Our lovely editor, Nadia, recently wrote in praise of Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic’s opposition to advanced statistics and analytics:
As has often been the case since my arrival at Mile High Sticking, I’m going to have to go ahead and respectfully disagree with Nadia. Advanced Statistics are an important tool in developing a competitive style and acquiring the right players, and the Colorado Avalanche management would benefit from using them.
Debunking Roy’s quote
Patrick Roy’s thoughts on ‘Fancy Stats’, specifically the Corsi statistic, can be encapsulated in one quote:
“The part I don’t like about Corsi is you could shoot from the red line or […] from a terrible angle and your Corsi will look good” ~Patrick Roy
While I’ll rant further, I want to start by debunking this quote with a lovely video from 2015 of our recently bought out friend, Brad Stuart:
Now obviously this is a bit of a fluke goal, and obviously an NHL elite goalie like Corey Crawford is going to save shots (if you can call it a shot) from center ice 99.