(Hello, this is a feature that will run through the entire season and aims to recap the weekend’s events and boils those events down to one admittedly superficial fact or stupid opinion about each team. Feel free to complain about it.)

The now-over debate about the efficacy of advanced stats was, at its core, really about the practical application thereof. There was no disputing the numbers being spit out; maybe a team here or there over-counted shots for or against (i.e. Florida in Tomas Vokoun's heyday) but for the most part the data collected on that front over the past seven or eight seasons has been solid. That was never in dispute.

But whether it mattered at all, and what it meant if it did, was a whole different issue entirely, but clearly the nerds have won and all that stuff. So now the hockey world is going to shift to an entirely different debate about the practical application of corsi numbers and the like, and to some extent, that is already under way.

During the NHL's media week, ESPN's Craig Custance took the time to ask the many NHLers who came through the league office what they knew about advanced stats. Most claimed, or perhaps feigned, ignorance to some extent — as an aside: I find it extremely difficult to believe Sidney Crosby is not deeply aware of what corsi is — and maybe that's to be expected.

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Taylor Hall and Patrick Kane were well aware of them, and PK Subban knew that zone starts might affect his possession numbers. One of the questions Custance asked, though, is an interesting one: “How useful to a player are the public analytics like corsi, fenwick or PDO? How aware should they be of where they rank?”

That's a fascinating topic. On the surface, it's easy to see things both ways. One might think that it's important to have an understanding of the things that go into influencing the final decision of a game, but as Justin Williams told Custance, players can't go into a shift thinking about their corsi share. Not that any of them do inherently, but guys who are good at driving possession tend to know what they're doing right or wrong to push the game in the desired direction. They can't talk to each other on the bench about how they're going to drive up the number of shot attempts for over the next period. Hockey just doesn't — and, on a players' level, can't — work that way.

Likewise, being a good hockey player isn't as simple as “getting more pucks toward the net.” If all it took to be successful was to bomb in a slap shot the second you crossed the blue line, it would be a lot easier to get paid in this league. There are roles to consider, and also talent levels. A George Parros type can't suddenly be given first-line minutes because he starts shooting more, with little consideration for the propriety of a shot attempt in that given situation.

But that Kane and Hall knew what the stat meant and could cite chapter-and-verse where things might have gone well for them to get the puck toward the opponent's net is telling. It shows just how much their coaches do to make them aware of the usefulness of possession, as well as doing all they could to improve that on a tactical level.

And that's where the real practical use of even the simplest advanced stats comes in: It is now no longer simply a coach's job to look at the roster and decide who plays with whom, and develop a system that the team sticks with come hell or high water throughout the season (we call this the “Randy Carlyle approach,” and you see how well it works). Coaches must now continually tweak what they're doing in terms of designing systems, so that they can be more fluid and responsive to the team's situation at any given point in the season.

For instance, it's all well and good for critics to sit at home and say, “Randy Carlyle's system, specifically, is why the Leafs get crushed in possession every night.” It's another to look at video and identify patterns that, in specific instances, may contribute to positive or negative possession numbers. That's where the league's game data becomes married to coaching: You look at the information and say, “This is where we're giving up a lot of opportunities,” whether it's on draws, through the neutral zone, etc. Likewise, you can examine why you may or may not be getting those chances yourself. Then, you think about the ways to fix problems or promote positive play.