We are going to need to find a lot of offense somehow if we're going to be competitive next year. We had only one player score over 20 goals, McCann currently at 29. Our fifth leading goal scorer overall is Beniers with 14. Gotta find some gunners somewhere or we will likely be on the outside looking in again next year.
With one game to go we have scored 76 fewer goals this year than last, almost an average of one a game fewer, going from 6th best in the league last year to 29th in the league this year.
That is pretty wild considering we had 11 skaters with 14 goals or better last season. We had 13 double digit scorers last season. Only 8 this season. 2 of those 11 scorers were Sprong and Donato, which is a loss of 35 goals.
Of the remaining 9 scorers, not one did better than what they did last season.
- Sprong: -21
- Donato: -14
- McCann: -11
- Beniers: -10
- Schwartz: -8
- Eberle: -3
- Bjorkstrand: 0
- Tolvanen: 0
- Dunn: -3
- Gourde: -5
- Tanev: -9
Outside of Bjorkstrand and Tolvanen every players dropped off. Yamamoto and PEB, who were (on paper) replacing Sprong and Donato added a combined 12 goals as opposed to the 35 the combination scored for us last season.
I expected the loss of Donato and Sprong to lower our goal scoring but not by that much. Defensively, we gave up 23 fewer goals this season (with 1 more game left). That was a net positive but I think it had to do more with the goaltending we got from Daccord than anything else. This season could have been much much uglier if not for that.
I am starting to think that we need a coaching change as well. Getting more skill on the roster would help as well.