Now that the dust has settled a bit, I wanted to return to Seattle's expansion team. There has already been a lot written on their apparent strategy (or lack thereof), from questionable selections to the lack of side deals and asset accrual. At the end of the day the line seems to be that they went with big defensemen, and two-way forwards with small cap hits.

So how did they do in that arena, and what can we expect from the team next year? Given they are in the Pacific, there is an opportunity for success for the team, but when I addressed Vegas and their inaugural season a few weeks ago I attempted to temper expectations for individual players. Even so I wanted to dig into a bit of the data that we do have for Seattle's roster.

Now if you have attempted to run Frozen Tool reports for Seattle you may have noticed that the team doesn't pull data. You can still very easily access Seattle specific data though. When you run a report, (and for the purposes of this article I used Advanced Stats, Expected Goals, and Per 60 Minutes) you can see that the team is listed for each player and that has been updated to the new Seattle roster. By exporting the reports and then filtering for Seattle you can easily pull up a spreadsheet focused solely on Seattle. I did that here and also ranked a few of the categories so we can compare Seattle players to the rest of the league.

Question 1: Did Seattle build a team of two-way forwards?

We don't have a specific definition from Ron Francis about what he meant, or would be looking for, but I would expect a forward who is a high performer in this area to have a rank pretty well in a couple of stats. First, I would expect a reasonable Corsi For Percentage (in its simplest terms this stat measures the percent of the total shots taken while a player was on the ice that were on the opponent's net vs their own net), and similarly I would anticipate a good Expected Goals Percentage as well (the expected goals metric takes a stat like the Corsi For Percent and adjusts each shot based on its 'danger' – a shot taken from a more dangerous location is worth more expected goals).

Name	Pos	Age	Team	GP	Corsi For %	Corsi For Rank	xG% 5v5	xG% 5v5 Rank
JORDAN EBERLE	R	31	SEA	55	56.2	29	58.9	23
YANNI GOURDE	C	29	SEA	56	56	32	57.3	39
JOONAS DONSKOI	R	29	SEA	51	55.9	36	57.1	41
JARED MCCANN	L	25	SEA	43	54.6	64	54.5	84
MORGAN GEEKIE	C	23	SEA	36	54	74	50.5	189
ALEX WENNBERG	C	26	SEA	56	52.5	112	50.3	197
NATHAN BASTIAN	R	23	SEA	41	49.4	218	50.7	183
JADEN SCHWARTZ	L	29	SEA	40	49.1	230	49.2	232
MASON APPLETON	C	25	SEA	56	48.5	256	45.7	340
BRANDON TANEV	L	29	SEA	32	48.4	260	52.5	126
CALLE JARNKROK	C	29	SEA	49	47.5	295	49.1	234
MARCUS JOHANSSON	C	30	SEA	36	45.4	370	43.5	397
COLIN BLACKWELL	C	28	SEA	47	45	382	46.7	306
ALEXANDER TRUE	C	24	SEA	7	42.6		46.6
KOLE LIND	R	22	SEA	7	42.5		32
CARSEN TWARYNSKI	L	23	SEA	7	28.2		14.8

We will be using ranks to compare across the league and there were 409 forwards that played more than 15 games in 2020, so that is the cut line for the ranks  – our bottom three Kraken played fewer than that, but were included just for completion’s sake here.

If we look at Corsi For, five of the drafted Kraken fit into the top quarter of players and six fit into the top half (Frankly, expecting a bit more from Jaden Schwartz, Mason Appleton, Calle Jarnkrok, Marcus Johansson, and Colin Blackwell in this area given the rationale for signing/drafting them).

The Expected Goals rank is pretty similar (which is predictable). If a player's rank rises between their Corsi for and Expected goal numbers it implies that the shots allowed aren't as dangerous. We see that in Nathan Bastian, Brandon Tanev, and a bit for Blackwell. On the flip side if we see a big drop in rank the implication is that the shots allowed are on the more dangerous side. Morgan Geekie, Alex Wennberg, and Appleton being the biggest offenders here – and that doesn't seem to be a good thing (strike two against Geekie. The first being that he isn't Jake Bean).

By these metrics we really have four solid above average players: Jordan Eberle, Yanni Gourde, Joonas Donskoi (surprisingly), and Jared McCann. Four of 16 isn't exactly exciting. By this measure a good portion of the top six have performed well in the past, though the bottom six is less effective.

One other point here. The above names represent most of the list of players who saw the largest roles for their prior teams (Schwartz, Wennberg, and maybe Johansson rounding out that list). This isn't entirely accidental, and does point out the one potential flaw in measuring this way.

Both of these stats account for total on ice performance (all shots on net, not just the player's), which means that other factors can impact these numbers. Coaching decisions like zone starts, quality of opponent, a player's linemates can all play into it. Donskoi, for example, could be positively impacted because he saw a nice stretch of time up with Nathan MacKinnon, while Appleton never got that kind of opportunity. On the flip side though, Blackwell got time playing with Artemi Panarin and his numbers are still poor.

