Trotz doesn’t want the Caps to worry about their ‘Corsi scores’

Washington coach Barry Trotz was not pleased with his team’s performance Sunday in Vancouver, where the Capitals fell, 4-2, to the Canucks.

And he has an interesting theory that attempts to explain said performance.

“We turned over way too many pucks, gave up way too many odd-man rushes, just by (poor) puck management,” said Trotz (video).

“Vancouver did a really good job clogging things up. … We tried to force it through two or three bodies. … We’re worried about our Corsi scores I guess.”

Presumably, with that last remark, Trotz was referring to the analytical research that concludes carrying the puck into the offensive zone is preferable to dumping it in.

In a related story, as Sunday’s game wore on, it was clear (to me, at least) that the Caps were on a mission to dump it in. No doubt, in hindsight, because their coach had put them on that mission after getting outshot by a wide margin early in the contest.

Trotz later expanded on his post-game comments with NHL.com’s Dan Rosen:

Spoke to Trotz re. all things Caps. He said a problem they had on the 3-game trip was they were playing "too much of an analytics game." (1)

— Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) October 28, 2014

Trotz: "Teams were clogging up. When we needed to chip pucks & have self-retrieval we were trying to dangle. I call it analytics death."

— Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) October 28, 2014

By the way, the Caps’ team Corsi score is among the best in the NHL so far this season.

Washington hosts Detroit tomorrow (on NBCSN).