Can Nick Foligno, Radim Vrbata, or Zach Parise crack the 30 goal mark again?

****

It kind of seems hard to think about right now, but the NHL’s preseason starts in under six weeks from today. That time will come very fast, so make sure to check out the Dobber Shop for the draft guide, prospect report, and much more. There is a lot of information in that shop to help give readers the edge they need on the competition.

****

To the readers expecting a Ramblings post from Neil today, unfortunately, it will be me for today. Neil was kind enough to cover my Friday so I could leave for a wedding. Thanks again to him, and I suppose everyone is stuck with me for this Tuesday.

****

Last week in my Thursday Ramblings, the topic was whether or not the Calgary Flames top trio of forwards – Sean Monahan, Jiri Hudler, and Johnny Gaudreau – could at least maintain the production from last year, if not improve.

That Ramblings got me thinking about something: How many of the players who scored 30 goals last year are reasonably not likely to do it again?

For a quick refresher, there were 15 players who scored at least 30 goals last year. There were the usual suspects to do it like Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, Corey Perry, and Rick Nash, and the crop of young guns like Tyler Seguin, Vladimir Tarasenko, Monahan, and others.

There are three names that stick out to me in particular though that require some digging to see if they can repeat their 30-goal season: Nick Foligno, Radim Vrbata, and Zach Parise.

Foligno

There are the obvious warning signs here with Foligno and his production last year: his previous career-high in goals was 18, and he scored 31; his previous career-high in shots was 153, and he managed 182; he set a career-high in overall shooting percentage at 17-percent, with his previous high of 16.2-percent the year before.

Foligno did have some things go right for him last year, but he was also given a situation like never before. In Ottawa, Foligno’s two most common line mates were Mike Fisher and Chris Neil. He also played under 14 minutes a game over his tenure with the Senators. Last year, his two most common line mates were Ryan Johansen and Scott Hartnell, and he played 18:50 a game.

Playing with one of the best power forwards in the NHL, and one of the game’s brightest young stars, in conjunction with a lot of ice time, will do wonders for personal production. It helped him create a career-high in scoring chances personally, and that needs to be factored in here.

There are other red flags to look for, though.

Did his shot rate spike abnormally?

No. In fact, Foligno’s personal shots per 60 minutes at five-on-five was only the third-highest of his career, and it has increased every season he’s been in Columbus. Again, playing with the line mates he has certainly factors in here.

What were his shooting percentages?

Overall, yes it was a career-high. With that said, at five-on-five, it wasn’t that much higher (14.73-percent) than it was the year before (14.58-percent). He also was fairly high in his rookie year way back in 2007-2008 (13.64-percent).

At five-on-four, it was a career-high at 37.04-percent in 189 minutes, but he was also 33.33-percent in over 264 minutes from 2010-2012. That was a different team, but he has shown the ability to have a high conversion rate in back-to-back seasons. They should also be able to manage two solid units.

Overall

A big reason for Folingo’s ice time jump last year was the Jackets were decimated by injuries. With a healthy Boone Jenner, an improving Cam Atkinson, and Brandon Saad brought in via trade, it's hard to rely on close to 19 minutes a night.

I don’t think Foligno completely crashes down to the 17-18 goals range like he had for most of his career, but a repeat of 30 goals seems unlikely. I would expect him to be between the 20-25 goal range rather than pusing closer to 30.

Vrbata

Vrbata got to 31 goals last year, cracking the 30-goal plateau for the second time in the last three 82-game seasons. Unlike Foligno though, there aren’t the same red flags here:

• Vrbata’s career-high overall shooting percentage was 16.1-percent in his rookie year of 2001-2002. Much more recently, though, Vrbata shot 15.1-percent in 2011-2012. His 11.6-percent last year was the third time in the last four seasons he managed over 11-percent.
• His 267 shots on goal in 2014-2015 was a career-high, but he had 263 the year before, and his five season low in the previous 82-game seasons was 232. Vrbata getting to 267 isn’t really that unusual.

Without the normal red flags of shooting percentages or shot rates, there are other things to look for.

