FIRST PERSON SHOOTER
By Lowetide
7 years ago
We are most of the way through summer and the power-play point shot is not yet here—or if it is, not yet clear. Assuming Peter Chiarelli is unable to procure that item in summer shopping, who is the obvious choice among available talent? You might be surprised.
TOTAL SHOT ATTEMPTS
Let’s start in the NHL, and I am going to use total shot attempts—idea being that the more the merrier. Using Hockey-Reference information, here are the top shooters per game from a year ago:
- Taylor Hall 5.8 (traded)
- Jordan Eberle 4.3
- Andrej Sekera 4.2
- Teddy Purcell 4.0 (traded)
- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins 3.9
- Nail Yakupov 3.7
- Patrick Maroon 3.6
- Connor McDavid 3.5
- Oscar Klefbom 3.5
- Brandon Davidson 3.3
- Benoit Pouliot 3.2
- Leon Draisaitl 3.0
- Jordan Oesterle 3.0
- Justin Schultz 3.0 (traded)
- Mark Letestu 2.4
- Source
A few notes:
- These totals are for all situations, not strictly power play.
- Two of the top four have been traded.
- Jordan Eberle had an injury that impacted this number. I suggest we will see an increase in this number in the coming season.
- Andrej Sekera takes a lot of heat for not getting the shot through, but that can obscure what he is good at: Taking a lot of shots. You may not like how many are blocked, and there could be better options, but please don’t disregard the value of a lot of shot attempts.
- Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is a brilliant power-play quarterback and an effective shooter.
- Connor McDavid will spike in this category in year two. Pretty sure.
- Mark Letestu had a great deal of 5×4 success but Edmonton may want to acquire a more substantial RHC for a skill line—or have Letestu shoot a helluva lot more.
INCOMING NHL OPTIONS
- Milan Lucic 3.3
- Adam Larsson 1.9
- Source
I have mentioned this before, but Lucic is not a sniper. He can score goals, and is likely to have a pretty good shooting percentage, but is a more complete player in that his passing contributes to offense more than most enforcers. Larsson has had better years than this but is in unlikely option for PP point man—unless the Oilers do something silly like force the issue.
INCOMING OPTIONS OUTSIDE THE NHL (SHOTS ON GOAL)
- Jesse Puljujarvi 3.5 (Sm-Liiga)
- Patrick Russell 3.4 (NCAA)
- Drake Caggiula 3.1 (NCAA)
It is very important to note these totals are not the same as the ones above—we are looking at actual shots on goal. As a for instance, the top option for total shot attempts per game (Taylor Hall) had 5.8 total shot attempts—and 3.5 shots per game. I am not suggesting Jesse Puljujarvi is equal to Taylor Hall, only that we need to compare apples to apples here.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
I think the Oilers main power play options from a year ago are mostly the ideal ones for the coming season. Milan Lucic is an excellent passer and good at retrieval, and I am curious about Jesse Puljujarvi and his shooting ability (he was used by Finland in the hammer role, with some success).
My overall takeaway from all of this? Edmonton has no dominant option among defensemen for the hammer job from the point, but three possibles. Andrej Sekera takes a lot of shots, and the rates of Klefbom and Davidson are lesser, but they did not spend a lot of time in the power play role.
With the understanding the Oilers need an additional shooter, if I had a vote on who to put on the power-play point for the two units, I would suggest Sekera—Eberle on No. 1 and Klefbom—Nuge on the second pair—with Jordan Oesterle the next option. You?
(Photo by Mark Williams)
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