This week on Frozen Tools Forensics we are digging into some of the more surprising performances over the past month. There have been a lot of really interesting names popping up of late (I mean San Jose is scoring goals? What dark magic is this?), so I thought it would be worth taking a look at who are those unsuspecting names that seem to be on fire lately.

In order to put together this list I ran a Big Board report for the last month (usually 11-14 games worth of data). I pulled each player's general scoring line over that time period as well as their point per game numbers. I then pulled the pace from Dobber's preseason guide as a baseline to give us an estimate of where these players might have been expected to perform. The list is then sorted by the difference. Combined we have a list of the players who have exceeded their preseason expectations the most.

All data is as of December 7th.

A few names that we are going to get out of the way to start. Cale Makar. Great. Amazing performance, happy to see him back. Not too much to get into here. Will he maintain the 145-point pace of the last month? Probably not. Is he very good? Absolutely and here is your brief reminder. Similarly guys like J.T. Miller, Zach Hyman, and Evan Bouchard have just been providing us all a reminder of what happens to good players on good offensive teams. They go on runs, they get points.  Like with Makar, are we expecting these current point paces to continue at exactly these rates? Maybe not, but these are good players who are already widely rostered who we hoped would have good seasons. I am slightly more intrigued by another set of names here, so let's dig in.

Vincent Trocheck has 18 points over his last 13 games. We might go into this expecting to see percentages off the charts and well not really. He has five goals on 39 shots (12.8 shooting percentage), which is not wild at all, and his overall points participation rate during this time period is 62 percent, which again well within the realm of normal. Overall, he is on a 75-point pace, which looks incredibly sustainable. He seems to have found some great chemistry with a red hot Artemi Panarin, so all systems are a go for Trocheck as long as this deployment holds.

Mason Marchment seemed like a one-hit wonder after falling back to earth in Dallas, but he is showing signs of life again. He is not getting top power-play time, but his revitalized second line with Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin has been decent all year, and definitely good recently. He has scored a little too frequently over the last couple of weeks with four goals on his last 15 shots, but he has been shooting almost four shots a game during that span. On the season he is on a 60-point pace, but in his case it looks a little too good to be true. His personal shooting percentage, and five on five team shooting percentage are too high so in all likelihood will fall off at some point. If he can keep up these increased shot rates though that could make up for a falling shooting percentage (and are just valuable on their own). He is likely worth a look as long as this run lasts though, especially considering the shots.

Trevor Moore has been excellent of late and is on a career high 78-point pace. That pace (which is consistent with his last month's pace) appears to be pretty unsustainable. His full season shooting percentage is up at almost 19%, which is double his recent career average, and triple his shooting percentage from 22-23. Every other stat we regularly look at to measure luck is also high. Moore has done this in other seasons and is certainly worth a roster spot while on this tear but the only thing that seems to be different from previous seasons (other than the sky high percentages) is playing more often with Kevin Fiala. This is certainly great, but I don't think it completely explains this offensive outburst. I anticipate he will fall back to earth (and probably to many free agencies before too long).

Mathieu Joseph makes this list because he has the benefit here of having almost no expectation going into the season. He was shuffled into the top six (well I suppose Ottawa has been doing something of a top 9 at times) and he has seen some very positive results. Unfortunately, this seems to be a bit of a thing of the past as Joseph has only one point in his last four games, and is now on what is decidedly a third line. It is worth keeping an eye on Ottawa's lines though as Joseph has demonstrated he can be a competent third piece on a good line so if he gets the chance again, he is likely worth a shot.

And finally, Mikael Granlund (what are we in 2017 now?). San Jose as a whole seems to have found some life scoring 16 goals in their last three games. Granlund has certainly been a part of that with 12 points in his last 11 and nine in his last six. Most recently he has been skating with Anthony Duclair and Fabian Zetterlund. No shade to them, but really we would prefer a spot next to Tomas Hertl, but Granlund is at least getting Hertl exposure with top power-play time. Granlund isn't going to keep up this most recent torrid pace, but on the season, Granlund's time on ice is way up, his shot rates are up, and he is owed a few more goals. His overall 56-point pace seems a bit low in comparison so a rebound from a disappointing 22-23 is definitely in the cards.

That is all for this week.

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