Hello everyone! So I’m Topher Minasi (Toe-fur Min-ah-sea), the new guy. I’ll be doing Rampage/AHL #FancyStats and some general AHL musings. I’m originally from North New Jersey, so I’m a Rangers fan. I went to college in DC, thus I really, really, really hate the Capitals (even more so than the Devils) and moved to San Antonio almost 3 years ago.
I suppose I should mention how I’ve gotten into this stuff. Well, I’ve gotten really into the NHL advanced stats in recent years as I’ve seen them do a way better job of predicting playoff winners than any other method. For instance, last year I was not shocked at all when my Rangers made the Stanley Cup Finals, They did, after all, have the 2nd best possession numbers for any Eastern Conference team. Their record was only bad because they were unlucky and spent half the year adjusting to a new system.
Last year, I went to about half of the Rampage games, and this year became a season ticket holder. Early in the season, their record wasn’t great, but it seemed to me they were playing really well. So I spent time trying to find AHL advanced stats and all I could find was an estimated Fenwick. Estimated Fenwick is awesome and is done by @JoshWeissbock (he’s pretty amazing) who writes for CanucksArmy.com and CHLStats.com and estimates it using end of 2nd period shots. You can find Josh’s Est Fenwick and PDO here: http://hockeystats.ca/ahl.
However, that was pretty much it. So, I started playing around in my spare time and sharing them with a few friends who go to Rampage games. About a month ago, while listening to an NHL podcast, a guest mentioned that he tracks Corsi at College Hockey games. Before hearing that, I thought it would be impossible, but that podcast inspired me – “If he can do it, so can I!!!” So since March 17th vs Charlotte I’ve been keeping track of Rampage Corsi at home games. I tried to do it using AHL Live for the OKC game on 3/20, however, I couldn’t tell who was actually on the ice, so I gave up within 2 minutes.
Later tonight I will post a Fancy Stats primer and post the Rampage Corsi Numbers for the Texas Game. I plan on doing the Corsi Numbers for every home game, and I will post summaries with WOWYs every week or so (depending on Rampage home schedule). In addition, I have a few Goalie stats that I like to do and next week I will be doing a big playoff preview and playoff predictions that I’ve been playing with for about a month now. I’m really excited to be on board and look forward to talking to you. You can contact me @topherminasi on twitter.