Trying to map out how this season may look based on the seasons everyone had last year. Not without it's flaws, but an interesting exercise. There's a few thing's that I'm going to look at: expected games, expected goals, and expected goals against.
Expected Games (EG): Games Played / Games possible
Expected Goals(G): (Expected Games * Goals/Game -from 2019/2020-
Expected Goals Against: Based on the current roster's GAA from previous year
if Talbot gets 40/56 starts, let's say Kahk and Stalock split the rest at 8 apeice. Talbot had a 2.63 GAA last year, while Stalock had a 2.67 and Kahkonen had a 2.96.
Talbot- 105 GA
Kahkonen- 24 GA
Stalock- 21 GA
Goals Allowed Next season: 150
For this exercise, I will assume Kaprizov is a 30 + 30 player and omit Rossi from the team. I made minor executive decisions such as adding games for Sturm and Mayhew as they will likely get more games as the team lost a lot of man games played in Koivu and Galchenyuk without a replacement.
i.e. lines and games are distributed as:
Parise-Mojo-Fiala
Kaprizov-Ek-Zucc
Greenway-Bonino-Bjugstad
Foligno-Hartman-Sturm
Rask-Mayhew
Returneeeees
Parise- EG:56, G:20
Kaprizov- EG:56, G:20
Fiala- EG:51, G:19
Greenway- EG:54, G:7
Ek- EG: 50, G:7
Zuccarello- EG: 53, G:12
Rask- EG:35, G:6
Sturm- EG:45, G:4 *bumped from 5 and 0
Suter- EG:56, G:6
Spurgeon- EG:50, G:10
Brodin- EG:56, G:2
Foligno- EG: 48, G:9
Dumba- EG: 56, G:5
Hartman- EG:56, G:7
Hunt- EG:47, G:6
Soucy- EG:45, G:6
Pateryn- EG:16. G:0
Mayhew- EG:29, G:4 *Bumped from 10 and 2
Dumont and Johnson- EG:2, G:0
newcomers
Note- in order to make sure we had all the manpower dressing for each game (i.e. 18 skaters), I calculated how many games the above group played (844) and found the number of games available for a full 18 person roster per game (1008) and found that we esentially have 164 spots in the lineup open. I will distribute those evenly based on expected games for the player's previous team. For example, Bjugstad played only 13 of Pittsburgh's 69 possible games, while Bonino played 67 of his 69 possible. So Bonino got a much larger chunk of the games. I also made the decision to prorate Bjugstad's season to 45/69 up the remaining games without putting Bonino and Johansson over the max 56 games
Bjugstad- EG: 35, G:6
Mojo- EG: 49, G:7
Bonino- EG:54, G:15
16 lineup spots remaining that weren't distributed, but could assume you get maybe 3 goals from that. That might be pushing it, though.
Believe it or not, that equates to 178 goals for, or roughly a 3.17 goals/game stat line, which was just better than the 3.16 goals/game we posted last season. Not surprisingly, 150 goals against puts us at a 2.67 GAA, which would've been 6th best last season behind Boston, Dallas, Columbus, Arizona and St. Louis. That would be a huge jump from the 3.14 GAA the tam posted last year. What this all should say, though, is that this is a team that can score goals, we saw it this year. And we saw that when we got capable goaltending, this was a very good team. An example of that is Stalock's 2.67 GAA and 20-11-4 record to go with it (103 point pace). I know some people realize this, but if Talbot provides any sort of stability i.e. plays as he did last season, the depth of this team and high-end defensive core makes it a very good team. Maybe not on that can win a cup, but easily a playoff team. If you enjoyed this post let me know and I will try and dive into other things. In particular, I'd like to try and forecast Pitts season.