | 7.1 |
| cgy | -1.9 | 2.0 | 8.0 |
| pho | -1.1 | 1.7 | 3.2 |
| pit | -1.6 | 1.5 | 4.4 |
| sj | -4.2 | 1.0 | 3.5 |
| ott | 0.0 | 1.0 | 7.5 |
| buf | -4.6 | 1.0 | 2.9 |
| la | -3.8 | 0.9 | 6.3 |
| nsh | -3.1 | 0.9 | 5.6 |
| stl | -7.0 | 0.5 | 4.4 |
| was | -3.7 | -0.2 | 7.7 |
| car | -3.4 | -0.2 | -1.3 |
| nyr | -3.9 | -0.2 | 4.2 |
| dal | -6.8 | -0.3 | 3.3 |
| atl | -12.0 | -0.7 | 3.9 |
| cls | -5.5 | -1.0 | 0.6 |
| van | -2.9 | -1.3 | 4.2 |
| nyi | -5.3 | -1.7 | 1.0 |
| min | -6.0 | -2.5 | 6.0 |
| tb | -3.9 | -3.2 | 1.3 |
| ana | -8.1 | -3.5 | 5.3 |
| fla | -4.6 | -4.2 | -2.0 |
| mon | -8.0 | -4.5 | -0.4 |
| edm | -4.7 | -5.0 | 0.4 |
| col | -6.4 | -6.0 | 2.2 |
| AVG | -3.85 | 0.0 | 3.85 |
So how can Toronto be such a bad team despite dominating shot counts, while Colorado is such a good team despite being at the opposite end of the spectrum? It's instructive to look at a team's shooting percentage minus its opponents' shooting percentage at even-strength in tied games:
| SH%-SV% | |
| was | 35 |
| col | 27 |
| van | 24 |
| sj | 18 |
| la | 18 |
| chi | 18 |
| pit | 18 |
| phi | 13 |
| mon | 8 |
| stl | 8 |
| ott | 8 |
| nj | 7 |
| min | 7 |
| nyi | 5 |
| ana | 1 |
| tb | 1 |
| cgy | 1 |
| nsh | 0 |
| pho | 0 |
| fla | -2 |
| car | -8 |
| dal | -8 |
| det | -16 |
| atl | -17 |
| buf | -18 |
| cls | -20 |
| nyr | -23 |
| bos | -23 |
| edm | -30 |
| tor | -32 |
There’s your answer: Colorado and Toronto are completely polar opposites in the goaltending and shooting departments. Some of that is deterministic – Craig Anderson is a very good goaltender, while Vesa Toskala was embarrassingly bad. But part of it is also that Colorado has a much higher shooting percentage than Toronto, a difference that tends to disappear over time. If we played 1000 games, Toronto wouldn’t be this bad and Colorado wouldn’t be this good. But when you only play 82 games (or not even 82 games yet), you sometimes get something other than the most likely result.