Line Mates

Last year, Vrbata played a little over half his five-on-five time with the Sedin twins. That worked out for him, as Vrbata scored 11 of his 15 five-on-five goals with Henrik Sedin on the ice with him. The catch is that he played a little under one-third of his five-on-five time with Nick Bonino, and it was with him on the ice that Vrbata managed 11 of his 18 five-on-five assists.

It’s pretty clear that while he was the trigger man on the Sedin line, he played a bit more of a setup role on the Bonino line (or it worked out that way anyhow). With that said, he actually took more shots per minute with Bonino than with Henrik. That is where the quality of the line mates becomes important.

Vrbata was slid to Vancouver’s second line in an attempt to balance the scoring at even strength. For the time being, it looks like if that were to happen again, he would be playing with Brandon Sutter. Whatever the reader’s thoughts on Sutter, Bonino is a better fit for Vrbata. If Vrbata isn’t playing most of his five-on-five time with the Sedins, he’ll see his scoring suffer.

Age

Not only are the Sedins aging, but Vrbata turned 34-years old in June. There were exactly zero players aged 34 or older last year that scored 30 goals, and five the year before. The centres that the five players in 2013-2014 who cracked 30 goals, with the scorers in brackets, were:

• Sidney Crosby (Chris Kunitz)
• Logan Couture (Patrick Marleau)
• Jonathan Toews (Marian Hossa)
• David Krejci (Jarome Iginla)
• Steven Stamkos/Tyler Johnson (Martin St. Louis)

Seeing that list of centres who made 30+ goal scorers out of 34-year olds, does anyone really think Vrbata gets back to 30 if he plays half his time with Sutter?

Overall

I won’t want to write Vrbata off completely. If he can play around 800 minutes with the Sedins, and maybe pop a few more on the power play, he could push for 30 goals again. I have more confidence that he could do it than Foligno, but not by much. It will largely depend who he plays with.

Parise

For the sixth time in his career, Parise cracked the 30 goal mark, and he just missed in 2013-2014 with 29. He would have likely gotten there with a few more games played.

Of course, that last sentence is the one thing that is worrisome about Parise: over the last five seasons, Parise has missed nearly 25-percent of his regular season games. Over the last two 82-game seasons, that number has been about 14-percent.

In those five years I talked about, Parise had two full seasons (one of them the most recent lockout year), and the other three saw him missing chunks at a time. At best, it’s a coin flip as to whether or not Parise gets to 80 games. If I had close to a guarantee that he could play 80 games, I would say that 30 goals seems like a good bet. But we don’t, so I can’t (yet).

Shooting Totals

Last year, Parise took the fewest amount of shots per game (3.50) since 2007-2008. It wasn’t a huge drop-off from recent seasons, but it was his second straight season of decline. One reason for that was that it was his third straight season of ice time decline. Despite playing seven more games last year than the year before, he only played about 17:26 more five-on-five time total.

With ice time in decline, it’s hard to say that there will be a rebound in shooting totals. Parise has almost always been a guy who scored through volume, and if volume is going down, it’s hard to say that goal totals will repeat next year.

As an extra note, Parise played about a dozen fewer five-on-four seconds per game last year than in the lockout-shortened season. It is important to note that just because it’s hard to improve power play goal totals with one fewer power play shift every five or six games.

Overall

One thing that Parise hasn’t happened yet is that one magical season where everything clicks. Vrbata has had that, Foligno has had that, and Parise hasn’t shot over 12.7-percent in any one season (his career rate is 11.7-percent). Predicting outliers among high-ish draft picks is not a way to find fantasy value, but there could be one season where Parise shoots 16-percent and has a big year. I am not saying that will be next year, but it wouldn’t be crazy if he did in the next three or four seasons.

Of the three, I would rather bet on Parise getting to 30 goals again just because of his track record. Like I said earlier, if he plays 80 games next year, it seems like he could get to 30 again. 

If I had to go in order, it’s Parise-Vrbata-Foligno, and I think Parise will probably provide the best draft day value, as scary a thought as that is.

Stats taken from Hockey Analysis, War On Ice, and Hockey Reference