Last week we hit on power plays and opportunity. We highlighted players who were seeing more or less time, regardless of how they were performing with that time. It was all about seeking future potential. This week we are doing something of the opposite. We are going to be looking at even strength, but also actual production.

Now of course we won't be leaving it at that. We will also be looking at how it compares to other stats and trying to see what we can learn about the lines and players impacted.

In order to get our data, we are turning to the Report Page and the Top EV Line report. This report sorts by total goals for, but also gives data on goals against, as well as shots (for and against), and Corsi. For our purposes it has been exported and so I can rearrange some columns for easier presentation in the column here. Additionally, we are also filtering for forwards and for at least five goals for.

Quick clarification here: The goals, shots, and Corsi numbers are not individual, but on-ice numbers. So how many goals, shots, or shot attempts were taken when these players were on the ice.

For starters – who are the top scoring trios at even strength?

Given their hot start it is not surprising to see Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov on this list. And given their superstardom it is also not a surprise to see a line with Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid on this list. But Derick Brassard? Cam Atkinson? Joel Farabee? I mean nothing against them – they are solid players, but the third best line in hockey thus far?

A couple of points to make about this line though. They have the second highest shooting percentage of this group (even now), and are all on significant cold streaks (Farabee: zero points in five games, Brassard: one point in five games, Atkinson: three points in five games, but pointless in three straight).

As mentioned above the line's shooting percentage is definitely a way to look at how sustainable their scoring is, and the report can help with that. Because we have shots for as well as goals for, we can add a shooting percentage column to figure out what percentage of goals are going on while that line is on the ice.

Ovechkin, Wilson, and Kuznetsov's 17 percent here actually looks pretty good. If we sort by highest shooting percentage though we get to see some outliers.

The implication with a few of these lines is that the goals are coming a bit faster than we might expect them to, so all other things holding steady we might expect these lines to score a few less in the future, which might mean fewer points to go around.

Another similar comparison we can make is comparing a line's goals for percentage to their shot share. With goals for, we are comparing the number of goals a line has that go into their opponent's net versus the total scored while they were on the ice.

In early season play, our top producers here all have no goals scored against them (so a goals for percentage of 100). In all of these cases the production has been extremely tilted toward these lines (five and six goals for), and against their opponents (zero goals against).

When we compare it to shot share (percent of shots directed at opponents' nets while they are on the ice) we are seeing the difference between what it looks like the tilt was (goals) and what maybe what it actually was (we can look at Corsi, shots, expected goals etc. but for today we will look at shots).

The following table shows the difference between a line's goal for percentage and their shot share. It is sorted by the largest difference.

Walking through a quick example, we see that while our fearless Brassard, Atkinson, and Farabee line has accounted for 89 percent of the goals while they were on the ice they have only accounted for 44 percent of the shots. That means somehow while getting outshot they are dramatically outscoring their opponents.

Quick birdwalk here. We are working under the assumption that more shots are a good thing, and that generally lines that are shooting more are getting more chances and therefore are more likely to score. If a line is dramatically outshooting their opponents, we would expect them to be out-scoring them. If the line is out-scoring their opponents, but getting outshot we likely have to assume one of two things. That line is either filled with top end finishers who just convert at a higher rate than their opponents (lines that contain Auston Matthews, Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, Patrick Kane), or that this line is benefitting from some goal scoring luck and that we might not expect it to continue.

Take the Atkinson line. Do he and Farabee typically convert at a higher rate than a big chunk of the league? Probably not, so I am guessing luck has played a major role here. This might be obvious by looking at any one player's shooting percentage, but looking at the line like this can tell us who else might be impacted as goals start to slow down. Atkinson, Farabee, Brassard? Super cold the last five games, as when those unsustainable goals disappeared, so did the assists for the linemates. The lines listed in the shot share table, and the shooting percentage table are ones to keep an eye out for at even strength as some of their early production might be buoyed by some unsustainable goal conversion.

That is all for this week.

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