Today on Frozen Tool Forensics we are going to dig into rookie performances. We will get to our current crop of rookies in a bit, but I want to start with some recent rookie history. Doing so will let us set the stage a bit in terms of what we usually expect from rookie production and the kinds of opportunity it usually takes for them to get there.

Our table below shows every rookie who put up a 50-point pace or higher from 2021-22 to 2023-24. Starting on the left, we have basic player information (name, rookie season, team, and position) and then we get into their season specific data (games played, their point paces), as well as a few stats to give us a little context of their performance (shooting percentage and average time on ice per game).

Stats do not include Thursday’s games.

Let's start with a few observations. We only have one defenseman on this list in Moritz Seider, and therefore only have one player who got more than 20 minutes of ice time. The rest are all forwards and with the exception of Connor Bedard were all in the 15-to-18-minute range of ice time.

Second observation is that seven of these players are from the 2021-22 season. Only one (Bedard) is from the 2023-24 season, which leaves us with two from 2022-23. It turns out that 2021-22 was quite the season for strong rookie performances. If we extended this chart another five players we would also see Seth Jarvis and Rem Pitlick (somehow).

We also don't see too many inflated shooting percentages. Often, littered among the players at the top of any scoring leader board are players shooting over 15%. It is often true that this elevated shooting percentage is a deviation from that player's career numbers and is part of why we are seeing them ranked highly in the first place. Looking at these rookies, only two of the ten skaters have shooting percentages over 15 percent, which is certainly a hint that maybe these players didn’t get here because of inflated shooting percentages. In fact, if we compare these rookie numbers to their subsequent recent career numbers, we find that by and large these rookies (with the exception of Matias Maccelli's 18% who has dropped to 12.3%) are continuing to shoot at similar rates to their rookie seasons.

Moving on to our 2024-25 candidates, the Dobber Reports page has a pretty handy feature where you can just run the reports for rookies, and you can include a games-played minimum. In this case we are looking at the Big Board report with a ten-game minimum as we are sorting the players by 82-game pace and want to avoid those small sample sizes. The data is up to date as of December 5.

The following table contains the same data as above, and shows the current four players who are essentially at or above that 50-point threshold.

If these paces stand, we could see the most players since the 2021-22 season hitting the 50-point pace mark, which is certainly a pleasant change. As a group through there are some things that stand out when comparing them to the historical rookies.

Macklin Celebrini is over the 15% shooting mark, which was not true for many of the successful rookies above. It isn't particularly alarming, but it is worth noting. More significant is the 19:45 average time on ice number. That is pretty consistent with Connor Bedard's 2023-24 rookie season where he averaged 19:47 a night and put up a 74-point pace. There are a lot of parallels here. A first overall pick coming in to be the focal point of a bad team, and getting almost 20 minutes of ice time? Seems like a recipe for success.

Matvei Michkov is also notable here, but for a less exciting reason. The highest shooting percentage that a successful rookie has maintained over the past several seasons is 18%. Michkov is probably a better shooter than Maccelli, but the historical precedent is not great for him to sustain an almost 21 percent shooting rate. The other big question mark is ongoing deployment under John Tortorella. Michkov has averaged over 17 minutes a night to date, but has been dropped off top lines and top power-play units as well as healthy scratched already this season.

Logan Stankoven has the exact opposite situation from Michkov. He has bounced around the lineup a little bit too, but his 57-point pace includes a less than seven percent shooting percentage. It seems unlikely that 6.3 number ends up being Stankoven's career shooting percentage so he might be in line for a bit more luck there. It would be nice if he could increase his time on ice numbers a bit as he is on the very low end compared to his successful peer rookies. Wyatt Johnston and the top line getting going might eat into his opportunity there, but with Tyler Seguin out there are some minutes to fill and Stankoven should be in a position to fill some of them.

Finally, Lane Hutson is putting up a 49-point pace with no goals. He has 15 assists in his 25 games. He is also getting monster minutes, and has been taking over the top power-play duties at times from Mike Matheson. The last time a defensive rookie took over top power-play duties and got 23 minutes of ice time we got a 50-point pace season from Moritz Seider. By all accounts they are not exactly similar style players, but it is hard to argue with the production and opportunity thus far.

Finally, a couple of honorable mentions.

Maxim Tsyplakov, Will Smith, and Cutter Gauthier make our short list here. Gauthier and Smith are below the 10 percent shooting mark that all of the recent successful rookies have had so that is something that will need to shift for them to have a shot at breaking a 50-point pace mark. Smith and Gauthier also need to see some more time on ice. Our recent successful rookies were all seeing at least 15 and a half minutes en route to their successful seasons.

That is all for this week. Do your part to support organizations working to make hockey for everyone.

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