Now, I’m not an expert of any sort when it comes to the advanced statistic ballgame, nor will I pretend to be. I do however have a basic grasp of Corsi and Zone Starts. This article will use these figures to show us who stood out in the numbers beneath the numbers.
The Good
Willie Mitchell was on ice for a total of 46 Corsi events, 19 good ones and 27 potentially bad ones. This gives him a CorsiRel of 41%. Not exactly all star caliber, to be sure. If we dig a little deeper, with the help of Zone Starts, we see that he started only three out of 23 times in the offensive zone, a oZS% of just 13%. This compelling stat indicates that old Captain Willie proved more than capable of generating positive movement from Florida’s end into St. Louis’, leading the team with a CorsiRel% – oZS% of 28. I will henceforth call this entirely made-up statistic the Puck Movement Index (PMI). Unsurprisingly, Mitchell also led the team in ice time, with 23:35, and earned an assist on Florida’s first goal of the night.
Not far behind the Captain was “Hero Of The Day” Derek MacKenzie. He only played a total of 12:41, but provided two-thirds of Florida’s output with a pair of unassisted goals. He did this despite starting in the offensive zone only one time in 11, a 9% oZS. Of the 23 Corsi events with him on the ice, only seven were of the offensive variety, a 30% clip. Even so, his 21 PMI ranked him as the second best Panther of the night.
Only three other Panthers had a PMI of greater than five. Brian Campbell clocked in at 19, Vincent Trocheck at 18, and Reilly Smith at 15.
The Bad
Using the PMI metric (patent pending), Dave Bolland came up with the worst figure of the game, at minus-42. Four Corsi-For events and 15 Corsi-Against were good for a 21% overall rating. This, even though he ranked near the top of the Panthers gift-list with 63% (five-of-eight) Offensive Zone Starts. Also coming up smelling of other-than-roses were Connor Brickley at minus-38, Steven Kampfer at minus-35, and Aaron Ekblad at minus-23.
We don’t really want to dwell too much on the negative side of things here today, seeing as how our boys are on a well-needed and well-deserved three-game win streak, so I’ll close it out here.
The Meh
Everyone else on the team were between minus-7 and plus-5, which is exactly what the average NHLer would accomplish on an average night. Included amongst these were the only Panthers who ended up with positive CorsiRel ratings on the night. Jaromir Jagr was at 64% (16-of-25), Brandon Pirri earned 63% (17-of-27), and Aleksander Barkov closed out at 56% (15-of-27). See the complete table below for the complete details.
| Player | Corsi-For | Corsi-Against | CorsiRel | Offensive ZS | Defensive ZS | ZS-diff | PMI |
| Willie Mitchell | 19 | 27 | 41% | 3 | 20 | 13% | 28 |
| Derek MacKenzie | 7 | 16 | 30% | 1 | 10 | 9% | 21 |
| Brian Campbell | 14 | 19 | 42% | 4 | 13 | 24% | 19 |
| Vincent Trocheck | 13 | 23 | 36% | 3 | 14 | 18% | 18 |
| Reilly Smith | 11 | 26 | 30% | 3 | 17 | 15% | 15 |
| Quinton Howden | 5 | 8 | 38% | 2 | 4 | 33% | 5 |
| Jaromir Jagr | 16 | 9 | 64% | 9 | 6 | 60% | 4 |
| Brandon Pirri | 17 | 10 | 63% | 8 | 5 | 62% | 1 |
| Jonathan Huberdeau | 9 | 24 | 27% | 4 | 11 | 27% | 1 |
| Shawn Thornton | 4 | 8 | 33% | 1 | 2 | 33% | 0 |
| Erik Gudbranson | 10 | 28 | 26% | 6 | 15 | 29% | -2 |
| Jussi Jokinen | 9 | 18 | 33% | 5 | 9 | 36% | -2 |
| Aleksander Barkov | 15 | 12 | 56% | 10 | 7 | 59% | -3 |
| Dylan Olsen | 8 | 16 | 33% | 6 | 9 | 40% | -7 |
| Aaron Ekblad | 15 | 16 | 48% | 10 | 4 | 71% | -23 |
| Steven Kampfer | 12 | 18 | 40% | 9 | 3 | 75% | -35 |
| Connor Brickley | 6 | 12 | 33% | 5 | 2 | 71% | -38 |
| Dave Bolland | 4 | 15 | 21% | 5 | 3 | 63% | -41 |
Tune in tomorrow night for another 8PM showtime, when the Panthers visit the Nashville Predators. For more on them, visit On the Forecheck. For more on St. Louis, check out St. Louis Game Time. In the meantime, make sure you keep it here on LBC for everything Panthers.