One thing that gets lost every year in criticizing guys for their playoff performances is the fact that's it's the playoffs. No more facing teams the quality of the Sharks, Ducks, or Flyers. Every team is good. The players are all better and every single players stats dip from the regular season, every ones.
Yeah 100%. Which makes Aho's playoff history all the more impressive. He doesn't have insane production like McDavid, Kuch, Drai, MacK, etc. but he's got 28 goals, 75 points in 78 games and is +23 and that's in our system which does deflate forwards' production a bit and inflate the D's.
A couple notable comparisons since 2018-19:
Point: 73 games, 37 goals and 73 points, +5
Tkachuk: 70 games, 27 goals and 65 points, +4
Pastrnak: 72 games, 31 goals and 63 points, -1
Barkov: 68 games, 17 goals and 59 points, -2
Hintz: 82 games, 22 goals and 58 points, 0 +/-
Bergeron: 58 games, 19 goals and 42 points, +4
I'd say as a playoff performer Aho is a tier below the very elites but is in the upper echelon of that 2nd tier, and tier 1 is very very small and pretty much only elite franchise players who were drafted in the top few picks (Kuch an exception of course). He really just needs some more forward help, which all of those guys listed have. Jarvis coming on could be part of the answer for sure, and Blake is looking like a good playoff performer too. And maybe Svech is finally waking up. But would love to get a truly elite winger goal scorer for Aho's wing. Of course we've tried with Guentz and Rantanan but need something long term.
The official source for NHL Stats including skaters, goalies, teams stats and more.
www.nhl.com
