Timothy T. Ludwig-USA TODAY Sports
With just a few more sleeps left until Santa makes his rounds and the NHL takes its three-day holiday hiatus, it’s time to check on who’s been naughty and nice so far this season.
For this week’s Stat Pack, we’ve got a forward who’s gifting his GM with plenty of points along with a few who are delivering lumps of coal. Also, the best (and worst) defensive performances as well as a look at where fans are unflinchingly loyal — and where that’s not necessarily the case.
Let’s get into it:
The Scorers
On the offensive side of the puck, Tage Thompson takes the honors as the best-value player in the NHL right now — definitely ‘nice’ for the Buffalo Sabres.
We all know that Kevyn Adams made a bold decision to sign Thompson to a $50-million contract extension in late August. But that deal takes effect next season.
With 26 goals and 50 points in 32 games, Thompson sits third in the NHL scoring race, behind only Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. With a cap hit of $1.4 million, he’s also the NHL’s best bargain so far this season, according to Cap Friendly. He’s costing the Sabers just $28,571 per point.
Not surprisingly, most of the other players at the top of the cost-per-point list are young stars on entry-level contracts, including Thompson’s teammate Dylan Cozens. Shoutout to Gabriel Vilardi of Los Angeles, who’s 23 years old and has 20 points on an $825,000 cap hit, and to Michael Bunting, 27, with 22 points at $950,000.
So, who’s the ‘naughtiest’ player by this metric?
It seems unfair to judge anyone with a limited body of work due to injury, or a stay-at-home defenseman who is not really expected to put up points.
Let’s start by looking at forwards who have played at least 20 games this season and have cap hits of $5 million or more. At the top of that list, we find Milan Lucic and Patric Hornqvist, whose situations are basically the polar opposite of Thompson’s.
These two are physical forwards who signed their current deals when they were still lighting the lamp. Now, they can be effective in bottom-six roles but have seen their offense drop right off.
Lucic, 34, is in the last season of the seven-year deal he signed in Edmonton and is now in his fourth year with Calgary. He picked up his first goal of the year in San Jose on Sunday. Hornqvist, 35, had one goal and three points in 22 games with the Florida Panthers before landing on long-term injured reserve with a concussion in early December. He’s in the final season of a five-year deal he originally signed with the Pittsburgh Penguins, which carries a cap hit of $5.3 million.
What about players who still have multiple years remaining on their deals? Montreal’s Joel Armia is a name that jumps out. At 29, he’s signed for two years after this at a cap hit of $3.4 million. He peaked at 30 points in 2019-20, but in 20 games this year, he has no goals and two assists. That’s $1.7 million per point.
In Anaheim, Jakob Silfverberg’s current five-year contract has been a disaster. He signed an extension with a $5.25 million cap hit in March 2019, as he was on his way to a career-best 24 goals. Silfverberg followed that up with 21 goals in 66 games but hasn’t been the same since the pandemic pause. This season, he’s managed just four goals and seven points in 31 games — costing the Ducks $750,000 per point.
The Defenders
If you’re an opponent, you may argue that the Anaheim Ducks and Columbus Blue Jackets are very generous, and therefore deserve a ‘nice’ designation. But both these squads have been historically bad in their own zones through the first part of this season.
The last team to give up more than four goals a game through a full season was the San Jose Sharks, in just the third year of Gary Bettman’s tenure as commissioner. After winning a playoff round in each of the two previous years, the 1995-96 Sharks finished last in the Pacific Division with 47 points and a horrific goal differential of minus-105. They allowed 4.35 goals against per game.
This year, the Ducks and Blue Jackets are approaching that level of futility. Anaheim is averaging 4.16 goals against per game and is already at a minus-56 goal differential through 32 games. After Daniil Tarasov gave up just one goal on 33 shots to the Dallas Stars on Monday night, with Jason Robertson chipping in an empty-netter, the Blue Jackets sit at exactly four goals against per game.
And don’t count out the Vancouver Canucks. After giving up five goals or more in seven of their last nine games, they’re lurking at 3.90 and could be a dark horse contender for ‘naughtiest’ defenders.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Boston Bruins are definitely looking ‘nice,’ as they put together an awesome defensive season. They’ve given up 10 goals in their last four games — which is high, for them — but are still sitting at 2.16 goals against so far this season.
That’s the lowest mark in six years, but as discussed in last week’s Stat Pack, scoring is up, big time. When the Washington Capitals allowed 2.16 goals a game in 2016-17, an average of just 5.54 goals were being scored. This year, the average is up to 6.32, which makes the Bruins’ defensive prowess even more impressive.
The Fans
On Dec. 15, statistics site Hockey Reference released its “Sportify: Wrapped” lists, which break down the players and teams that were viewed most often in 2022.
Looking across the US, there are naughty fans scattered from coast to coast, seeing other teams behind their home squad’s back.
Do divided loyalties explain how the Chicago Blackhawks can edge out the Lightning and the Panthers in the state of Florida or how none of the three California teams garnered as many page views as the New York Islanders? A little higher up, are the Anaheim Ducks getting a Northern boost from having the same name as the University of Oregon’s sports teams?
And while the Vegas Golden Knights have consolidated the attention of hockey fans in Idaho, Nevadans are perhaps the naughtiest of all, spending more of their time searching for the floundering Flyers. Deeper in the desert, there’s a similar scene: the Arizona Coyotes win New Mexico but cede their home turf to the Detroit Red Wings.
The nice award for 2022 has to go to Washington State, demonstrating yet again that they are fully behind their fledgling Seattle Kraken franchise. Also showing nice tendencies in somewhat non-traditional hockey markets: North Carolinians are supporting their Hurricanes and Ohioans backing the Blue Jackets.
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