Today on Frozen Tool Forensics we are going to dig into shooting percentage. The summer is a time full of articles exploring players who "should be better next season" or are "likely to fall off." Sometimes this is pure conjecture, but often it is related to shooting percentage. The reason is that shooting percentage is a simple way to tell if someone has done something different than usual. Once that is established, we can go ahead and say we expect them to go back to what they used to do and call it done.

Obviously it is more complicated than that as shooting percentage, as much as it is a relatively consistent individual stat, is dependent on a number of factors, like deployment. It is relatively expected that a player might have a higher shooting percentage on the power play than at five-on-five. We also have to consider that a shooting percentage might regress, but the goal total won't. How would this happen? With a player who is in a position to take more shots. This could happen because of a change in role on the team, a new coach, or a new team. We usually care about the goals after all – not necessarily about the shooting percentage.

For today, all of the players mentioned will have done something different in 2022-23 compared to their recent averages. Our job is to take a look at the context and see if we buy the jump and/or the goal total that came along with it.

The following table is the list of the top five largest increases. I applied a few filters to the table. Firstly, this is only showing players who played at least 20 games. The second filter excludes players who did not record at least 30 points. Without those filters, the table included a ton of very high shooting percentages (upwards of 50 percent) from players who only scored a couple of goals or played a couple of games. These players won't be relevant fantasy targets for the vast majority of leagues. What remains are players who saw the biggest change in shooting percentage in 2022-23 from their three-year average.

We start off with a bang with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. His 37-goal output and 18.41 shooting percentage seem even more outlandish when we realize he had only 11 goals and shot at 7 percent in 2021-22. Obviously those two things are connected. Sure, maybe we just split the difference and say she shoots closer to his career 12 percent and call it a day. It is more complicated than that, though.

Each of the past four seasons his goal total mirrors the trend of his expected goal numbers and in 2022-23 at even strength his expected goal numbers were the highest (by a fair margin) of that time period. He did shoot more, though not by a ton, so that is part of it, but it looks like something changed and he was just more dangerous at even strength. The same is true on the power play, where he put up 15 goals. exceeding his career high by six goals. He did it with a shooting percentage of 25 percent on the power play, which is higher than his recent career numbers but again he was also more dangerous (in addition to seeing more time, and shooting more on the power play).

A true regression to his career averages would put him on a 24-goal pace for 2023-24, assuming similar shot rates. Given some of the underlying context which indicates he was in fact just more dangerous than in recent seasons, another 30-goal season doesn't seem out of the question.

Travis Konecny didn't see much of an increase in power-play time, and only put up five power-play goals (though it did match a career high in fewer games played). He has often shot over 20 percent on the power-play as well, but was only around 15 percent in 2022-23. All this being equal, he might add a couple of goals on the power play. At even strength he did shoot a bit more frequently with some increased danger so his increased shooting percentage might not entirely be an illusion there either, especially since he has done it now three times in the last five seasons. He may lose fewer goals than RNH, but I would still lean towards RNH having the higher goal total at the end of the season.

Eeli Tolvanen is in a much different situation. For one, we are talking about a 30-point season. We are also talking about a player who changed teams mid-season, so it is hard to look at past data as an indicator of what we should be expecting. Big picture, we are looking at a player who did put up better numbers in 2022-23, but shot at a rate that is a bit high at even strength even considering that. On the power play, we see a pretty reasonable almost 17 percent shooting rate.

The problem with all of this is the small sample sizes. We have 48 games in Seattle where he put up 16 goals (a 27-goal pace) and shot 15 percent. That by itself isn’t too alarming, as an overall 15 percent is certainly achievable for good shooters in the NHL. In particular it isn't alarming if we assume that he is going to continue getting some time on the power play. Both in 2022-23 and the last time Tolvanen shot around 15 percent (2020-21) he was getting 2+ minutes of power-play time. There is a bit of a question there with the return of Andre Burakovsky and because the Kraken power play was terrible in 2022-23. He was on pace for 27 goals over an 82-game season during his time with the Kraken, and with even halfway decent power-play deployment, a 20-goal season should be in the cards.

Anze Kopitar used to vacillate almost predictably between 70- and 90-point seasons, but recently has seemed to settle in the 70-75 range. He did it again in 2022-23 on the back of a higher-than-average shooting percentage. On the power play he wasn't any more dangerous than usual, and in fact had a down year in shot rates, but had an excellent, almost 25 percent conversion rate. At even strength he had the highest expected goal rates of the last five seasons, and shot around 14 percent for the third time in five years. That leaves some optimism for even strength scoring, though repeating it for another season is no guarantee. Overall, though, an almost 30-goal season for someone who has been shooting two shots per game is a bit of a stretch. In all likelihood he drops a few goals on the power play and possibly a couple at even strength as well.

Pavel Buchnevich has historically had a reasonably high shooting percentage. Only two of his seven seasons on record are below 14.5 percent. Still, 21 percent is a bit high for anyone. He put up 26 goals over 63 games (almost 34 goals over an 82-game season). Like with Kopitar, 30+ goals on two shots per game doesn't scream sustainable. This one is pretty straight forward with an almost 19 percent shooting rate at even strength and a 36 percent shot rate on the power play without being more dangerous than in recent seasons. He isn't even shooting more even though he is was up more than a minute in ice time overall and 40 seconds on the power play in 2022-23. Best case (assuming he plays at least 70 games, rebounds in his shot rate a bit, and maintains his usual high shooting percentage) is likely something in the 25ish goal range.

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