I thought it would be interesting to look at last years production vs this year for our forward group.
You can see that in terms of TOI, our forwards have seen similar totals. They might be deployed differently (special teams, matchups, etc.) but for the most part the same guys that were here last year have seen similar ice time.
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Hyman statistically has seen the largest regression from last year, with McDavid and RNH not far behind. It's obviously concerning that the entire top line has regressed this much since last year. Part of this is shooting %, where we will likely see Hyman, RNH, Henrique and Ryan improve considerably.
Another part is the powerplay suffering. If we strictly look at EVP, the gap is smaller. In fact, Draisaitl has been better 5v5 than last year, McDavid goes from -0.43 to -0.14 as well, even Nuge goes from -0.42 to -0.21. It's alarming that Hyman's 5v5 production has dropped so much.
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It's also obvious that this team is missing Evander Kane who was able to provide a 0.57 P/G last year in 77 games (with 24 goals). Getting him back healthy will help the Oilers down the road.
One thing I think is kind of interesting is that everyone seems to be dumping on the new guys Arvidsson, J. Skinner and Podkolzin. Obviously, we are hoping for more out of them but when you compare it to last year, it's not like their production is considerably worse than Foegele, Holloway and McLeod.
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Given how Skinner and Arvidsson are basically producing the worst they ever have in their career. Logic would dictate that their shooting % will bounce back and be closer to what they have historically had (or at least be above the 10-11% that Foegele/McLeod had last year. Essentially the "depth guys" to this point have been outproduced by 6-7 points to this points or 4-5 goals - not a large margin.
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