10 Interesting (To Me) Stats For This Week - February 3
Welcome back for another week of ’10 Interesting (To Me) Stats’! Too often – and I am guilty of this – analysts provide player data and compare that directly to others around the league without providing that player’s team-specific context. Identifying which players are succeeding within their team context can help us find good players on bad teams, or good players on top teams in depth roles overshadowed by that team’s star skaters.
Today, we are focusing on forwards and their 5-on-5 tracking data. That tracking data is from All Three Zones, only for the 2025-26 season, and is current as of Monday, February 2nd. We are limiting our sample to forwards with 100 tracked minutes, 400 minutes played at 5-on-5, and that haven’t switched teams during the season.
1 – I’m In Love With the Co-Ro
Calgary Flames winger Matt Coronato is seeing a bit of a down year as his goals and assists per game are both lower than they were in 2024-25. That isn’t for a lack of trying, though, as he has one of the largest gaps between his contributions off the rush compared to his team average and, when including contributions off the cycle/forecheck, he is similar to a star winger from another Western Conference team:
Calgary looks like poor 5-on-5 goal-scoring team again this year, and maybe Coronato’s counting stats won’t look sparkling, but it’s not as if there are problems under the hood. Quite the opposite, in fact.
2 – Televangelista
Getting back to Nashville for a second, Luke Evangelista is quietly having a very good season as he’s a threat for a 60-point year (previous career-high of 39 points). His contributions off the rush and cycle/forecheck, as it relates to his team’s average, have him in good company:
Evangelista has often played with Filip Forsberg at 5-on-5, but in Evangelista’s time on a different line, the Predators maintain a high expected goals-for rate. He hasn’t figured out the goal-scoring thing yet, but he’s certainly turning into a player who can elevate the scoring of his teammates.
3 – S-Ky High
On the topic of tough seasons: The St. Louis Blues. Winger Jordan Kyrou has seen his production jump over the last couple of weeks, but his full-season output is far below where he usually is. Like Coronato earlier, it’s not for lack of trying, as his contributions off the rush compared to his team are a top-20 mark, and he has above-average contributions off the cycle, too:
It seems as if Kyrou’s name has been in trade rumours for like two years now, but he has a full no-trade clause, so he’s not going anywhere if he doesn’t want to. Given what he’s done in the past, and has a couple more seasons before turning 30 years old, the Blues may want to think twice about sending him elsewhere.
4 – Laying the Sherwood
This is a bit of a cheat because winger Kiefer Sherwood has switched teams, but he has yet to suit up for the San Jose Sharks due to injury, so we’ll include him here. We are including him because of the company he’s in by contributions off the rush and cycle/forecheck above his team average:
Just to make sure it’s clear: the company for Sherwood’s rush and cycle/forecheck contributions are Cutter Gauthier and William Eklund. Maybe this is just Sherwood giving it his all in a contract year because he turns 31 years old in March and it may be his last NHL contract. Whatever the reason, his performance with the Canucks bodes very well for the Sharks whenever Sherwood is ready to return, provided he maintains that level of play.
5 – Making His Mark
Whatever other problems the Winnipeg Jets have, Mark Scheifele has not been one of them as he’s a genuine threat for 40 goals and 100 points this season. When looking at who he compares to for contributions off the rush and cycle/forecheck over the team average, Scheifele’s production makes sense:
Scheifele did not make the initial Team Canada Olympic roster but with the recent injury to Brad Marchand, and potential for someone else to get hurt in the next few days, maybe there will be room for Scheifele after all. If they want a centre who can produce offensively, Scheifele’s name should be at the top of the list.
6 – The Wright Stuff
There have been some trade rumours about Seattle forward Shane Wright, which is a bit interesting. The last two seasons have seen Wright be one of Seattle’s top forwards for carrying the puck into the offensive zone, and when just looking at this season, his assists on teammate scoring chances and total scoring chance contributions (his chances + assists on chances) over his team average has him in good company:
Wright has been showing pretty good puck skills across the last couple of seasons, but a depth role on a below-average offensive roster isn’t doing much to make the most of those puck skills. It is a wonder if another team sees the same thing and will try to get him to the next level of his development.
7 – Dom-inant
It is always hard to know what to do with depth players finding success on good teams, which brings us to Tampa Bay’s Dominic James. In this instance, though, he has spent less than 50% of his time with any of Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel, or Jake Guentzel on his line. So, this is not a player who has received elite teammates to skate with, which is why James’ scoring chance assists, and total chance contributions, are important to highlight:
It is a wide range of players and talent listed, but being on a list with Dylan Strome, Quinton Byfield, Luke Evangelista, Ivan Demidov, and Shane Wright seems like a good place to be. Has Tampa Bay’s scouting found another late-round gem?
8 – Put On Your Yarmulke, Here Comes Sennecke
Anaheim winger Beckett Sennecke is neither on a bad team nor a depth player on a good team, but in reviewing his tracking data, he couldn’t be left off this list. When looking at overall rate of zone entries/60 and the percentage of those entries carried in, compared to the player’s team, here are Sennecke’s closest comparables:
Again, we see Evangelista, but we also see Macklin Celebrini. While Celebrini has clearly performed better in both areas than Sennecke, the latter is still a rookie and just turned 20 years old last week. In several ways, Sennecke’s rookie season has been outstanding, and we can add his zone entry work to the list.
9 – What If
One of my bigger ‘What Ifs’ over the last decade is what if Mathew Barzal, instead of going 16th overall to the Islanders in the 2015 Draft, went 10th to Colorado to play with Nathan MacKinnon, 11th to Florida with Aleksander Barkov, 12th to Dallas with their top stars, or 13th (or 14th or 15th) to Boston to play with Pastrňák. I bring that up because here are Barzal’s comparable forwards by zone entries and percentage of entries carried in relative to their team this season:
This isn’t unusual for Barzal, either. He turns 29 years old in May and has five years left on his deal, so that ‘what if’ will probably never be answered, but Barzal’s work on zone entries this season has been absolutely elite.
10 – The Tank Engine
Let’s go back to the St. Louis Blues. Robeert Thomas has been injured for a few weeks and has his lowest point/game mark in an 82-game season since 2019-20. However, when we highlight his combined rate of defensive zone retrievals+zone exits, and how little he botches retrievals or fails on zone exits, it’s clear he’s being tasked with a role no other forward has and done so with few mistakes:
That quadrant is forwards retrieving defensive zone pucks, or exiting the zone, more than their team average, and also botching those retrievals or failing those exits less than their team average. Look where Thomas is compared to everyone else. He is basically a third defenceman for St. Louis, so it’s little wonder he has the offensive numbers he does.
Until next week.
