After October chill, Laine’s November heat wave raises odds of unseasonal 70s

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/12/2018 (2497 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Patrik Laine has scored 13 goals in his last six games. That is… a lot.

When I wrote about Laine early in the season, using historical comparables for his age range, his career shooting percentage and shots rates, I estimated that if everything went perfect for him, he has an outside shot of hitting 70 goals in a season — something that hasn’t been accomplished since 1992-93.

After I said that, Laine went on to not score an even-strength goal for his next 17 games — and was on pace for about 35. But a few trends in his game made me think that I wasn’t so crazy with the 70 suggestion. While it’s unlikely he’ll hit the mark, an 18-goal November — the most goals in a month with the fewest assists in NHL history — currently has him on pace for 72.

There are several factors that lead me to believe that this pace is something that Laine could sustain for a full season, the first being that his shot rate has increased.

At even-strength alone, Laine has increased his shot attempts per 20 minutes from 4.7 as a rookie, to 5.8 as a sophomore, to 6.3 this season. In all situations, his shot rate has risen from 5.9, to 7.1 to now 8.6 attempts per 20 minutes. Those increases may seem small when broken down into rate stats, but the end result — if he maintains this pace and ice time over 82 games — would be about 335 shots on the season, a 39 per cent increase in shots over last season’s 241, which makes a huge difference when your career average shooting percentage is nearly 19 per cent.

Combine an increased shot rate with Laine finding better shooting positions as his career continues — meaning a higher expected conversion rate on his shots — and you’ve got a perfect storm of goal scoring.

In his rookie year, Laine preferred to give himself the space to shoot and often shot from a distance, firing only 42.7 per cent from inside the slot, with an average shooting distance of just over 13 metres. 0

Last season, Laine improved his shot locations to the point where 47.8 per cent of his attempts came from the slot, with an average distance of 11.3 metres, but this season 57.6 per cent of his attempts are from inside the slot area, with an average distance of just 10.4 metres.

Getting nearly three meters closer to the net (nearly 10 feet) and moving closer to the middle of the ice at the same time makes Laine’s shot much more dangerous.

To illustrate the difference in Laine’s shooting locations, he scored eight goals from the high-danger area as a rookie and six from there last season. He scored six goals from that area in November this year.

Shot volume and locations don’t tell the whole story either, because Laine has grown more adept at using his teammates to his advantage, making his scoring chances more dangerous.

 

!function(e,t,s,i){var n=”InfogramEmbeds”,o=e.getElementsByTagName(“script”)[0],d=/^http:/.test(e.location)?”http:”:”https:”;if(/^/{2}/.test(i)&&(i=d+i),window[n]&&window[n].initialized)window[n].process&&window[n].process();else if(!e.getElementById(s)){var r=e.createElement(“script”);r.async=1,r.id=s,r.src=i,o.parentNode.insertBefore(r,o)}}(document,0,”infogram-async”,”https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js”);

 

To quickly explain each of these terms, rush chances are the most dangerous types of chances based on expected conversion rate, generated after controlled entries and before play sets up; cycle chances are shot attempts from the slot immediately preceded by a cycle pass, which forces the goaltender to move and therefore have a higher expected conversion rate; and forecheck chances are scoring chances preceded by a play that changes possession, so the opposing defensive squad is less likely to be in its defensive structure when the chance occurs, increasing the scoring danger.

It seems Laine managed to increase his goal scoring last year purely by improving shot location and increasing shot volume, because the teammate factors in his chances dropped across the board; he had to do more himself.

This season, he’s closer to getting the help from teammates he got in his rookie year while his shot volume and locations have both improved dramatically, and he’s attacking off the rush significantly more than he has before.

There’s a confluence of factors here that, when combined with Laine’s unique shooting talent, create the makings of a generational scorer who has only hinted at his potential so far.

Nothing necessarily changed for Laine in November; he just got the breaks he didn’t get in October, and he’s proven that he can make up for cold streaks by re-defining how hot a hot streak can be.

Now the question is, can he extend that to redefining how many goals it takes to lead the league in scoring in the modern era? I think he can.