Individual shooting, or iCorsi as it’s styled, counts all the shots that a player makes.  Looking at individual rates and volumes of shots can tell you how a player plays, how a team plays, and how likely that player is to get goals.

Not every player shoots at a high rate.  Some players are passers first, some players are high-volume, and some are more particular.  Some play on bad teams and never see the opponents’ net.

Who is shooting?  Have a look.  All data is five-on-five,14 unadjusted and includes up to November 16.

First the Leafs:

Last year that kind of list was always topped by James van Riemsdyk before he was hurt.

Next the top few in the league (I absolutely picked an arbitrary cut off to include Mitch Marner here):

You have to allow for the fact that the Leafs are playing a high-volume offensive style and getting good zone time when you look at this list.  As much as we may like to ascribe a player’s ranking to his individual achievements as if he has total agency over his own fate, the truth is, there are often systemic reasons for how high up a chart a player is.  He needs the right situation to succeed in, and then he needs to be really good.

Next we look at the highest shot rates in the league:

The accidental message is that Brent Burns is one of a kind.  The other takeaway is that the Leafs have four very high-volume shooters in Auston Matthews, Nazem Kadri, Mitch Marner and James van Reimsdyk.

In all of that, the surprise for me is to see Kadri shooting like Jeff Skinner and Nate MacKinnon, two of the leagues’ most consistent high-volume guys.

There’re some other curious things that might be due to only seeing 15 or so games for everyone.  Jordin Tootoo? But in general, these are the high-flyers on the high-flying teams, and the Leafs have a very good share of them.

Analysis