Matt Duchene is going to score 40 goals this season.

[HockeyVirus]

He kind of was said to have been cooked and a cap dump the past few seasons. I was surprised to see he is currently sitting at 38 goals and on pace for a 90 point season. There has been basically 0 talk about this guy having a career resurgence.

I saw him score this goal last night which prompted me to look at the season he was having



Maybe the quietest season in the league?

Click to read more...

 

[tucker3434]

Shot 8% last year. 20% this year. The player he really is is right in the middle. Awesome year for him though.

 

[22FUTON9]

Wish the ending with the avs was a bit better, but I’ll always be a fan of his.
Good for him, the guy always had superstar talent and his effort was never a problem as well, it was always the mental side of the game that he struggled with.

 

[McVespa99]

He should score 40 every year to justify his contract

 

[Crossfire Hurricane]

Going to be hilarious when he goes cold and scores one goal the rest of the way.

 

[tarheelhockey]

OP's right though, Duchene is a top-10 goal scorer and nobody is talking about it. For that matter, Forsberg is top-20 in points per game as well. Throw in Josi and Saros, Nashville has some phenomenal individual seasons going on.

 

[Spilot23]

Going to be hilarious when he goes cold and scores one goal the rest of the way.

That's the Duchene we remember in Colorado Happy for him though !! I hope he doesn't score if we face them in the playoffs.

 

[Kent Nilsson]

Goes to show how big a waste of talent his career is.

 

[triggrman]

OP's right though, Duchene is a top-10 goal scorer and nobody is talking about it. For that matter, Forsberg is top-20 in points per game as well. Throw in Josi and Saros, Nashville has some phenomenal individual seasons going on.

and Jeannot, who could ending up 2nd in the league in hits, top rookie goal scorer, and being the first player in a very long time to have 25 goals, 15 fighting majors.

 

[Chadstudsky]

Good for him. Didn't realize the season he was having either. He's a great guy too. Usually the one to pick up the tab when he came out to eat with the sens in Ottawa after the games. Good tipper and knows his tequila!

 

[bossram]

Shot 8% last year. 20% this year. The player he really is is right in the middle. Awesome year for him though.

His underlying numbers were pretty strong last season too. He had his typically high rate of individual shots and chances for. Finishing wasn't there though. It's there this year, probably unsustainably so.

I took him in a couple fantasy leagues banking on a bounceback (obviously not expecting to this extent).

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Enormous difference in Duchene's game this year. He belongs on the wing for sure. He's having more puck luck too, but even beyond those things he's just using his teammates more and not making the same kind of dumb plays that made him the guy where the puck went to die like last year. He's a changed player. Hopefully he stays changed like this and doesn't revert!

 

[Leafs1991]

Imagine if all of Nashville's overpaid players started playing like this every year...they'd actually be worth their contracts.

 

[hockeeyyy]

Shot 8% last year. 20% this year. The player he really is is right in the middle. Awesome year for him though.

Look at the Predators top-four scorers. All have 20+% shooting. It kind of makes Josi's point gains a bit suspect.

 

[Koivu11]

He seems to alternate between good and bad years.

 

[Kaner9]

Lesson for fans is if you don't like how Duchene play in a season just wait a year or 2 lol

 

[NyQuil]

I liked him in Ottawa - he just joined the team at a bad time.

 

[lionsDen]

gonna go PPG for the second time in his career, great year. Hopefully he can stay cinsustent

 

[Russian_fanatic]

The thing that has always held back Duchene is consistency.

One year he will post 50 points, another year he's above a point per game. Duchene has all the skill in the world, it's the mental part of the game which never really came.

 

[Neo Tolstoy]

Apparently he worked through a lot of mental and emotional stuff in therapy, and he credits that for his improvement on the ice.

 

[bobholly39]

He's a player who I always felt should/could be elite, but never really quite was. This would be his first points per game season ever, at age 31, pretty impressive.

 

[Holymakinaw]

Good for Duchene. I seriously doubt he ever comes close to these numbers again, so it's nice to see the guy hit it like this at age 31.

 

[The Gr8 Dane]

Scoring is up nothing to see here. Happy for the guy tho

 

[Holymakinaw]

Scoring is up nothing to see here. Happy for the guy tho

It hasn't been up for the Habs at all.

 

[tucker3434]

The thing that has always held back Duchene is consistency.

One year he will post 50 points, another year he's above a point per game. Duchene has all the skill in the world, it's the mental part of the game which never really came.

I don’t think he could handle the mental pressure of being THE guy in Colorado. He really allowed his cold streaks to get to him because there was no one else to pick up the slack. So as he went, the team went. Whether that’s been resolved in Nashville is tough to say. He probably didn’t have many off nights while shooting 20%. But I could totally see him shortening up those cold stretches and becoming a consistent ~70 point guy for a few more years. That’s basically what he was brought in to be.