This week on Frozen Tool Forensics we are going to take a look at 2019-20's power-play performers. As per usual, Frozen Tools has a report for that. There are a number of really interesting ways to explore the data set, a couple of surprises, and one specific case study: Alex Ovechkin.

This week: Ovechkin and the Power-Play Producers.

For starters if we export so we can apply some filters and then sort by total points here is our top ten for 2019-20.

Definitely no real surprises here with Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and David Pastrnak. They are also three of the top four in total point production. Coincidence? Most definitely not. The one surprise in that context is that Artemi Panarin (third in overall scoring) isn't in our top ten. He does come in with 24 power-play points though, so he isn't far behind.

The above list is the elite of the elite of power-play production, but we can also take a look at usage by percentage of team power-play time played (the overlapping names are bolded).

Notice anything odd? Only five names from the top-10 points list overlap with the players who get the highest percentage of their team's time. Clearly, we have added some D to the list here and maybe they shouldn't be expected to get as many points, so what if we remove them?

Now we have six. A little better, but not much.

The same holds true if we sort by total time on the power play. Only five of the top-10 performers are in the top 10 of total time on ice.

Anything else stand out? Look at Ovechkin's total time on ice. He leads Nathan MacKinnon (the second ranked player) by almost 50 minutes. You have 18 players within 50 minutes of MacKinnon. Ovechkin is getting almost 91% of his team's power-play time. And oh, he isn't in the top ten for points, in fact he only has 18 (which ties him for 36th in the league).

If we sort by power-play points per 60 instead, to account for his massive time on ice, his performance really doesn't look good.

His rate is comparable to guys who are getting about 52% of their team's power-play time. Not only that, but guys who are not exactly noted for power-play prowess. These are guys with less than ten power-play points to their name (and often a history of that level of performance).

What is going on with Ovechkin here? None of the other top ten time-on-ice leaders are below 5.3 PPP/60PPMin. Bo Horvat is a low performer at 3.9 and ranked 11th in total time on ice, but T.J. Oshie (2.9), Alex DeBrincat (3.9), and Sam Reinhart (3) are the closest comparables and Reinhart has played 100 fewer minutes.

So, let's focus on Ovechkin for a minute. If we compare his season to the last several seasons, we see a couple of things. First off, he is actually seeing more time on the power play than in seasons past. Over the prior two seasons he was seeing about 4.3 minutes of time per game, whereas in 2019-20 he has been seeing closer to 4.9 (four minutes and 53 seconds to be exact). In that additional time, Ovechkin has been shooting at a lower rate (20 shots per 60 minutes 2017-2019, to 16 shots per 60 in 19-20), and scoring at a lower rate (about three goals per 60 to just over two goals per 60 in 19-20). His individual expected goals has dropped as well, indicating he is taking less dangerous shots, but interestingly he is outperforming that metric by about the same rate as he has in years past.

These are all indications that he just isn't as dangerous as he has been in previous years, which is expected in his age-34 season. The truly remarkable thing about 2019-20 though is his assist numbers. He averaged 11.5 assists on the power play in 2017-18 and 2018-19. He only had five through 2019-20. If we put that into per 60 stats to account for different amounts of games, and time on ice he was averaging about two power-play assists per 60 power-play minutes in the past two seasons, but less than one in 2019-20. That drop off is pretty dramatic.

The good(?) news for Ovechkin here is that the team's power-play percentage dropped to 19.44  (below league average) so it is possible it wasn't just Ovechkin, maybe the team just was under-performing. The bad news is that league average is 20.3 percent so it isn't like they were far off.

I think the summary here is that Ovie was being ridden pretty hard in 19-20, but he was far less effective with his time. A part of that is definitely him getting older, but some has to do with the team around him. If he can keep getting his monster deployment, he has a shot at a bit of a bounce back in power-play performance, but if he loses that power-play time he could be in trouble.

That is all for this week. Thanks for reading.

Stay safe out there.

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