Over the past two years, playing for the same team, Trochek has 4 more points than Mika. Mika is “out producing” Trochek by 1 point this year.
Their career points per 82 games are 6 apart, no matter how many times you want to say that Mika “in the worst year of his career” is “out producing” him. It’s 59 and 58 points. Short handed points isn’t the primary measure of effectiveness as a penalty killer - Trochek is the superior defensive player.
Listen, Sid, we all know Mika’s flowing hair and puppy dog eyes make your loins tingle, but when two players of the same age are 6 points apart in their point per 82 game average over 800+ games, you can say whatever you want as hard as you want and it won’t make it true.
Mika had some higher offensive peaks but ultimately has averaged out to be almost the exact same player. Last year Trochek had him beat by 5. This year Mika has him by 1, with a game remaining. Over the course of Trochek’s time as a Ranger Mika is up by 23 points over 3 seasons, or roughly ~8 points per year. So we’ve got the career sample size where they are 6 points apart per 82 and the 3 year sample size where they’re separated by ~8. We’ve got the last 2 years where Trochek is ahead by 4 points and we’ve got this season where Mika is ahead by 1. It seems like they’ve been pretty similar players to me, whether it’s across entire careers, the last 3, 2 or 1 seasons.
Zibanejad had a higher peak with career years of 91 and 81 points, while Trochek had 77 and 75 as his bests. Pretty close to what separates their career averages as well.
Of Mika’s 91 and 81, 39 and 28 came on the PP respectively. Also 31 of his 72 last year, and 19 of his 59 this year.
Of Trochek’s 77 and 75, 24 and 27 came on the PP respectively. Only 24 of his 77 last year, and 12 of his 58 this year.
Last year, Zibanejad 72 points, 41 non PP. This year 59 points, 40 non PP. 131 points, 81 non PP points.
Last year, Trochek 77 points, 53 non PP. This year 58 points, 46 non PP. 135 points, 99 non PP points.
Trochek’s first year as a Ranger, he had 64 points, 47 not on the PP. That was Mika’s 91 point career year - he had 52 not on the PP.
Since Trochek came to NY, it’s 222 points for Mika with 133 not on the PP and 199 points for Trochek with 146 not on the PP.
There’s virtually no doubt as to which player works harder and does more off the puck and one is specifically positioned to be THE go-to shooter on the PP, which is why this info is relevant, before you spout off about “good players” deserve their PP time. It’s NYR - we all know that’s not how PP time is decided.
You can slice this a lot of ways and keep losing the argument. Mika’s raw points per game is .7933 and Trochek’s is .7213. They’ve both played over 800 NHL games. We’re not comparing Bedard and Celebrini here on some absurdly small sample size before either has reached their prime. It’s a .072 point per game difference. Significantly leas than 1/10th of a point per game.
