Hello and welcome back to Geek of the Week! In a previous article, I brought up shooting percentage and percentage of shot attempts hitting the net as an indicator of "luck". In this week's article I will revisit this with a focus on shot attempts, to see who is really firing the puck towards the net, but not necessarily hitting it.  I'll take a deep dive on two players that are bound to get more shots on goal down the stretch

The stats mentioned are per game and do not include Sunday's games.

Brandon Montour

Montour has disappointed the large number of managers who have drafted and held him on their team throughout the first half of the season. He is putting up far lower numbers than his phenomenal breakout last season. His 82-game pace reads 3 goals, 22 assists, 25 points, and 190 SOG. I'm here to tell you that this is due to bad luck and things will turn around for him.

He is still seeing great deployment with heavy PP1 usage. His shot attempts per game has actually risen to 7.04, while his shots per game has dropped to 2.31. This means that only 33% of his shot attempts are getting to the net. In the 2022-23 season, this number was 52% and in the 21-22 season, it was 51%. If he were to regress back to these percentages, his shots on goal per game will be closer to 3.5 rather than 2.3. That would be good enough to lead all defenseman. This is a real possibility given the amount of shot attempts he is taking.

Aside from shot attempts, the glaring lack of goals shows just a 1.67% shooting percentage. This has been in the 5-7% range for most of his career. If this percentage was to regress to these numbers alongside his shots on goal, we could see him score at an 82-game pace of 15 goals for the remainder of the season, good enough for seven in the remaining 40 games.

As a Montour owner myself, it seems as though the Panthers keep scoring plenty, yet he is not getting many points. This is shown in his Individual Points Percentage (IPP), which is at 21%. Of all the Panthers goals that occur when he is on the ice, he gets a point on only 21% of them. This number was at 47% and 42% the last two season respectively. This is another "luck metric" that should regress up, pointing to an increase in points coming for Montour.

With all these stats in mind, it is reasonable to expect an 82-game pace of 15 goals, 45 assists, 60 points, and 250 SOG the rest of the way. Montour may be the most glaring buy-low candidate halfway through the season. Take advantage if you can from a frustrated owner.

Luke Hughes

The younger Hughes brother has plenty of potential to be a top defenseman in this league. This season, he was given the keys to the top power-play unit, even when Dougie Hamilton was healthy. He's put together a pretty great first half of the season for rookie, with an 82-game pace of 15 goals, 33 assists, 48 points, and 121 SOG. His SOG numbers are the only thing that might be disappointing the 76% of fantasy managers who have him on their roster.

Although we have no previous seasons to really compare to, he is only hitting the net on 32% of his shot attempts, with 4.55 attempts per game. Maybe this is the true Luke Hughes, since this is near the bottom of the league, I would expect this percentage to rise for the skilled defenseman as he learns to get the puck through to the net. This improvement could happen in the second half of this season.

If he were to even just get to 45% of his shot attempts hitting the net, still quite a low number, his SOG per game would rise to two per game. This would really increase his value in most category leagues. Given he may regress down from has a high shooting percentage at 12%, an increase in shots on goal may be necessary to keep his goal scoring going.

Honourable Mentions

Brent Burns – 35% of shot attempts on goal

Max Pacioretty – 35% of shot attempts on goal

Dougie Hamilton – 40% of shot attempts on goal

Erik Karlsson – 36% of shot attempts on goal

Matt Boldy – 41% of shot attempts on goal

Hope you enjoyed! See you next week.

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