Eric Tulsky frequently points out on twitter that common critiques of analytics people (whether it be hockey or any other sports analytics) tend to act as if those involved with analytics are kind of stupid and have ignored the obvious. For example, people tend to respond to arguments involving corsi and possession by bringing up the obvious subject of context – “Sure he has a bad corsi, but he gets tough minutes!” And the general response of course is, yes we have, and we wouldn’t be making these assertions had we not done so. Hockey Analytics has come up with a multitude of statistics to measure context – Behind The Net alone has 3 metrics for quality of competition and 3 metrics for quality of teammates, plus a measure of zone starts – HA has multiple different measures for the same thing and so does now Extra Skater (with Time on Ice QualComp and QualTeam).