Who the **** cares?
I feel like possession stats are used by people who are too lazy to actually watch games. I get that you did watch today's game and unfortunately Mikko had a tough outing.
ive watched the bolts all year, paquette is a beast this year after also being very good in the bruins and capitals series. looks like hes either finally fully healthy or finally reaching his full potential.
this is how rantanen's 3 years in the nhl look:
year 1: hes one of the worst possession players in the league granted on a historically awful team. doesnt do too much offensively besides scoring a bunch of goals on super high shooting percentage.
year 2: rides shotgun to a hart finalist and gets a crapton of secondary assists. also shoots slightly unsustainably high percentage individually but not as bad as his rookie year. a respectable 40 points at 5v5. 26 of them primary. (for reference kevin fiala had 27 5v5 primary points and wasnt playing with nate mackinnon. mackinnon had 45 5v5 primary points). credit where credit is due though, while he was a below 50% xgf guy he was a big positive relative to a weak possession avalanche team. however it got ugly when he was away from mackinnon (albeit small sample).
year 3: so far off to a very strong offensive start. near the top of the league in 5v5 primary points, but no goals yet at 5v5, all assists as nate mackinnon is off to a hot goal scoring start which helps a lot. not a strong possession player to start the season.
to me the kid is way overhyped, hes a solid player though. good playmaking winger but hes just as one dimensional as laine and is far more reliant on linemates than laine.
