We are at the quarter mark of the season and it seems like the highest scoring season in a long time. We have 50 players producing at PPG pace or better! So let's take a look at the top 20 scorers (since I didn't feel like doing the top 50) and compare their up-to-date production against their career production and see which players are likely going to sustain their pace, improve it or see it degrade over the course of the season.
I have used ioSH% (on-ice shooting percentage) as the statistical measure. This is the percentage of shots that result in goals while a player is on the ice. In the table below, I have listed the current oiSH%, career oiSH%, games played, points so far, points predicted by the career oiSH% (that is, how many points a player would have if they had their career oiSH% this season), the difference in points, predicted PPG based on points a player would have if they had their career oiSH% and finally the predicted point totals.
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[/TBODY]It's interesting to note that all but three of the top producers are overachieving. At or below their career oiSH are McDavid, Kucherov and Gaudreau.
Also noteworthy is the range of career oiSH%. Lowest is 8.5 and highest is 10.5. Compare this range to the range of year-to-date oiSH% with lowest of 9.6 and highest of 15.5. You notice right away the much bigger range (5.9 vs 2 in the career oiSH%), which is explainable by the fact that we only have 20 games of sample size and numbers normalise over the course of the full season.
Top 10 predicted scorers are
McDavid- 127
Malkin - 104
Rantanen - 98
Kucherov - 94
Gaudreau - 94
Kane - 90
MacKinnon - 86
Point - 86
Pastrnak - 86
Tkachuk, Monahan and Giroux tied at 82
The one outlier in the data set is Duchene, who is having a lot of luck early on and is projected to finish the year with 67 points, a far cry from his current 100+ point pace.
Another interesting prediction was Tavares's 66 points. That really surprised me but the numbers are telling us that he really should have more points right now given his very high oiSH%. Not sure what to make of it. I would bet he finishes with more than 66 points, though
I did not look into scorers below the top 20 and I'm sure some of them will pick it up and end up in the top 20 or even top 10 in scoring.
*Obviously Bergeron will not play 82 games.
I have used ioSH% (on-ice shooting percentage) as the statistical measure. This is the percentage of shots that result in goals while a player is on the ice. In the table below, I have listed the current oiSH%, career oiSH%, games played, points so far, points predicted by the career oiSH% (that is, how many points a player would have if they had their career oiSH% this season), the difference in points, predicted PPG based on points a player would have if they had their career oiSH% and finally the predicted point totals.
| Player Name | oiSH% | Career oiSH% | GP | Points | Points based on career oiSH% | Delta | Predicted PPG | Predicted Season ending points (predicted PPG*82) |
| Rantanen | 14.5 | 9.7 | 20 | 32 | 24 | -8 | 1.2 | 98 |
| MacKinnon | 13.5 | 9.7 | 20 | 29 | 21 | -8 | 1.05 | 86 |
| Marner | 13.4 | 9.8 | 21 | 28 | 20 | -8 | 0.95 | 78 |
| McDavid | 9.6 | 10.5 | 20 | 28 | 31 | +3 | 1.55 | 127 |
| Malkin | 11.6 | 10.3 | 19 | 27 | 24 | -3 | 1.26 | 104 |
| Duchene | 15.5 | 9.3 | 21 | 27 | 16 | -11 | 0.76 | 62 |
| Bergeron | 12.8 | 8.8 | 19 | 26 | 18 | -8 | 0.95 | 77* |
| Point | 11.8 | 10.2 | 21 | 26 | 22 | -4 | 1.05 | 86 |
| Rielly | 14.2 | 8.6 | 21 | 26 | 16 | -10 | 0.76 | 62 |
| M.Tkachuk | 10.1 | 8.5 | 21 | 25 | 21 | -4 | 1.0 | 82 |
| Tavares | 13.7 | 9.3 | 21 | 25 | 17 | -8 | 0.81 | 66 |
| Pastrnak | 11.4 | 9.6 | 20 | 25 | 21 | -4 | 1.05 | 86 |
| P. Kane | 10.9 | 9.6 | 20 | 25 | 22 | -3 | 1.1 | 90 |
| Domi | 12.8 | 10.2 | 21 | 25 | 20 | -5 | 0.95 | 78 |
| Stone | 13.4 | 10.5 | 21 | 24 | 19 | -5 | 0.9 | 74 |
| Monahan | 11.1 | 9.9 | 21 | 24 | 21 | -3 | 1.0 | 82 |
| Kucherov | 10.1 | 10.1 | 21 | 24 | 24 | 0 | 1.14 | 94 |
| Kessel | 12.9 | 9.5 | 19 | 24 | 18 | -6 | 0.95 | 78 |
| Giroux | 10.8 | 8.9 | 20 | 24 | 20 | -4 | 1.0 | 82 |
| Gaudreau | 10.7 | 10.5 | 21 | 24 | 24 | 0 | 1.14 | 94 |
Also noteworthy is the range of career oiSH%. Lowest is 8.5 and highest is 10.5. Compare this range to the range of year-to-date oiSH% with lowest of 9.6 and highest of 15.5. You notice right away the much bigger range (5.9 vs 2 in the career oiSH%), which is explainable by the fact that we only have 20 games of sample size and numbers normalise over the course of the full season.
Top 10 predicted scorers are
McDavid- 127
Malkin - 104
Rantanen - 98
Kucherov - 94
Gaudreau - 94
Kane - 90
MacKinnon - 86
Point - 86
Pastrnak - 86
Tkachuk, Monahan and Giroux tied at 82
The one outlier in the data set is Duchene, who is having a lot of luck early on and is projected to finish the year with 67 points, a far cry from his current 100+ point pace.
Another interesting prediction was Tavares's 66 points. That really surprised me but the numbers are telling us that he really should have more points right now given his very high oiSH%. Not sure what to make of it. I would bet he finishes with more than 66 points, though
I did not look into scorers below the top 20 and I'm sure some of them will pick it up and end up in the top 20 or even top 10 in scoring.
*Obviously Bergeron will not play 82 games.
