Some thoughts.
On Bobby Ryan: I agree that Burnside needs to be held accountable. Not necessarily for reporting on what was said - only an idiot would invite reporters in and not expect a story to be written - but for evidently reporting it out of context. That's dirty pool.
On Advanced Stats: A lot of the arguments on this thread are meaningless. The truth is, hockey's "advanced" stats are primitive and the people arguing that they aren't a replacement for direct observation are pretty much right. Corsi and Fenwick, for example, are variations on measuring net shot attempts. In short, they pretty much say "the more you have the puck, the better your chances of scoring, and the lesser their chance of scoring." Well no sh**. And we call this "advanced"? These stats are nice in that they offer a way of quantifying an individual's contribution to this on some level, but they don't actually tell us anything new in terms of how to build a team. For that reason, I agree with Strombad's argument. You don't look to build a team with high Corsi. You look to build a team with skilled players. The Corsi will follow naturally.
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