LeafOfBread
Registered User
It's early still, but this guy has been such a great acquisition thus far. Nonis' trade for him seemed to receive a lot of criticism on HF, not on the Leafs board necessarily (though there were a few Grabo lovers who were throwing a hissy fit), but on the main board it was constant bashing, saying that he wouldn't be able to be better than Grabo, that it was a lateral move at best, and a lot of people were saying Bolland was even done.
However, he's played very well, being a driving force on this team with his grit and great defensive play. Today, I was looking at some underlying numbers, and I was quite amazed by what I've taken in
Looking at just his basic statline:
14GP, 6G, 10pts, +5, 22.2sh%
Plays roughly 17 minutes a game, 2 of which come on the PK and close to a minute of PP time
Now, for the possession numbers, this will boggle your mind. I've adjusted for players who have played at least 5+ games with the team, because guys like Fraser, Kulemin and Clarkson have wonky numbers due to the small sample sizes.
Out of all of our forwards who have played over 5 games, David Bolland has the highest Corsi Rel QoC at 2.647, meaning he faces the hardest competition of all of our forwards. Not only that, but the only players on the entire team with a higher QoC number are Phaneuf and Gunnarsson.
Additionally, he also starts a mere 37% of his shifts in the offensive zone, the 2nd lowest on the entire team, only ahead of McClement. Even more impressive? His offensive zone finish % is 50%, a whopping difference of 13%! This means that Bolland is able to drive the play up the ice effectively from his own zone.
And to top it all off, he has a Corsi Relative of +12, the best on the entire team when you adjust for games played. This means for every 60 minutes that Dave Bolland plays 5 on 5 versus every 60 minutes that he doesn't play, the Leafs will be better off by a net 12 shots attempted.
With Clarkson and Raymond on his line too, this is a dominant possession trio as all three have great numbers in that aspect and really control puck possession when they are on the ice together. Clarkson will likely get moved up soon, but even Kulemin is a decent possession player so this line is going to be money.
So to sum it all up:
Bolland faces the hardest competition of our forwards, has the lowest offensive zone starts after only Jay McClement on the team, has the best possession numbers, is very effective at shutting down top quality opposition, plays 2 minutes a game on the PK, and is STILL scoring at a 55+ pt pace. I don't expect him to keep up his offense the entire season, but I would be more than satisfied with a 40pt+ season from him. His shooting % will likely go down a little bit, but not by a lot as some people on HF would have you believe; Bolland actually shot 15-17% when he was in Chicago, and the Leafs have shown to be a high shooting team overall thus far, so I don't expect a huge regression from him. At this point, the key for him is to stay healthy as that's been a concern in recent years.
Also I apologize if parts of my analysis may have been a bit amateur, I'm still a bit new to 'advanced stats' and only really took an interest in them over the off-season.
However, he's played very well, being a driving force on this team with his grit and great defensive play. Today, I was looking at some underlying numbers, and I was quite amazed by what I've taken in
Looking at just his basic statline:
14GP, 6G, 10pts, +5, 22.2sh%
Plays roughly 17 minutes a game, 2 of which come on the PK and close to a minute of PP time
Now, for the possession numbers, this will boggle your mind. I've adjusted for players who have played at least 5+ games with the team, because guys like Fraser, Kulemin and Clarkson have wonky numbers due to the small sample sizes.
Out of all of our forwards who have played over 5 games, David Bolland has the highest Corsi Rel QoC at 2.647, meaning he faces the hardest competition of all of our forwards. Not only that, but the only players on the entire team with a higher QoC number are Phaneuf and Gunnarsson.
Additionally, he also starts a mere 37% of his shifts in the offensive zone, the 2nd lowest on the entire team, only ahead of McClement. Even more impressive? His offensive zone finish % is 50%, a whopping difference of 13%! This means that Bolland is able to drive the play up the ice effectively from his own zone.
And to top it all off, he has a Corsi Relative of +12, the best on the entire team when you adjust for games played. This means for every 60 minutes that Dave Bolland plays 5 on 5 versus every 60 minutes that he doesn't play, the Leafs will be better off by a net 12 shots attempted.
With Clarkson and Raymond on his line too, this is a dominant possession trio as all three have great numbers in that aspect and really control puck possession when they are on the ice together. Clarkson will likely get moved up soon, but even Kulemin is a decent possession player so this line is going to be money.
So to sum it all up:
Bolland faces the hardest competition of our forwards, has the lowest offensive zone starts after only Jay McClement on the team, has the best possession numbers, is very effective at shutting down top quality opposition, plays 2 minutes a game on the PK, and is STILL scoring at a 55+ pt pace. I don't expect him to keep up his offense the entire season, but I would be more than satisfied with a 40pt+ season from him. His shooting % will likely go down a little bit, but not by a lot as some people on HF would have you believe; Bolland actually shot 15-17% when he was in Chicago, and the Leafs have shown to be a high shooting team overall thus far, so I don't expect a huge regression from him. At this point, the key for him is to stay healthy as that's been a concern in recent years.
Also I apologize if parts of my analysis may have been a bit amateur, I'm still a bit new to 'advanced stats' and only really took an interest in them over the off-season.
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