1440
Registered User
- Feb 20, 2013
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To add some context: That 6 in 45 was in a variety of leagues, mostly VHL and international play.
Here is a bit of a breakdown:
He is clearly too good for the MHL and scored 4 points in the 2 games that he played there despite only getting 15 minutes of ice time a game.
In the VHL he averaged ~15.5 minutes of ice time and with a shooting percentage of 8.6% over 17 games, one of which was in the playoffs. He had 3 goals and 5 assists for 8 points.
In 7 games at the WJC, he scored 5 points (1+4) and averaged a team high (for forwards) 18:53 TOI even though he was the youngest player on the team, shot 6.7% and had 8 PIM.
He played 20 more international games, 18 of which were U20, in which he scored 11 points (2+9). In his two games with the senior team he did not score.
This year in the KHL, he has averaged ~10:00 minutes a game and has posted 4 points (1+3) in 18 games. He has shot a measly 5.7% (and has averaged only 5.4% shooting over his KHL career).
More points:
He has never been a prolific scorer outside of the Hlinka Cup after his U16 days.
His shooting percentages are very low. This is most likely just bad luck since he does possess a powerful shot, but maybe there is some other lurking scoring deficiency.
He has not played meaningful minutes at the KHL level, which explains some of the lack of production, but his production has not increased that much with a greater role in lower leagues. One interpretation is that a player has to earn more minutes by producing, but as Garret Hohl elucidates, deployment has a much larger impact on player production than you might think.
Where he has been given more minutes such as in the WJC, it has largely been on the back of his two-way play, which was especially unusual given his age (he is only 3 months older than Lafreniere) and Bragin's coaching methods. Despite being younger than most of his WJC teammates, he was big and well-developed physically, which cancels out some of the credit I would give him for his age, since maybe he is just an early-bloomer.
His advanced stats (in the KHL) are excellent, which makes his lack of production even more surprising.
Conclusions:
Every viewing I have had has left me impressed, but I have also had a lot of "lack of finish" kinds of thoughts. As much as that can usually be attributed to bad luck, at a certain point one does start to think there is a pattern to such things. I would love to see his on-ice shooting percentages if anyone has them.
I think he still has first line upside, but will almost certainly top-out as a complimentary piece. He is a strange sort of a non-traditional Russian prospect in that he is more of a physical board-battler and does not rely on elite puck skills. His game is probably better suited to smaller ice. He is also an analytical anomaly in that his traditional counting stats are not that impressive in cohort models, but his underlying play-driving metrics are very good. Point scoring is a very overrated skill, but a very good predictor of successful transition from lower leagues. His lack of production is concerning, but he is the type of player that can still be effective even when not scoring and he likely will be effective at the NHL level regardless of whether he does so or not.
