It's probably no secret that Nuke has become one of my favorite players on the Avs this year, so this research was probably done with a level of bias but.... I realized earlier today that Nuke had his goal against Philly taken away which I thought it was pretty obvious he tipped that shot, but it got me digging into his stats a little and well, I kind of wonder what might happen with Nichushkin if we gave him an honest, extended look in the Top 6 and getting regular PP time. Because after his Ice cold start where he had just 1 assist in his first 16 games this season.... He since has put up 8 Goals and 9 assists for 17 points in his last 29 games. A pretty damn solid 23 Goal, 48 point pace over an 82 game season.
If you dive into the numbers even further though, In that 29 game sample he's also 3rd on the team at Points/60 at even strength. He's at 2.53 Points/60 behind just Mackinnon(3.31) and Burakovsky(2.56). He's 3rd in G/60 at 1.18 behind Mackinnon(1.52) and Kadri(1.34). He's 4th in A/60 at 1.35, behind Mackinnon(1.78), Donskoi(1.70), and Burakovsky(1.46).
He also dominates possession for us. When he's on the ice at 5 on 5 the Avs have 56.7% of shot attempts, despite Nuke starting 46.7% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Only Calvert/Nieto/Bellemare have lower offensive zone starts. His shots attempts% relative to the rest of the team is by far the best at 5.6%. The next best skater is Mackinnon at 3.2%. His on ice GF% is also easily the best on the team at a pretty ridiculous 74.1% which kind of gets put on display by his +17 rating which is easily best among forwards as well(2nd being Jost at a 66% oiGF% and +8).
He also leads the team in GWGs since November 29th with 3.
Basically long story short here.... Since Nuke busted out of his almost 100 game slump back in November, he has been a play driving monster, possession beast, and defensive stalwart for the team. And he's doing so while averaging just the 8th most minutes among forwards on the team, 7th among forwards at 5 on 5 at 12:19 a game and 8th among forwards on the PP at 1:25.
I'd really like to see how he does stapled next to Kadri for a 15-20 game sample size. That would mean getting an extra ~2 minutes of 5 on 5 Ice time a game. I'd also like to see him planted right in front of the net on the Top PP unit.
For the longest time I simply enjoyed watching the effort level he gave and seeing a guy go from not scoring a single goal all of last year and basically being on his last life in the NHL and making something out of it. But now with what he's doing, I honestly think there's the potential for a real high end Top 9 player in Nuke still, maybe even a 2nd line guy with the proper minutes. He's basically scoring at a 45-50 point pace since he started getting 3rd line minutes, while being a great two-way player. Give him an extended look in the Top 6 and see what can happen.
A dude his size always going 100% is pretty rare, I don't know if he can keep this up for 2-3 years.
