The Noon Percentage: 55.4%

55.4%

The Vancouver Canucks went 4-6 through the first 10 games of the season, and in the next 11, they've gone 7-4, a much better team.

So, what's the easy answer? Shaking off the Stanley Cup hangover rust? Heart? Grit? Players getting healthy?

Nah, it's even easier: Percentages. Click after the jump and I will show you some real cool charts.

By now, you all know that a team's even strength score-tied Corsi percentage is a great way to predict future events. Score-tied Corsi is pretty simple statistic to count. When the score is tied, you count the number of shots, missed shots and blocked shots directed at the other teams net and divide that by the total number of shots, missed shots and blocked shots against.

Why do we only count when the score is tied? Because, especially early in the season, oftentimes teams will play a disproportionate of time ahead or behind, and teams change their shot-taking strategies depending on the game score. To look at what happens when the game is tied is an excellent way to predict how a player will continue playing.

Using the excellent timeonice.com scripts found here and here I've split the Canucks season into two segments: before Washington and after Washington, referring to the 7-4 Halloween Saturday win over the Capitals.

Now, check this out, because it's pretty cool:

So the Canucks CorsiTied number has remained almost identical. The team hasn't taken any more, or prevented any more shots since the Washington game. But that's to be somewhat expected, and I bet in another month, if we continue to look, the Canucks' CorsiTied will be in the 54-56% range throughout the season, which is a pretty good number.

But their PDO, which is simply a fancy way of simply adding shooting percentage and save percentage, has gone through the roof.

Why? Because percentages are mostly fluke and will eventually balance out to 100%. Sometimes it takes a year. Sometimes two, sometimes three. But even if you only take unscreened point shots, your shooting percentage should be higher than 2%. Aaron Rome, who fires waffles at the net covered in sticky maple syrup, has a career shooting percentage of 3.9%. Basically, we in the statistical world like to say that the Canucks' problems were percentage-driven, and not really a problem from the team itself.

Here is how the Canucks stack up over the full season to date:

You can see the bolded number of 55.4%, which is where you get the total Corsi percentage with the score tied.

And here are there percentages:

So, the Canucks still have a total PDO of under 100%, so they are still an unlucky team by most standards. They are a much better team than the record indicates, which is good, because being on pace for just 90 points, they aren't on a playoff pace just yet. But if the team continues to play like they have all season, the percentages will continue to balance out, and the team will be just fine in the long run.

Remember, a hockey season is 82 games for a reason.