10 Interesting (To Me) Stats For This Week - July 1
Welcome back to another week of ’10 Interesting Stats’ and today is one of the biggest days on the NHL calendar: free agency. While this year’s group has thinned out thanks to the recent signings of Sam Bennett, John Tavares, and Matt Duchene, there is still a lot of talent available with a huge cap increase across the league. Let’s look at the top options available.
Player data is from Evolving Hockey, tracking data is from AllThreeZones, and other sources will be credited as necessary.
*Note: This was written yesterday morning and then like half the list either got traded or signed. That means it’s probably going to be a slow Free Agent Frenzy but it’s worth highlighting the key players anyway.
1 – Sharing The Blame (Mitch Marner)
With (likely) former Toronto winger Mitch Marner testing free agency, a lot is being (and always has been) made about his playoff performance. There is no doubt that Toronto has underperformed in the postseason relative to their expectations, but it’s notable that at 5-on-5 with Marner and Auston Matthews on the ice over their last eight playoff runs, the Leafs controlled over 64% of the goals. Even more, when Marner and Matthews were apart, the Leafs got crushed with Matthews on the ice but were above break-even with Marner on the ice:
The play-driving numbers still favour Matthews, but the playoffs are about scoring and preventing goals, and one player has fared much better than the other in this respect.
2 – Powered Down (Mitch Marner)
When discussing the Toronto playoff struggles, one aspect that is constantly overlooked is their power play. In the regular season of the Matthews era – or since the 2016-17 season – Toronto’s power play is third in the league in goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-4, trailing only Edmonton and Tampa Bay. In the playoffs, though, they are 19th in the league by 5-on-4 goals per 60 minutes over that timeframe, and Marner has the largest drop in team on-ice PP goal rate of anyone that didn’t play in Carolina:
Power plays are a team effort, so this is clearly not all on Marner, but it does highlight that whatever struggles he and the team had in the postseason, there wasn’t one single aspect responsible.
3 – DEhlers Choice (Nikolaj Ehlers)
It was a near-perennial issue that Nikolaj Ehlers wasn’t often used as a genuine top-line forward in Winnipeg. The question is whether he can play true top-line minutes with another team and scale his tremendous performance on second/third lines to the top line. Using the general cut-off for even-strength minutes per game from a top-line forward of about 14 minutes, here is how Ehlers fared by goals, assists, and points per 60 minutes at even strength over last four regular seasons in games he got top-line minutes and games he did not:
There is a production drop, but the size of the drop is about 8% and we’re talking about Nikita Kucherov/Matthew Tkachuk levels to Kirill Kaprizov/Sidney Crosby levels. As far as his production is concerned, it seems like he’d be just fine with a true top-line role.
4 – Playoff Un-Performer (Nikolaj Ehlers)
On the topic of playoff performance, if there’s one thing that will make teams hesitant to give Ehlers a huge contract it’s that he’s genuinely been one of the worst playoff performers relative to regular season performance over the last several years. In fact, since making his playoff debut in 2018, there is only one player with a larger drop in points/60 minutes at 5-on-5 between the regular season and playoffs (minimum of 40 playoff games):
Ehlers generates a lot of shots from the tops of the circles and generally out of reach of defenders. Because of his quickness and accurate shot, that works extremely well in the regular season. It hasn’t worked for him in the postseason, though, and every team looking to sign him will know that.
5 – Brock The Cash-baugh (Brock Boeser)
Vancouver’s Brock Boeser is a free agent and teams that miss out on Marner and Ehlers will undoubtedly look his way. Teams should be very cautious here because Boeser’s value is predicated on one thing: goal-scoring. He isn’t good defensively, he doesn’t draw penalties, and he doesn’t kill penalties. And there are even questions about the goal scoring because he’s spent 52% of his even-strength ice time next to J.T. Miller across the last four seasons. Miller is an all-world playmaker, and Boeser’s goal-scoring, primary assist, and point rates all crater without Miller next to him:
If Boeser signs with the New York Islanders and is skating next to Mathew Barzal, then great. If he signs with Winnipeg and is skating next to Vladislav Namestnikov or a 37-year-old Jonathan Toews? Well…
6 – Cautionary Tale (Vladislav Gavrikov)
Los Angeles defenceman Vladislav Gavrikov has legitimately been an excellent defensive defenceman over the last three seasons, with 2024-25 being his best. The problem is there is a long history of defensive defencemen falling off a cliff once they hit 30 years old, which Gavrikov will in November. Consider:
· Since 2008, there have been 27 defencemen who were in the 86th percentile of defensive impact from during their age-26 through age-29 seasons (minimum 3000 minutes).
· Of those 27 defencemen, 17 of them (or 63%) had a positive overall impact (offence and defence) on expected goals and actual goals.
· Once those 27 defencemen turned 30 years old, just eight of them (30%) posted a positive impact on both expected goals and actual goals.
These are those eight defencemen:
It should also be noted that guys like Jared Spurgeon, Paul Martin, Anton Stralman, and Mattias Ekholm also provide solid offensive value, and some of these guys are also still active so things can decline even further. This tells us the chance of Gavrikov being just above average on this contract, let alone very good-to-great, is not high. Buyer beware.
7 – Gentleman Suter (Pius Suter)
Vancouver’s Pius Suter is a fascinating forward because so few players have his profile. He is a centre who is not a good playmaker but is a good goal scorer. He is excellent defensively at even strength and that, with his goal scoring, helps drive positive goal differentials, even if he can’t set up his teammates. He is also a solid penalty killer. All this nearly makes him a unicorn, as here’s the entire list of centres from the last three years who had a positive impact defensively, a first-line goal-scoring rate at 5-on-5, and a fourth-line primary assist rate at 5-on-5 (minimum of 2000 minutes):
The encouraging part is Suter just finished a season where he thrived while skating 13:43 per game at even strength, a three-year high and a second-line rate. This is a unique player and one that will help any team that signs him. They just need to know he’s not a typical centre.
8 – If He’s Such A Good Defender, Why Don’t He Defend Good? (Ivan Provorov)
Ivan Provorov has hit free agency and there should be a lot of trepidation here. He was very good in his first two NHL seasons, but that was 7-8 years ago. That hasn’t been the case lately, and while there might be temptation to blame the teams around him (Philadelphia and Columbus), it isn’t as if he was even good on those teams specifically. Here are Provorov’s ranks among the seven regular Philadelphia defencemen from 2021-2023 by goals and expected goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, and then among six regular Columbus defencemen from 2023-2025:
We can’t even blame tough matchups as PuckIQ has Zach Werenski, Damon Severson, and Dante Fabbro taking tougher matchups than Provorov over the last two years. Whoever signs Provorov better hope they can fix something or else they’re giving second-pair money to a third-pair defenceman.
9 – What The Heck-blad (Aaron Ekblad)
Florida defenceman Aaron Ekblad has two Stanley Cups and over $60M in career earnings, so it’s a wonder what he wants with his new contract. Either way, it has to be noted he has suffered a lot of injuries over the last four years, missing 27% of regular season games. It also has to be mentioned that over those last four years, Ekblad’s defensive results at 5-on-5 were considerably worse without Aleksander Barkov on the ice:
It isn’t just that the goals against got worse without Barkov; that is expected. It’s that it goes from elite to slightly-better-than-average. If he leaves Florida, the team that signs him should be doing a lot of homework on how good Ekblad actually is defensively.
10 – Happy Birthday
No hockey stat here. Just want to say birthday to Canada, as my home country turns 158 years old today. It doesn’t look a day over 157. Enjoy free agent frenzy, everyone.
Until next week.
