I'm repeating myself at this point, but, his shooting percentage last season was both: not overly high compared to his peers (that is ~20+ goal scorers), and not overly high compared to his career average. Just looking at a shooting % and saying its x amount higher than the league average means nothing. Granlund has a good shot, is an above average NHL shooter and thus will likely have a higher career shooting average than the average NHL'er.
This is an issue that I have seen a lot of here lately. Though the hockey world seems to have just about fully accepted advanced at this point, these stats (much like +/- back in the day) seem to just be thrown around without any real sense for what they actually mean.
This is true but also a strawman. Nobody was comparing his SH% to the "league average." Nobody said anything about a league average. The point made was that 15.6 is probably not sustainable, and it most likely is not. Only Stamkos manages to maintain that high of a percentage and Granlund for his career is more around 12-13%. It is maybe not a huge difference but it does matter. Bear in mind that if his "true talent" is around 13%, then he is as likely to shoot at 11% as he is at 15, and that is the difference between having 13 goals and having 19. All of which is to say that 20 goals is probably a high water mark for him, unless he can generate more shots.
I think there is a reasonable chance that last year's 19 goals ends up being his career high.
One more thing: having a reputation for a good shot and having a high shooting percentage does not correlate perfectly. An easy example is Brandon Sutter, who also has a "good shot" but is 10% for his career.
Sutter is a perfect example of this. His Corsi is bad because he gives up a bunch of shots, but if you dig deeper, his GA stats have typically been really good. Shots may be a better indicator of driving play, but not all shots are created equal. Perhaps, for whatever reason Sutter just gives up many low quality shots???
It
could be, but a lot of research has been done on this topic and for the most part it has come up negative. Players who benefit from a high on-ice save% usually end up regressing. Sutter would have to be an exceptionally rare player for that to not apply to him. It is not impossible though.
The thing is though, his GA stats were not good last year. He actually gave up goals at a pretty high rate 5-on-5. One of the highest on the team, actually. He was not a -20 for nothing.
Similarly, Granlund shooting or Kyle Wellwood shooting is not the same as an average of all players shooting. Granlund has an excellent shot and scores more often then average. Wellwood has a mediocre shot, but, during his Canuck years, only took shots that were from the hashmarks in, many of which were on open nets or at the end of a deke. He also had an "anomalously high shooting %".
Kind of already addressed this above but Wellwood did not have an anomously high shooting %. Not for his career. He had one year with us where it was 19.1% but then the next year it fell to his career average of 14%. The point is not that all players are the same in this regard, but that there is a pretty clear range and that any player who is well above their career average for a single season will typcially see it fall the next season.
Granlund's sh% last year was not some ridiculous anomaly true, but I would still bet on it being closer to 12% next year than 15%.
All of which means if he manages to play the full year and get 150 shots on goal, he is probably still going to have around the same 18-20 goals.
