10 Interesting (To Me) Stats For This Week - November 5, 2024
We are back with 10 interesting stats, be it a player, a line, a team, or something across the league. Player data is as of Monday, November 4th, and coming from Natural Stat Trick and Evolving Hockey. Tracking data is from AllThreeZones and viz from HockeyViz.
1) The drop in save percentage across the league is notable, but what is particularly important is what’s happening at 5-on-5.
So far this season, teams are shooting 8.92% at 5-on-5, averaging 2.02 goals/game in 380 combined team games. After the first 380 combined team games in 2023-24, teams were shooting 8.43% at 5-on-5, averaging 1.96 goals/game.
We will have to check back in periodically, but at current shot levels and a shooting percentage of 8.9%, there would be about 300 more goals in the league than if it stayed at 8.4% shooting.
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2)
One of the big surprises of the season is the Washington Capitals, who are 8-3-0, good for sixth in the league by points percentage. They are also sixth by overall goal share (58.2%).
The big change has been the top line duo of Alex Ovechkin and Dylan Strome. Last season, they were on the ice for 12.7 high-danger shots against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 and had the two worst goals against rates of any Caps forward with 50 games played. The goals against are down significantly so far in 2024-25, and the defensive measures are much improved:
Washington’s top line not being a defensive liability would be huge for them, and so far, so good.
3) Matvei Michkov’s start to the season is a double-edged sword. He has four goals and nine points in 12 games, an 82-game pace for 27 goals and 34 assists, while averaging 18:09 per game in TOI. That is really good for a rookie.
However, he is taking 11.6 shot attempts per 60 minutes, and that’s about the 35th percentile of regular forwards. From 2021-2024, there were 48 forwards with a season of at least 60 games played, over 18 minutes per game, and under 12 attempts/60. Here are their average 82-game outputs:
Michkov is basically on those paces, but he has now seen under 16 minutes in three straight games, as often happens on a John Tortorella-coached team. He is a future star but there needs to be patience exercised for his rookie season.
4) Dylan Cozens finally scored his first goal of the season on Friday night after totaling 33 shots in his first 11 games. There does seem to be a problem other than his goal-scoring, though, and it’s that Buffalo is getting pummeled in his minutes: He is dead last among Sabres forwards by high-danger shot share at 5-on-5 (36.9%) and the team is being outscored 7-4 with him on the ice. It doesn’t seem to be a line mate issue, either, as the results are nearly as bad with Jack Quinn – his most common winger – as without him:
If Buffalo wants to make a serious playoff push, they need a lot more from their second-line centre.
5) A pair of power play goals on the weekend brought Dylan Larkin’s season total to five PP goals, and seven in total. Goals are goals, but it’s worth pointing out how little he and the Detroit Red Wings are generating at even strength.
This season, regular NHL forwards are averaging 3.4 high-danger shot attempts per 60 minutes (HDCF/60) at 5-on-5. Larkin is averaging just 0.75 HDCF/60 minutes, and he’s near the bottom of the league for share of shot attempts that are of the high-danger variety at 0.04:
Over the prior two seasons, Larkin managed about 0.15 HDCF per shot attempt, so this is very bad. Maybe it’s just a slow start, but the Red Wings are a distant last in the league by high-danger attempts per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, so this is bigger than just Larkin.
6) Seattle forward Shane Wright has just two points in 13 games, but he has been tremendous for the Kraken to start the season.
At 5-on-5, the Kraken are carrying 61.4% of the high-danger shot share at 5-on-5 in Wright’s minutes. What is spectacular about that is no other Kraken forward is above 50%. Crucially, he is positively impacting nearly every single player to share the ice with him:
On top of that, Wright leads Seattle’s forwards by percentage of zone entries carried in by a wide margin:
If he keeps playing like this, Wright’s production will improve dramatically, and he’s already showing signs of being a high-end centre in the next few years.
7) It has been seven games since Erik Brännström was called up by Vancouver, and the team has been very good in his 5-on-5 minutes: The Canucks are outscoring the opposition 6-3 and carrying the high-danger shot differential 23-15:
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise, as from 2021-2024, here are his closest comparable blue liners by even strength goal differential and expected goal differential per 60 minutes:
It is just seven games thus far, but he’s helping stabilize the non-Quinn Hughes minutes, and that’s a big deal for Vancouver.
8) Two guesses as to which defenceman leads the Dallas Stars by high-danger shot share at 5-on-5. Not that one. No, not that one, either. Okay, it’s Nils Lundkvist, and his rate of a 65.8% HD shot share is among the top-10 defencemen in the league:
Dallas is outscoring the opposition 4-3 in his time, too. He was a healthy scratch in their game on Saturday, but it’s a great start for Lundkvist who, like Brännström, is helping stabilize the minutes when their team’s top defencemen are on the bench.
9) The New York Rangers broke up the pairing of Adam Fox and K’Andre Miller on Sunday, but it’s because of the play of the rest of the blue line, and not them. In short, the Rangers were throttling the opposition with the Fox-Miller pairing on the ice:
But the Rangers were getting ran over defensively with them off the ice:
The good news is the Rangers have a dominant defence pair they can turn to when they need it. The bad news is they have to figure out the rest of the blue line.
10) It is well-known by now that the Carolina Hurricanes are a great puck possession team that sometimes struggles to turn that dominant possession into goals. They are dominant possession-wise again this season and are 10th in the league by goals-for/60 minutes at 5-on-5. At least they’re scoring.
What stuck out to me is this: Of the 164 league defencemen with at least 100 minutes of 5-on-5 play, every single Carolina blue liner is over a 60% shot attempt share, and in the top 10 of the league:
There is a lot more to hockey than generating (or preventing) shot attempts, but it’s just really funny that the entire Carolina defence corps is in the top-10 of the NHL. Hurricanes hockey, baby.
Until next week.
