This week we are going to take one more look at projections before the season finally kicks off next week. We return again to Yahoo's projections and how they might impact your draft. Last week we looked at point projections and compared them to the 19-20 season. This week we are going to get a bit more specific and look at goals and shots. These two categories are interrelated, so it will be interesting to see what Yahoo thinks is going to happen.

This week on Frozen Tool Forensics: Drafting Yahoo Part Two

Just as a quick review – part of the relevance here (other than just analyzing players and projections) is that many managers will be looking at these projections to make game-time draft decisions. Goals are always a premium and if you are trying to mine your league for extra value analyzing Yahoo's assumptions can give you that little extra edge up.

So, process. Like last week we are using exported projections from Yahoo and comparing them to the Big Board report from Frozen Tools. Everything is transferred to a per-game metric so we can more easily compare across players. Given that, the analysis doesn't take into account players who are currently injured and may miss part of the season. Obviously missing a chunk of a short season is going to be a potential problem so take that into account based on your league format.

So first up: who does Yahoo peg for a bounce-back in goal scoring? The table below shows a player's projected goal-per-game pace for 2020, their goal-per-game pace for the 19-20 season, as well as the difference between those two paces. The same is true for shots. In this first table, we are looking at the top five rate differences (and six players as three are tied at .15) for goals per game.

Just as a quick reference point a .15 goal per game pace would translate to 12-ish goals over the course of an 82-game season.

Josh Anderson had a terrible 19-20 season for goal scoring and clearly, Yahoo is pegging him for a bounce-back in Montreal.

Another interesting note here is that Alex DeBrincat is the only one on this list that is projected to lose out on his shots per game metric. Everyone else (particularly Viktor Arvidsson, and Ryan O'Reilly) are projected to gain in shot pace – which likely translates to an increased goal pace. Yahoo is clearly betting that DeBrincat's 8.7 shooting percentage is going to rebound. In his prior two seasons he shot at 18.6 and 15.6 percent. Those were both full 81+ game seasons. Clearly, there is room to bounce back. If we take his three-year average (14.4 percent) and apply it to his 2019-20 shot totals he would have put up 30 goals – an increase of 12 (or right around where Yahoo has him pegged for 2020).

The following table is sorted by increased shot pace.

Viktor Arvidsson and Ryan O'Reilly have made both lists here so are worth touching on. Arvidsson shot 3.36 times per game in 18-19 and has a history of shooting well. Unfortunately, in 19-20 he lost more than a full shot per game dropping to less than 2.25. Yahoo's reckoning clearly has him jumping back up to his old shot pattern. The problem with that is 19-20 wasn't some random fluke. Arvidsson lost almost three minutes of ice time per game on average. It is going to be exceedingly difficult to make up that shot pace if he is skating three fewer minutes a night. The two seasons prior to 2018-19 he saw a little over 17 minutes a night a shot at a little over three shots per game. That is still a minute more per night than he saw in 19-20 and three-quarters of a shot more per game. In Arvidsson's case, it isn't a matter of some unlucky bounces, his deployment changed and his shot pace was hurt because of it. Yahoo is clearly banking on that time returning – and I am not entirely sure we can.

Ryan O'Reilly is a very different animal. His shooting percentage and his time on ice look just right, but he still dropped from 2.85 shots per game in 2018-19 to 1.66 in 2019-20. That is a large drop seemingly out of the blue. 2019-20 was by far his lowest shot pace in the last five seasons and the data doesn't really give much of a hint as to why he dropped off so dramatically. He spent less time with Vladamir Tarasenko than in previous seasons, but we would have assumed that would mean he would be able to take more of a shooting role. Without watching copious tape, I can't comment on playing style. I think we can hope for a bounce-back since 19-20 was very uncharacteristic of his career production, and he isn't old enough where we would expect that dramatic a fall off. It is definitely something to keep an eye on though.

Tyler Seguin and Vladimir Tarasenko are listed as bounce-back candidates in these metrics, but given their current injuries, their values should likely take a hit on draft day.

And now on to the players Yahoo is pegging to fall off of the pace. First the table sorted by largest drop in goal pace.

And then sorted by largest drop in shot pace.

We discussed Bryan Rust last week as well and the take still stands. I did want to take a minute and talk about Oliver Bjorkstrand and Alex Ovechkin though.

Bjorkstrand went from shooting 2.1 shots per game in 18-19 to 3.31 shots per game in 19-20. Yahoo has him taking a clear step back to 2.58. Given Bjorkstrand's history of being closer to two shots per game, it does make some sense, but the difference in 19-20 was playing time. Historically Bjorkstrand had gotten 12-14 minutes a night of ice time, and that resulted in about a two-shot per night pace. In 19-20, he averaged 18 minutes a night capping out in the third quarter at around 20 minutes a night. An increase of four to six minutes a night is clearly responsible for the rise in shots per game. Yahoo doesn't seem to think it is sustainable. Even if we are conservative though, 2.6 shots per game seems like the low end of what we can expect in 21.

We rarely get the chance to talk about Ovechkin in this column. His performances are impressive, but more or less expected at this point. Yahoo has him pegged for just under four shots per game in 21. The crazy thing is that a four-shot per game pace still has Ovechkin with the second-largest drop in shot pace in the league. The other crazy thing is that would be Ovechkin's lowest per game pace since 16-17 and only the third time in his career that he dropped below four shots per game. There isn't any real recent evidence that his shot pace will decrease though. He has put up 4.57, 4.17, and 4.33 shots per game over the last three seasons. He is 35 so I am assuming that Yahoo has him on some sort of aging curve here. He will fall off the shot pace at some point, but a 3.98 shot pace seems like a pretty safe floor for 21.

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: Drafting Yahoo

Frozen Tools Forensics: Five-on-Five Shooting Percentage

Frozen Tools Forensics: Even-strength IPP and regression