Rasmus Dahlin is rising up the list of points scored by an 18-year-old NHL defenceman of all time and his coach, Phil Housley, may be the only one he doesn’t surpass. But how does he compare to recent under-20 NHL defencemen in their rookie seasons?
And with a tight playoff race in the Western Conference, who are the most likely teams to get in come April?
That, and more, in this week’s column.
SPOTLIGHT PERFORMANCE
I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about Rasmus Dahlin much this season, but as he climbs the list of points by an 18-year-old blueliner in NHL history, we should probably start giving him some more attention as one of the top rookies this season.
Among players to break into the NHL since I was born in 1987, Aaron Ekblad is the only defenceman who produced more points as an 18-year-old than Dahlin so far – the Panthers defender put up 29 points before he turned 19 on Feb. 7, and finished his rookie season with 39 points. Dahlin doesn’t turn 19 until April 13 and is on pace to finish with 46 points.
The list of defencemen who made the NHL right out of the draft since 1987 is pretty short, with only eight players participating in over half of an NHL season at 18. That’s not much of a sample size, and for their rookie season we have comprehensive data for a whopping… none of them. Even Ekblad’s rookie season happened a year before the Sportlogiq database was formed, so to figure out how big of an outlier Dahlin is, we’ll need to expand the sample a bit.
If we look at 19-year-old rookies as well, our criteria from 2015-16 onwards gives us a sample of Dahlin plus six others who played full seasons, including Dahlin’s contemporary in Miro Heiskanen this year. Dahlin’s points pace would place him second on this list behind only Zach Werenski, who finished with 47 points as a rookie.
Looking closer, how does Dahlin’s rookie season compare to those guys?
As it turns out, Dahlin compares pretty favourably to the field, especially when you consider the context here. Werenski had one of the most impressive rookie seasons for a defenceman in the past decade, but he had the chance to play alongside Seth Jones, while Dahlin has seen his time split between Zach Bogosian, Jake McCabe, and Rasmus Ristolainen.
The only other player with comparable results to Dahlin is Mikhail Sergachev, who was used very sparingly in a third-pair role with very sheltered competition levels for most of his rookie year. He racked up points against opposing depth players.
Sam Girard, Jakob Chychrun, and Miro Heiskanen all managed to stay very close to team average in most measures, which I think is pretty impressive for teenaged defencemen who didn’t just get cherry-picked minutes.
When looking at this group of players it’s probably fair to say that it’s difficult for a teenaged defenceman to have a big impact on high danger scoring chance and pass to the slot differentials — the only players who were positive on both are Werenski and Sergachev. And they each had some good help, as mentioned.
Noah Hanifin is the guy who really struggled here and he’s developed into a nice player anyway, so I think we can look at the trajectory of the guys we’ve seen develop on this list, and recognize that beyond just points Dahlin is going to be a force to be reckoned with.
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THE QUESTION
With the playoffs inching ever closer now that we’re a full month into 2019, Steve Dangle is wondering about the fringe teams, so he asks…
“Which teams are the most likely of those in contention to make the final two wild card spots in the Western Conference?”
Right now there are seven teams within five points of each other for the last two spots in the West, and the Minnesota Wild are one point ahead of that, sitting third in the Central. For the purposes of this exercise, let’s assume the Wild make it.
That leaves us with the Dallas Stars, Colorado Avalanche, Vancouver Canucks, Anaheim Ducks, Arizona Coyotes, St. Louis Blues, and Edmonton Oilers. The Blues have been written off basically all season and battled their way back, while the Ducks started hot on the back of John Gibson despite their skaters playing terribly and have fallen apart. No one really expected the Oilers, Coyotes or Canucks to be so close, while Colorado and Dallas are pretty much where you would expect based on pre-season predictions.
If we’re looking at who has the best shot down the stretch, going over a full season’s worth of stats may not give us the best indication due to factors such as the Ducks icing an AHL squad in October, so let’s focus only on the past two months and see which teams appear to be playing the best.
Usually when I’m building graphs I like to keep the team or player names as the legend and the statistics along the x-axis in order to compare each team stat by stat, but when you’re looking at the whole picture, sometimes it makes things very clear when you flip it around, so that’s what I’ve done here.
If you want to figure out which teams in the west are most likely to find themselves in those last two wild card spots, you can pretty much just guess with a quick glance there.
There are mitigating circumstances of course. The Blues’ goaltending is unreliable and the Stars are five points up on them, which is a lot to make up with 33 games left, especially when Dallas looks to be the third-best team in the group.
However, if you’re a betting person and the odds for the Blues to make the playoffs are tempting, I wouldn’t blame you one bit because they’ve really rounded into form.
A cold spell has the Avalanche just hanging on, but they’re legitimately good and have been all season. They’re not a one line team anymore as Joe Sakic’s patience and willingness to buy into data has really turned that team around, not to mention an outstanding coaching job by Jared Bednar. Whoever gets them in the first round is in for a scary series.
BUY OR SELL
• Thinking about turning this into the Carey Price is Back section, because he’s been on fire the past two months and it hasn’t had anything to do with improvements from his teammates. The Habs still allow the third-most passes to the slot against at 5-on-5 and in all situations, and block the lowest percentage of those slot pass attempts in the league. They’ve also allowed the third-most high danger chances and fifth-most high slot chances on net over that time. Yet Price’s rebounds are down and his save percentage is a brilliant .935.
• After the Jake Muzzin trade, I looked into how much he’s ever played on the right side, and while I’m sure he wouldn’t suddenly be bad, it looks like he’s never done it before based on both his old coach’s words, and loose puck recovery data. Looks like the Leafs are going to try Morgan Rielly on the right instead, which makes sense with his quick feet.
• Another point on Rielly: look how far he’s come with Mike Babcock. Given a choice, I’m sure Babcock would rather have everyone on their strong side, but two years ago Rielly went from being decent to Babcock’s prime tough-minute eater and a power play wizard. Remarkable growth.
• Patrick Kane led all players with 21 points in January, but it wasn’t enough for the woeful Blackhawks, who are the worst defensive team in the NHL. No one gives up more high danger chances or passes to the slot. Cam Ward isn’t a good NHL starter, but the season he’s having isn’t all on him.
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