Okay, so I don't have a funky name for it yet. Corsi has such a good ring to it, and metrics need a good name. This is by no means a metric on the same plateau--this is not going to revolutionize anything--but I do think it is a pretty neat defining value to discover how dangerous a shooter is.

DSGR stands for Distance, Shots, Goals Related, and as such factors in the Distance Shots are taken from, the Number of shots, and the Goals actually scored as a result of those shots into one value. This metric is not favourable to pass-first players such as the Joe Thornton, Marc Savard, Tim Conolly, Martin St.Louis, etc., but is fair to everyone, as it accounts for the individual number of shots taken, from their respective distances, and the goals they score as a result.

This metric will also play favourably to players who have 'career years' so to speak. If a player has a high shooting percentage--more accurately, an unsustainable shooting percentage, they will score more goals, and as a result their DSGR will be better. Regardless, I think it is still a pretty good metric.

This posting will be in 2 parts, the first looking at the top shooters in the league, and the second looking at the leafs and how they compare. All the data is from Behind the Net, and has just been manipulated to create this metric. Follow the jump to begin!

Let me first begin by explaining that I believe that even among the best goal scorers, the distance from which a shot is taken directly affects its ability to go in. The reasons being for this are numerous: from farther out the goalie has more of a chance to see and stop the shot, a defense can get in the way and cut it off, or even, the shot can be tipped/redirected, thus changing the shooter entirely. The biggest thing though is obviously accuracy--from 5 feet its a lot easier to put it in the net than from 40 feet. Even the best shooters sometimes miss. 

The following graph was created by Gabriel Desjardins and shows scoring chances from different areas of the ice:

Obviously the best scoring chances are from closer to the net. This does not mean that they necessarily go into the net, but they are more likely too without a doubt. As one gets farther away, less scoring chances occur. Here is another graph, created by JP Nikota, which shows the leafs specifically. The first graph is all of the leafs shots from 2010/2011, and the second is the leaf goals.

Using these three depictions as some degree of evidence that shot location affects success rate, I have pulled up a list of the top 30 shooters from last year, and plotted them into a graph highlighting their number of goals vs. average shooting distance.

I have added labels to some of the interesting names / outliers just for curiosity's sake. These points represent the top 30 players for number of even strength shots. The dotted line through the middle is the line of best fit, showing a relationship between the number of shots taken and the distance they're taken from. It makes sense that we see that as the number of shots increases, the average distance increases. One can only get so close to the goal before they shoot, and as that takes time, shooting from the outside allows one to take more shots. Looking closer at the graph, aside from perhaps Alex Ovechkin, all of the snipers try to carry the puck closer to the net, knowing that its easier to score from these locations. Anyone who finds themself below the dotted line can be counted on as a goal scorer by their respected team--even Martin St.Louis, who is known to be a set-up man, but still scores 30 goals a year. Players above the line such as Tyler Kennedy, Radim Vrbata, and a declining Mikael Sammuelson are not known to be elite goal scorers--they just take a lot of shots from distant locations.

 
This next graph takes a look at the top 30 even strength goal scorers from the same year, and examines the relationship between average shot distance and number of goals. While there are many examples of players who are able to shoot from above the average shot distance (Jarome Iginla, Jeff Carter, Steven Stamkos, Rick Nash, Alexander Ovechkin, Alexander Semin), there are also many who like to play the power game and carry it in close, such as Erik Cole and Corey Perry. Since this graph examines the top 30 scorers, each of the names on the list can be seen as great players, though I would venture to say the higher end of the players can score from any location, such as the aforementioned names. Regardless, the line of best fit is declining as goals are scored, for the players who score the most even strength goals tend to do so from a closer location than those who score a middling rate (though they are still in the top 30)

Looking at these relationships, I decided to further examine a selection of shooters, trying to determine if there is a measureable way to express how dangerous a shooter could be. I have derived the following formula:

DSGR = (Distance/S/60/GP)/G

Where Distance is the average distance of the total shots taken
Where S is the total shots taken
Where 60 represents 60 minutes to standardize the equation
Where GP represents the individual number of games played
Where G represents the total number of goals scored

The Lower the Number, the more Dangerous the Player

It is important to note a few things regarding this number:

First, it is favourable to the players receiving the most ice time, but of course these players recieve ice time for a reason. This ice time also affects their shot totals--or it should if they are using it effectively--and thus is standardized.

Second, the value is favourable to players experiencing career years or inflated shooting percentages. Our study will average this inflation out, however.

Third, this metric is of little value to defenseman, though is extremely useful in assessing which defensemen are "offensive defensemen" when looking strictly at defense in relation to each other.

Using Behind the Net's data, I have pulled the the 150 goal scorers from every year, for the last 4 years, at both even strength and the power play (penalty kill omitted) and calculated their DSGR. This data can be found here 

Examining this data, I have compiled the top 10 DSGR players for each year, both ES and on the PP, as well as a few additional elite players:

Here are the top producers at even strength:

Where "N/A" refers to a player that was no longer or had not yet entered the league, and "D.N.Q" refers to a player who played too few games to qualify. Initially, there were "D.N.Q"s wherever a player was not in the top 150 (Daniel Briere in 2008/2009, Brenden Morrow in 2008/2009, Teemu Selanne in 2007/2008), though I have replaced these with the true values, in order to not favour those who were injured, though their small sample sizes do negatively screw their numbers (low goal totals)

And here are the top producers on the power play:

Because of the limited PP ice time and shots, these numbers are all much higher than the even strength numbers. This will be accounted for momentarily.

Rather than looking at the Power Play and Even Strength numbers separately for the league's top shooters, we want to combine these numbers to see who is more dangerous all around. For although we can see that Steven Stamkos has been the league's most dangerous shooter in the past 2 years, right with Teemu Selanne, neither of these players are as dominant at even strength.

NHL.com shows that an average of 6 minutes are played on the power play per game for each team. In a ~60 minute game, 6 minutes represents 1/10 of the time played. For this reason, we want to multiply the even strength metric by 9 (9/10 of the game), and average the powerplay and evenstrength DSGRs. Rather than average, we could simply add them together, though there is really no difference, unless you're specifically talking about what DSGR reflects, rather than what it represents.

We also want to look at the average of players over 4 years, to eliminate inflation. The following table reflects the averaged values of the Powerplay and Even Strength DSGR, and the rank over 4 years, 3 years, 2 years, and 1 year.

While we see that Corey Perry was indeed the best goal scorer last year, Ovechkin has been the most consistent over four years. Perry, surprisingly, has been really good over the last 4 years--he just had a great year last year.

And while this graph is hard to follow, graphs are fun. Remember, the lower the player on the graph, the better the shooter.

 And there you have it! Leave some comments, and Part II will look at the Leafs and how they have faired (again, over the last 4 years), and who their most dangerous scorers were. Hint: It's not Sundin ;)