You're right, I know better, far better (in terms of statistics and probability) than the people who promote corsi as being possession. Corsi is not a metric for a possession. Whenever you make that incorrect implication, I'll correct you.
Again, we've been there done that.
I didn't name it possession... but that's the term used.
Corsi is an analogue of +/- that replaces goals with shot attempts. You take it for what it is.
I'll take it for the best predictor of cup winners (actually it's Fenwick but similar.) I'll take it as a good indicator of where the play is when you're on the ice. I also like that you can use REL numbers so that you can compare relative to teammates and with/without numbers so we can isolate the player and his performance on his linemates.
+/- isn't a predictor of anything. Ovechkin had nearly identical seasons back to back and had a +/- of around 50. It's meaningless. But you already knew that right?
The basis of your argument is that Laine had a bad corsi -- you've written nothing about his possession numbers.
Again... I didn't name it possession. That's the term that's used. You want to fight city hall, be my guest.
So let's talk about Laine having had a bad corsi. The other teams were doing better at differential shot attempts when Laine was on the ice. That is partly a function of linemates,
That's why we have the other numbers. Relative, % and with and without. It's not just one number that we're relying on.
but also regardless, his shot attempts are more valuable. His career average shot percentage is 15%, not the NHL-wide 10%.
Great. But that doesn't mean that he's generating many shots and it doesn't mean that he's not giving them up.
When he's on the ice, the play is in our zone most of the time. When he wasn't on the ice with Newhook and Dach, their numbers were a lot better without him. Again, the caveat that we're looking at Dach's numbers only once Laine started playing because beforehand his numbers were just as bad.
That said, is he curious to know what Laine's possession numbers. What fraction of the time does the puck stay on the Habs' team stick when he's on the ice?
Again, the numbers only back up what we all saw. He wasn't playing well. But he's a cheat code on the PP so it mitigates those issues.
The question is whether or not he will be able to improve enough to warrant another big contract. If he wants 8 mil playing as he has, he won't get it here. Hughes is not going to pay him that money without substantial improvement. The good news is that he's improved since the tournament (and no I'm not using numbers for that) and he will likely continue to improve.
But to sit there and try to downplay his terrible numbers at 5 on 5 in order to pretend that he hasn't been awful is incomprehensible. Why you insist on doing this I don't know. He was bad. The eye test says so and the numbers only back it up.