Hockey fans are a very passionate bunch and most fans I’ve spent time with are not shy about sharing their opinions. In the age of Twitter and blogs like this one, fans have the chance to sound off more than ever and reach people all around the world as they do so. If anyone wanted to accuse the writers here at GonePuckWild of just blindly agreeing with one another all one has to do is follow @FSGonePuckWild on Twitter and see the banter between us. I would describe the mood on Twitter as scrappy from time to time. One point of lingering discussion, is over the production and performance of Minnesota Wild veteran players.
The inspiration for this article all came from a tweet made by @FSGonePuckWild that I will quote below.
"“@FSGonePuckWild Why won’t Yeo bench the veterans?!?!? Scoring leaders: 1. Parise 2. Pominville 3. Vanek 4. Suter 5. Koivu #narrative“"
Fair point, as the Tweet points out that veterans currently occupy the top 5 scoring spots. The ‘narrative’ hashtag is obviously a reference to the belief of many Wild fans that the veterans haven’t been getting it done and have been mostly void of accountability. Ok, on the outside that might seem fair to say the team’s current struggles are not entirely due to underperforming veterans. Yet isn’t it a bit convenient to say the veterans are pulling their weight now? It only took 36 NHL games for the veterans to occupy all top 5 spots in scoring. That’s almost half of the season. The implication of the tweet is that the veterans should no longer receive criticism for the club’s struggles. I think it would be short sighted to let the team’s veterans off the hook because of this. The veterans receive the lion’s share of ice time whether at even strength and on the power play so why shouldn’t they occupy those top 5 spots in scoring?
Whether you are talking about Thomas Vanek, Mikko Koivu or even Jason Pominville, I’d like to guess that they’re all scoring well off their normal career pace. So let’s take a close look at these players and see if they are playing at their normal level throughout their respective NHL careers. For each of these respective players we will exclude the lockout shortened 2012-13 season.
Sabre Noise
Vanek averaged 64.3 points over the last 8 full NHL seasons where he played an average of 78.1 games for a points per game average of .82. This season Vanek is scoring at a rate of .63 points per game which is significantly behind his career average. The drop off is even more significant when you look at goals where he averaged 32.1 goals over the last 8 full NHL seasons equating to a pace of .41 goals per game average. This season Vanek is scoring at just a .16 goals per game average, ouch. Project this season’s scoring rates over Vanek’s career average amount of games played and you have a 12 goal, 49-point season for 2014-15 which would be his lowest total since his rookie season in 2006-07 where he played 81 games.
Koivu averaged 51.8 points over the last 8 full NHL seasons where he played an average of 69.1 games each of those seasons for a points per game average of .75. This season Koivu is scoring at a rate of .52 points per game which significantly below his career average. Koivu’s current .16 goal rate is pretty close to his normal pace of .21 per game average over the last 8 full NHL seasons. Project his current rate of goals for his career average of games and you have an 11 goal, 36-point season which would be his lowest totals since the injury marred 2007-08 season where he had 11 goals and 42 points in 57 games.
Sabre Noise
Pominville averaged 61.8 points over the last 8 full NHL seasons where he played an average of 77.7 games each of those seasons for a points per game average of .78. This season Pominville is scoring at a rate of .77 points per game very slightly off his normal pace which may not seem nearly that profound until you break it down by goals. Through the same 8 full NHL seasons Pominville averaged about 25.6 goals per season for a per game average of .32 compared to his current rate of .22 this season which is significant. That projects to a 17-goal, 59-point season which would be his 2nd lowest total since 2010-11 where he had 52 points in 73 games (he had 20 goals that season).
I think the statistics clearly indicate these 3 veterans are having some of the worst seasons of their respective careers and that most of them are significantly off their average scoring pace. This becomes especially frustrating when you consider how these players rate in regards to scoring chances for the Minnesota where Vanek and Pominville are among the leaders and Koivu is not far behind according to this graphic here. So does the ‘narrative’ of underperforming veterans still fit this team despite the fact they may be the team’s current top 5 scoring leaders? You bet it does. While I think its fair to share some of that criticism with underperforming younger players like Charlie Coyle and Mikael Granlund it still shouldn’t mean the media and fans should give these veterans get a free pass either just because they’re finally leading the way.