Happy end of the week to all the readers out there. Unless the COVID rock you have taken residence under is particularly large and obstructing you are aware that the NHL resumed action this week. I think that makes it a prime opportunity for your annual reminder that the Frozen Tools have you covered. Each report can be run using data from recent playoff years, including this one.

So with about a week of action under our belt what kinds of things can we learn? Let's run some reports and see what the numbers tell us.

This week on Frozen Tools: One Week In The Bubble

To start I pulled up the Big Board Report. Just as a quick reminder you can adjust the sample you are pulling data from by selecting from the Report Range drop-down menu at the top of the page. For this report, we are looking at the 2019-20 Playoffs. With the usual steps of exporting and adjusting a few columns so they fit on this page, we have the below report. I included just the top seven skaters as there are ten players with four points at this stage in the game (Thursday morning) and adding them made the table much less manageable (still, shout out to all the players with four points – more than a point per game).

A couple of items worth noting right off the bat.

Most of the players at the top of the list here have played three games. They are also from either Chicago, Carolina, or Edmonton. If we sort by points per game instead of total points to get a bit more variety, we get:

Welcome to the show Golden Knights players (and Eric Staal). Obviously, there are way too few games played to draw any huge conclusions, but there are a couple of highlights here that I wanted to mention.

Sebastian Aho:

There are no two ways about it. Aho has been electric. He has eight points in three games as well as ten shots and three points on the power play. In his first game, he played over 21 minutes, which was a dramatic increase and has since settled down to closer to 16 and a half minutes a game. The big change in game one was over seven minutes of power-play time. That enormous number turned into two power-play points but has dropped to two to three minutes in the subsequent two games. Just in case anyone was wondering he has been predominately playing with Andrei Svechnikov (who already has at least one highlight-reel goal) and Teuvo Teraveinin (who uh, doesn't. And has somehow missed out on this bonanza of scoring with just two points in three games). This 219-point full season pace for Aho isn't going to stick, but Aho is clearly here to play.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins:

Last week I made the pitch to not forget about RNH in your drafts and hopefully you didn't. His seven points in three games leads the Oilers (tied with Connor McDavid true, and only one point ahead of Leon Draisaitl, but still). He has been getting 20-plus minutes of time on ice in the last three games, plus more than four and a half minutes of power-play time. His most common line mate thus far has been McDavid. I mean if you are going to lose Draisaitl, McDavid seems like an adequate replacement. All of this is to say that like with Aho, a 191-point pace isn't going to continue, but his opportunity remains incredible and he has the tools to keep producing.

And quickly – Dominik Kubalik:

Kubalik has been featured several times already because of his monster five-point first game. It is worth mentioning though he still got more than 17 and a half minutes of time in his second game, and close to 16 minutes in his second. In all three games, he has more than five minutes of power-play time. The downside is not too many shots after his five-shot first game (only two in two games) and while playing with Jonathan Toews is great, playing with Patrick Kane would be better.

And now if we can take a quick (and related) tangent into power-play combinations. The Frozen Tools also has a Top PP Lines report that can give us a nice little summary of who the big producers are.

Given our list above there aren't a ton of surprises here. Draisaitl, McDavid, and RNH make this list, not once, but twice and account for 14 power-play points thus far (it seems like Chicago might want to try a new strategy on the penalty kill, you know, in case they are asking for some armchair quarterbacking).

Kirby Dach is something of a surprise though. The power-play combo of him, Kane, Toews, and Kubalik seems to have been very effective.

Calgary is also putting in a strong showing here. Johnny Gaudreau et al. is not really surprising; the power play has been their bread and butter for two seasons.  Mikael Backlund, Dillon Dube, Milan Lucic, and Andrew Mangiapane though? That is new.

Anyone else pumped for week two?

That is all for this week. Thanks for reading.

Stay safe out there.

Want more tool talk? Check out these recent Frozen Tool Forensics Posts.

Frozen Tools Forensics: Play-In Peak Performers

Frozen Tools Forensics: Shooting From the Wrist

Frozen Tool Forensics: Sorting through defensive prospects