10 Interesting (To Me) Stats For This Week - August 19
Welcome back for another week of ’10 Interesting Stats’. This week, we do have a theme again. Working on something over at Dobber Hockey got me looking into which players are truly underrated in the NHL. I don’t mean, “Aleksander Barkov, a three-time Selke Trophy and two-time Stanley Cup winner with five point-per-game seasons, is underrated”, this is more bottom-half-of-the-roster guys who constantly tip the scales in favour of their team(s) but rarely get recognized for it.
So, let’s build an All-Undervalued team with six forwards, three defencemen, and one goalie. We are using data from Evolving Hockey unless otherwise indicated.
1 – Evan Rodrigues (Florida Panthers)
Rodrigues is the absolute poster boy for This Guy Just Needs A Consistent Role On A Good Team To Show How Effective He Is. This was evident in his early Buffalo Sabres days, as his expected goal- and actual goal-driving rates at even strength exceeded those of Jack Eichel from 2016-19. It has been very evident over the last four years as he’s continued to drive both goals and expected goals across three teams, most recently with the back-to-back Cup-winning Florida teams. Over those four years, here is a close comparable for goal share and expected goal share relative to teammates:
Florida built a powerhouse with a couple of lucky gambles like Gustav Forsling and Brandon Montour, but also by betting on a lot of analytics darlings like Rodrigues. It has worked well for him and the team.
2 - Nils Höglander (Vancouver Canucks)
The impetus for this article was Höglander as I looked through his career to see how well it was going. In a word: Good! Höglander has been a reliable depth option for the Canucks for the last couple of years, but he has found success more often than not in his NHL career. As evidence for that, here are some comparable names by actual goal- and expected goal-driving differentials over the last five seasons:
Keep in mind that after a strong rookie season in the 2021 Bubble, Höglander had a bit of a downturn from 2021-2023 before surging in the last couple of years, so his more recent seasons are even more impressive. He just has the feel of a guy Vancouver will eventually give up on and then he’ll flourish elsewhere.
3 – Alex Iafallo (Winnipeg Jets)
A forgotten piece of the Gabriel Vilardi/Pierre-Luc Dubois trade is Alex Iafallo, who is truly one of the most consistently effective players in the NHL. It isn’t hyperbole: Here is the entire list of forwards to have at least a second-line impact on both actual goal- and expected goal-driving at even strength in each of the last four seasons:
Iafallo has been an excellent defensive forward who can occasionally chip in offensively. He will never get Selke Trophy recognition as he’s now regularly deployed as a bottom-6 forward, but few non-top-line forwards have been consistently good-to-great as he’s been for years now.
4 – William Carrier (Carolina Hurricanes)
A common refrain against analytics over the last decade is that analytics can’t measure heart, grit, or hard work. That’s bullshit, obviously, because if a player possesses those features and they help his team, they will show up in the numbers somewhere. I think Carrier is a prime example of a heart/grind guy who, when healthy, has been able to drive monster expected goal differentials but only good actual goal differentials. In fact, here are the 10 forwards with the largest difference between their xG and goal differentials over the last four years:
That is two superstar forwards (Tkachuk and McDavid) and eight grinders of varying effectiveness. As long as he’s in the lineup and on the ice, Carrier is one of the Hurricanes forwards who can help create advantages for his team in depth matchups.
5 – Mikey Eyssimont (Tampa Bay Lightning)
Eyssimont is a player similar to Carrier, in that two of the last three years, Eyssimont’s expected goal-driving has been far superior to his actual goal-driving. That is evident when looking at his player card from HockeyViz: the positive number in the top left is good for offensive play-driving, the negative number in the bottom-left is good for defensive ability, but the yellow box in the middle shows how his finishing and playmaking are both well below average:
Despite those below-average finishing/passing skills, Eyssimont has had three straight years without a negative actual goal-driving number. He has been a solid player for a few years now and will be looking to do the same for Boston.
6 – Jack McBain (Utah Mammoth)
Though he’s known for his physicality – fifth-most hits in the NHL over the last three seasons – McBain has grown into a very effective bottom-6 forward for Utah. The following list shows that evolution as he is 1 of 9 forwards to play at least 1000 minutes at even strength across the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons as well as the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, and be inside the 90th percentile for improvement in both his actual goal- and expected goal-driving rates between those two pairs of seasons:
McBain earned a five-year extension at $4.25M per season this summer, and while that may have raised some eyebrows, if he keeps up this play, let alone progresses more, he’ll be very worth it.
7 – Brayden McNabb (Vegas Golden Knights)
It is hard for McNabb to stand out on a blue line that has Alex Pietrangelo, Shea Theodore, and Noah Hanifin, but he has been a steady presence on the Vegas blue line since their inception in 2017. Things have been even better recently as these are comparable defencemen by actual goal- and expected goal-driving rates over the last two years:
McNabb has played every game in each of the past three seasons, meaning not only is he effective, but he’s effective night in and night out. With Pietrangelo’s injury, McNabb may have to take even more tough defensive matchups than he already does. If he keeps playing as he has for basically his entire career, that should be no problem.
8 – Trevor van Riemsdyk (Washington Capitals)
After some struggles in his first couple of seasons with Washington, the other van Riemsdyk has been one of their most effective defencemen over the last three years. In fact, he has been one of the most effective defencemen in the league as these are the comparable blue liners by actual goal- and expected goal-driving rates at even strength since the start of the 2022-23 season:
By style of play, van Riemsdyk is much closer to Radko Gudas than he is to either Roman Josi or Cale Makar, but the key is that he’s able to help his team create favourable goal differentials regularly, and that’s the entire point of playing professional hockey.
9 – Jalen Chatfield (Carolina Hurricanes)
One reason Carolina was fine with letting Brett Pesce and Brady Skjei walk away in the 2024 offseason had been the emergence of Chatfield, who went from third-pair minutes throughout his career to being Carolina’s number-3 defenceman in the 2025 playoffs. Even with the change in role, Carolina still thrived in Chatfield’s minutes, as this is the list of all defencemen with a goal-impact rate of a number-1 defenceman in each of the last two regular seasons:
That seems like a pretty good list for Chatfield to find himself. Now that he has a full year of top-4 minutes under his belt, we should look for him to be even better in the 2025-26 campaign.
10 – Casey DeSmith (Dallas Stars)
Finding an unheralded goalie can be tough because if they’re good for a couple years, they often find their way to a starting role. But DeSmith has been exactly that, as he’s 1 of 13 goalies to face at least 1000 unblocked shot attempts in each of the past three seasons while posting a positive Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx) in each season. Of those 13 goalies, here is where he ranks by unblocked shot attempts for every GSAx (lower numbers are better):
Keep in mind that DeSmith has done this for three different teams in three years: Pittsburgh, Vancouver, and Dallas. At 34 years old, with two years left on his contract, and playing behind Jake Oettinger, it is very unlikely DeSmith ever becomes an NHL starter, but he’s certainly been one of the best backups for a few years now.
Until next week.
