This week's Canadian Soccer News power rankings (I.e. the current TSR rankings) below the jump:
Before we get into the numbers, a reminder of what TSR -- total shot ratio -- is.
TSR is a complicated way to express a basic thing. Specifically, it's an expression of what percentage of a game's shots a team generates. This matters, because the more shots a team generates the more goals they score. That's not a debatable fact. And, to add to that, the more goals a team scores the more wins they get.
Again, not controversial.
So, teams with a high TSR value typically, OVER THE LONG RUN, do better than teams that have a low rating.
If you're interested in seeing how well TSR correlates to points in a table you can read some great work on the subject (using the Premier League) here: http://pena.lt/y/2013/04/02/understanding-total-shot-ratio-in-football/
Before we go on a word on outliers.
They exist. They exist in every statistical evaluation, everywhere. Generally they exist because of a little thing sports fans hate to acknowledge: luck. Luck, OVER THE LONG RUN, typically runs out. When that happens no one knows, which is why the magic of sport really isn't ruined by numbers. They don't matter once the games start.
There are some odd outliers so far in the MLS season. One of the reasons we are tracking TSR from the start to the end of the year is to try and understand those outlying numbers more. If a team with a poor TSR continues to do well all year (SPOILER ALERT -- RSL) then something else is going on beyond dumb luck (if it's the latter it will almost certainly correct over 34 games).
Got all that? Good. The figures for week 7:
1. Kansas City .676
2. Los Angeles .617
3. Chicago .560
4. Colorado .533
5. Montreal .526
6. San Jose .514
7. Chivas .509
8. Houston .505
9. Columbus .504
10. Portland .502
11. Philly .496
12. New York .486
13. Toronto .480
14. Vancouver .469
15. Seattle .462
16. New England .459
17. DC United .448
18. Dallas .441
19. Salt Lake .391
As I said: odd outliers.
RSL and Dallas being chief among them. How can TSR be real when two of the top teams are dead last and second last on the chart. On the surface it's easy to dismiss the whole concept out of hand.
Those inclined to do that aren't likely to be swayed by the answer of why they should continue to believe these numbers. The answer is that they've been tested in various setting over a very long time. What's happening at the seven game mark might just be early season luck both bad and good.
Another possible explanation is that individual performances are having undue influence on an otherwise poor team performance. We're looking at you Nick Rimando (who would be my MVP pick if the vote were today). Dempsey at Seattle is another example.
To bring it back to Salt Lake it would seem unlikely that A) They will perform this poorly on TSR all year (two games with LA are already on the books) and 
Rimando will continue to play this far out of his mind.
So, who knows.
A couple other outliers, only the other way, are San Jose and Montreal. How can we explain such good TSR and poor results?
Again, individual performances might explain. In Montreal's case Di Vaio just shoots so much, from so many different positions, that he skews the numbers. When he's hot (a concept that isn't real, but that sounds better than "when he's on a real lucky streak") he can push Montreal up the table like he last year (when Montreal had a terrible TSR number, by the way).
Regardless, the bottom line on all the numbers is that it's early. Not too early to take any value from the number, but not too late that we won't see major changes in its order yet.