Seven NHL players scoring at elite levels of efficiency this season

Credit: © Nick Turchiaro

Goals, assists and points have been tracked throughout NHL history and have always been the first step in player analysis. How good is this guy? Well, he’s put up this many points this season, so he’s this good! Sure, there are other ways to evaluate players offensively and defensively, but you aren’t mentioning those players when thinking of the best. It’s the Gretzky’s and Lemieux’s with high point totals that come to mind.

Of course, point totals sometimes have just as much to do with opportunity as they do the talent levels of the player themselves. Sometimes a player just doesn’t get the playing time they should and can only get so many points in a season with the minutes they get.

One thing modern-day analytics have provided us with is an opportunity to level the playing field to evaluate those players. Looking at players’ scoring rates per 60 minutes allows us to see who the best players are at scoring, no matter the ice time. It’s not perfect, especially because some players benefit from easier competition, but it’s still a handy tool.

With that, I thought I’d take a look at some players who are putting up elite-level scoring rates this season that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise, as well as providing you with some comparables for who they’re producing like.

Goals: Nils Hoglander/Anthony Mantha

Goals this season: 18 goals in 59 games | 18 goals in 54 games
5v5 Goals per 60 minutes: 1.67 (3rd) | 1.55 (5th)
Closest comparable: Jonathan Marchessault (32 goals in 59 games)

I decided to bunch Hoglander and Mantha together because, in terms of their scoring rates, they are bunched together. Not only are they scoring goals at elite paces this season, they’re two of the best at it, with the list this season consisting of Auston Matthews, a sizeable gap, Zach Hyman, another sizeable gap, and then Hoglander, Jonathan Marchessault and Mantha to round out the top five.

Hoglander shouldn’t come as a total surprise, as his second most common linemate this season is Quinn Hughes, and he’s also seen a decent amount of ice time with Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. Mantha is a bit more surprising given his linemates all season have been Connor McMichael and Aliaksei Protas, although both players have also been having breakout years. Still, it’s not like Mantha’s playing with the Caps’ top players outside of the power play, where he only has one goal this year. But both are producing at high levels this season, and when you aren’t far off from Matthews, you’ll take that production.

Assists: Valtteri Puustinen

Assists this season: 10 assists in 26 games
5v5 primary assists per 60 minutes: 1.48 (3rd)
Closest comparable: Connor McDavid (72 assists in 55 games)

Yes, you are reading that correctly. Outside of Travis Boyd and Joshua Roy, nobody has generated primary assists at a higher rate than Puustinen, at least out of players with 100 5v5 minutes of ice time. That gives him 0.06 primary assists per 60 minutes more than Connor McDavid, so you know he’s keeping good company.

You would think that there would be some way to discredit Puustinen, but there isn’t anything completely outrageous. His 11% on-ice shooting percentage is a tad high but far from the biggest outliers in the league. I would have thought that it was due to playing with Evgeni Malkin more recently, but his on-ice shooting percentage actually gets worse when with Malkin, so it’s not even that. And about two-thirds of Puustinen’s assists are primary as well. I wouldn’t call it completely sustainable, but he’s made the most of his minutes so far, and has been rewarded with a top-six role while Jake Guentzel is sidelined.

Points: Travis Boyd

Points this season: 8 points in 16 games
5v5 points per 60 minutes: 3.23 (2nd)
Closest comparable: Connor McDavid (91 points in 54 games)

That’s right, another player that is producing at a similar rate to McDavid. You have to wonder if he’s just a product of the opportunities he’s given (It’s a joke Oilers fans, put the pitchforks away). While the 0.08 5v5 points per 60 that separates McDavid and Boyd is one of the larger gaps for a player’s comparable on this list, it’s still slightly closer than the 0.09 that separates Boyd and the third-highest scorer, Nathan MacKinnon. Now, this comes with the caveat that Boyd has just under 150 minutes of ice time at even strength, has an on-ice shooting percentage of 17.73%, and is shooting 18.18% himself.