The moral here is that these stats tell us a story about a player, but are also influenced by that player's situation.

Question 2: What can we expect?

For this portion I want to turn to Per 60 stats. In that previous post I reviewed Vegas' first season and made the argument that without some incredible variance we would have been looking at a few 60ish point seasons. Well McCann already has a 60-point season to his name (prorated for a full 82 game season), and in 2020-21 Gourde, Eberle, Donskoi, and Jarnkrok were up around 50 (again prorated for a full 82 game season). It seems like a pretty reasonable bet that we could again have a few 60ish point seasons.

If we are looking for a Vegas-style break out though the data, we want to look at really comes down to two prongs – who is performing well in the time they currently have, and also stands to gain more.

In Vegas the top players bumped up to 17-18 minutes a night with split power-play duties of around two and a half minutes (which would rise to three plus if there is one dedicated top unit). If Seattle were to do something similar, we are looking for players who performed well on a per-60 basis, but haven't already gotten 17-18 minutes total time on ice, or more than two and a half minutes on the power-play.

Name	Pos	Age	GP	TOI	PPTOI	Pts/60	Pts/60 Rank	SOG/60	SOG/60 Rank	PPPts/60	PPPts/60 Rank
JARED MCCANN	L	25	43	14:07	1:59	3.2	18	9.2	42	1	32
JOONAS DONSKOI	R	29	51	14:32	2:14	2.5	82	7	198	0.6	86
YANNI GOURDE	C	29	56	17:04	1:51	2.3	101	7.4	152	0.4	144
JORDAN EBERLE	R	31	55	16:45	2:18	2.1	130	8.3	95	0.3	178
BRANDON TANEV	L	29	32	14:26	0:07	2.1	130	5.6	317	0	298
CALLE JARNKROK	C	29	49	16:48	1:37	2	150	6.6	225	0.6	86
COLIN BLACKWELL	C	28	47	14:00	1:06	2	150	5.8	301	0.5	114
MASON APPLETON	C	25	56	14:26	0:31	1.9	166	6.5	238	0	298
JADEN SCHWARTZ	L	29	40	17:42	2:04	1.8	187	5.9	292	0.3	178
ALEX WENNBERG	C	26	56	18:10	1:54	1.7	212	4.8	381	0.4	144
MORGAN GEEKIE	C	23	36	9:47	1:04	1.5	258	5.1	353	0.3	178
MARCUS JOHANSSON	C	30	36	15:56	1:49	1.5	258	4.8	381	0.6	86
NATHAN BASTIAN	R	23	41	12:37	0:09	1.2	337	5.3	341	0	298
ALEXANDER TRUE	C	24	7	9:59	0:01	0.9	394	6	281	0	298
KOLE LIND	R	22	7	13:09	1:01	0	447	2.6	447	0	298
CARSEN TWARYNSKI	L	23	7	8:51	0:00	0	447	3.9	426	0	298

I want to immediately address the Nots – the players unlikely to do anything different.

Wennberg saw over 18 minutes a night with Florida and almost two minutes a night on the power-play, and his most common linemates through the season were Patric Hornqvist (60 point pace) and Jonathan Huberdeau (91 point pace). With that he put up 1.7 points per 60 good for 258th in the league (assuming at least 15 games played) and had a 42-point full season pace. Francis has seemed to imply top six minutes for Wennberg, which is great and all, but he already had it and I don't want to knock any current Seattle players, but none of them are looking like 90-point players. He would need to see a massive increase in power-play time, or some hitherto unseen shooting to change his potential.

Schwartz has 70-point potential, but can't stay healthy. He has already been given prime even-strength and power-play time. He might be okay if he can suit up, but we shouldn't be expecting any wild breakouts.

The prime breakout candidate on this list is McCann. He put up excellent per 60 numbers ranking 18th in the league for points. He also ranks very well in shots per 60 and power-play points per 60. He also averaged less than 15 minutes on ice, and just under two minutes of power-play time. Seeing a 3–4-minute bump in ice time could potentially be huge for McCann. On caveat here, his 61-point pace of 2021 was definitely inflated with a high personal and five-on-five shooting percentage. Normally I would peg him for a bit of a regression, but the added opportunity should more than make up for any fall from grace.

I also wanted to briefly highlight Donskoi, Jarnkrok, and Johansson. Their even strength deployment was a bit all over the map, but there is some evidence that they have been effective with their limited power-play time in the past. If they can see a bump in time there they should be in line for some untapped power-play points. Jarnkrok in particular has been used in a more defensive role (particularly on the penalty kill) in the past so if this is an opportunity to skate in the top six instead, I am keeping an eye on him.

That's all for now. Stay safe out there.

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