View attachment 945951
These were our forwards who played over 200 minutes ordered by xGF metrics from last season. McLeod pulled off some great numbers with 45.59% offensive zone starts (only Derek Ryan had a lower percentage of offensive zone starts) and very strong quality of competition (see chart below). HDCF and FF percentages look similar. Adam Henrique was an absolute disaster in possession while being one of the more sheltered players on the team with 55.29% offensive zone starts and slightly lower quality of competition than McLeod.
View attachment 945953
View attachment 945954
Flash forward to this season and Henrique is again an absolute disaster in possession, somehow being outchanced across the board on arguably the best, at worst top 3, possession teams in the league. His defensive zone starts are quite low this year at 42.55%, only ahead of Derek Ryan, but now has basically 4th liner caliber quality of competition (and this makes sense, we can all see that the Oilers are sending McDavid and Draisaitl lines at the opponent's best players whenever we can). And if you watch carefully you'll notice that a lot of Henrique's defensive zone starts are because his line gets pinned in the defensive zone and ends up icing the puck, leading to extra defensive zone starts. He is not being used as a "shutdown" center at all the way McLeod was being used, and is in fact actually being actively deployed away from the opposing team's strong players, and still gets gapped at even strength. On a happier note. Podkolzin is putting up an absolute monster of a season in terms of underlying numbers. Valeri "better than Draisaitl" Nichushkin esque numbers in fact, to bring up an old Evolving Wild joke.
View attachment 945957