But this also isn’t completely out of the ordinary for Boyd. Out of the 1,047 players to play at least 3,000 5v5 minutes since 2008, Boyd’s 16.79% career shooting% ranks ninth and his 11.71% on-ice shooting% ranks first! The man just knows how to give his linemates immense amounts of good fortune to the point where it might be sustainable. And he’s also first in the league when it comes to primary points per 60. He’s out for the season now so we’ll never know if he could have went toe-for-toe with McDavid, but it’s still quite impressive.

Goals: Sam Gagner

Goals this season: 5 goals in 26 games
5v5 Goals per 60 minutes: 1.24 (t-26th)
Closest comparable: Owen Tippett (21 goals in 56 games)

Imagine if I led off with this one. I’m sure me claiming five goals in 26 games as an impressive scoring pace would have made a lot of people leave right away. But now that you’ve gotten acclimated to the kind of totals I’m looking at, let me explain. Those totals certainly don’t jump off the page, but with a quick glance under the hood, there’s a lot more to be intrigued by.

Gagner has gotten into less than half of the Oilers’ games this season, and even when he does, he averages just 10:11 of ice time. On top of that, his most common linemates this season have been Derek Ryan and James Hamblin, who aren’t exactly top scorers. So already Gagner hasn’t been set up for success, and yet he’s scoring once every 5 games despite only playing a sixth of those games. That puts him right alongside Owen Tippett in 5v5 goals per 60 minutes, who’s on pace for 30 goals in a more prominent role, and also a bit below Connor Bedard, Patrick Kane and Sidney Crosby. I’d consider that to be some pretty good company to keep in terms of goal scoring, and also doing it with only a 13.16% 5v5 shooting percentage, which isn’t an outrageously high rate.

Assists: Bobby Brink

Assists this season: 11 assists in 39 games
5v5 primary assists per 60 minutes: 1.17 (t-11th)
Closest comparable: Brandon Hagel (37 assists in 61 games), Johnny Gaudreau (34 assists in 58 games)

Brink is one of the several young players on the Flyers who are seeing more ice time with the big club this season, and it’s starting to pay off already. After showing some promise in a 10-game stint fresh out of college in 2021-22 with four assists, Brink has shown shades of playmaking in his first full rookie campaign at the NHL level this season. He was generating assists at an elite level in the ice time he was getting before he was sent back down to the minors, and what might be more impressive is that all nine of them at 5v5 are primary assists.

Brink has also been doing this while not playing with a lot of high-end talent. The Flyers may be good this season, but that hasn’t been because of an overwhelming offense. Brink has gotten some ice time with Travis Konecny and Owen Tippett, but the only player he’s played more than 50 5v5 minutes with is Cam Atkinson, who is not what he used to be.

Points: Bobby McMann

Points this season: 17 points in 34 games
5v5 points per 60 minutes: 2.56 (26th)
Closest comparable: Jack Eichel (44 points in 42 games), Lucas Raymond (51 points in 59 games)

McMann has had quite the storybook career so far. After going undrafted, he waited four years before finally getting a professional contract, and then slowly started to reach the point where he was too good for the ECHL and the AHL before finally making the NHL at age 26. Has he reached the point where he’s now too good for the NHL? Well, no, but maybe he’s too good for a fourth line role.

Admittedly, a lot of this is thanks to recent stretch that saw him get seven goals and 10 points in just 6 games, which came with a 22.14% 5v5 on-ice shooting% and a 30.77% 5v5 individual shooting% (which, funny enough, was only 0.48% lower than Auston Matthews during that stretch). He also has three times the secondary assists as he has primary assists, which indicates a bit more randomness to his playmaking. But, it has at least shown that he can hold his own at the NHL level, and it’s provided the Leafs with depth scoring they desperately needed, even to the point that they feel like they can split up John Tavares and William Nylander to give them three scoring lines. Even if McMann doesn’t stick around on Tavares’ wing, he’s at least secured himself a spot on the team with his recent play.

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