10 Interesting (To Me) Stats For This Week - January 7
The holidays are behind us, we return to our regular schedule, and we are back for the first ’10 Stats’ column of calendar 2025. We are looking at passing from defencemen, carrying from forwards, a couple young players on the rise, and more.
As always, data is from Natural Stat Trick or Evolving Hockey, and is as of the afternoon of January 6th. Player tracking data is from AllThreeZones, and viz is from HockeyViz.
1 – Danger From Behind
Teams getting their defencemen involved in the offence has only gotten more prevalent over the past decade. When looking over the tracking data, that really stood out. These are the bottom-10 defence groups by high-danger passes per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (passes from behind the net or across the slot):
Here is the kicker: Of those 10 teams, eight of them are 20th-or-worst in the league this season by goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (the exceptions are Carolina and Los Angeles). We have seen improvements of late from teams like St. Louis and Detroit, and Colorado probably gets better as the season wears on, but it seems pretty clear that if teams want to score, their defencemen need to be playmakers and not just puck-movers.
2 – Devils You Know
New Jersey is a top team in the league and the blue line is a big part of it. When talking about defencemen making high-danger passes, it seems notable that of the 147 defencemen with at least 100 tracked minutes, two of the top five marks are not only from the same team, but the same defence pair:
The curious part is that New Jersey is only scoring 2.1 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 with Brett Pesce and Luke Hughes on the ice, but they do have a mark of 3.1 expected goals-for per 60 minutes, generating over 31 shots per 60. They seem to be getting unlucky, and that low shooting percentage has started to turn lately. Look for them to be a lot more productive offensively in the second half.
3 – Yeah, That Makes Sense
Chicago has started to score more lately at 5-on-5, but that just means instead of being a bottom-5 offensive team, they’re 20th in the league over their last 10 games. On the topic of defencemen making high-danger passes, well, the Blackhawks defence basically doesn’t exist. There are seven defencemen with at least 300 tracked minutes that have yet to make a high-danger pass, and over half of them (4) are from Chicago:
To put it another way, Connor Murphy, Seth Jones, TJ Brodie, and Nolan Allan have fewer high-danger passes completed in 1560 tracked minutes combined than Marc Del Gaizo of Nashville has (1) in 48 tracked minutes. At least the Blackhawks are also among the bottom-8 teams by both expected goals against and actual goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5.
4 – Getting Carried Away
The best teams can create offence in a variety of ways, but having the puck as you enter the zone is still important. Tracking data has the NHL team average for percentage of zone entries that are carried in just over 50%. There are nine teams with forwards carrying the puck in at least 53% of the time, and of those nine teams, seven are among the top-10 teams by goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (highlighted):
There are always exceptions (Columbus has been a top-5 scoring team at 5-on-5 and has a low carry percentage) but, by-and-large, having the puck on your stick is often better than not. Who knew?
5 – Smoke and Mirrors?
When Florida has their shutdown guys on the ice – Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart up front, Aaron Ekblad and Gustav Forsling on the blue line – they are tremendous defensively. That might be masking the fact that the Ekblad-Forsling pairing has not been good defensively at 5-on-5 without Barkov/Reinhart on the ice:
To be clear, this isn’t the case with shutdown pairs. The Jonathan Kovacevic-Jonas Siegenthaler pair from New Jersey is still elite defensively without Nico Hischier/Timo Meier, the Vladislav Gavrikov-Mikey Anderson pair is also elite defensively without Anze Kopitar/Adrian Kempe. Florida lost Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the offseason and should probably address their defence group as they march towards another deep playoff run.
6 – The Full Monty
When St. Louis fired coach Drew Bannister and hired coach Jim Montgomery on November 24th, they were 9-12-1. Since then, the team has gone 10-6-3 and the big improvement has been on defence: Under Bannister, the team was 22nd by expected goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, and 26th by actual goals against; since then, they are tied for the fifth-fewest expected goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, and have the lowest goals against. That huge defensive improvement, combined with a modest offensive improvement, has given the Blues the highest 5-on-5 goal share in the league over the last six weeks:
Starting January 14th, the Blues play 11 straight games against teams either in a playoff spot, or within striking distance (like Calgary and Utah). That will be the real test of the new-look Blues, but so far, so very good.
7 – Holl of Fame
Speaking of St. Louis, winger Dylan Holloway is having a great first year with his new team. He is on pace for a 28-goal, 30-assist season and is 1 of 3 forwards on the team with at least 2.0 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou are the others). Beyond the production, there has been a lot of good under the hood as Evolving Hockey’s even strength goal and expected goal differentials at even strength have him in very good company:
No, he is not as good as Aleksander Barkov, but for a half-season from a player who turned 23 years old in September and is on a new team, it’s hard to ask for more. Let’s see if he can keep this going through the rest of the season, but it’s a great start.
8 – Very Knies
Toronto’s Matthew Knies had a five-point game on Saturday night, including a hat trick. It was a game most NHLers only dream of having and it happened in his 121st career appearance. I am a fan of Knies and think he’s a burgeoning physical, productive, two-way forward who can become something like what teammate Max Pacioretty was in his prime. What is notable about his season is that he’s not only been playing well with Auston Matthews, but almost all of his line mates have better expected goals-for marks with Knies on the ice with them (blue boxes) than when they don’t (red boxes):
Playing well alongside Auston Matthews is one thing; lifting the offensive impact of lesser line mates is a whole other ballgame, and Knies has been doing exactly that in his second full season.
9 – There’s Some Vors In This House
Here at ’10 Stats’, we love Our Columbus Blue Jackets. They have been covered here at times this season, and today it’s Dmitri Voronkov’s turn.
With a pair of goals on Saturday night, Voronkov now has 15 tallies in 31 games this season. Going back to last season, Voronkov has 0.91 goals and 0.72 primary assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. When looking across the league for forwards with similar marks, they are all top-6, if not top-line, options for their respective teams:
Playing on a great top line this season helps, but he was good offensively as a rookie in 2023-24, so this seems to just be more growth from a young player. He isn’t elite or anything, but he certainly looks like he will be a staple of Columbus’s top two lines for years to come.
10 – Getting’ Jiggy Wit It
It was a tough start Will Smith’s rookie season in San Jose as through his first 17 games, he had just two goals and two assists. Even worse was that he was last among their regular forwards by team-relative expected goal share and last by team-relative actual goal share at 5-on-5. Well, things have improved a lot since as he has 10 points in his last 17 games. Beyond that, he is 1 of 3 San Jose forwards to have a positive team-relative goal share while being at least 5% above that team-relative average by expected goal share:
Notably in this stretch, Smith’s numbers have also been good when playing away from Macklin Celebrini compared to playing with him. It seems as if the 4th overall pick from 2023 has turned a corner, and it’ll be exciting to keep tabs on his second half.
Until next week.
