henrik is leading the league in points, not goals, so this whole discussion is meaningless. ignoring that, henrik will still end up with 35+ goals, so the discussion is also wrong. anze kopitar was overhyped, henrik is for real. there’s no way he regresses.
- rambunctiousrob

Personally, I’d take the under next year. His shot totals are remarkably consistent and his goal increase over the past three years has been a function of an increased shooting percentage. He’ll probably go back to around 20-24 goals.

I remember getting in an on-line argument somewhere at the end of last season, with someone insisting that Crosby would never score 50 because his shooting percentage was too low. I argued that he was too young and shooting percentage is too variable for his “true shooting talent” to be determined.

But that leads to another question: how well can “true shooting talent” be determined for anyone? NHL careers are fairly short – say 12-15 seasons – and that during that time there are a lot of confounding influences as players’ abilities wax from their rookie year and then wane to retirement: changes in powerplay time, ice time, linemate talent, etc. Shooting percentage itself has a very small range – no-one would argue that percentages above 18% or below 8% (for a regular forward) are sustainable, and it’s likely narrower than that.

Are we fooling ourselves into thinking that we can predict what a player’s shooting percentage will be, when it can very commonly change by 5 points from one year to the next within an overall range of only 10 points? Without doing a mathematical analysis, I just think the variability is too high.

Definitely under. His brother is the featured shooter, he had to slide into that role, and thus got a majority of the good scoring chances/scenarios early on. They are clicking back into the old pattern as we speak.

a fair over/under is probably around 14-15%.

Gabe, yesterday I heard the TSN panel say that Sedin should be the frontrunner for the Hart, and it reminded me of this article:

Prescient, no? Especially this bit:

Prorated Daniel ends up, and this is at EV only:
EV Goals: 59
EV+/-: 40
Shots/-: +475
Fenwick +/-: +733
Corsi +/-: +772**

Now obviously it’s a small sample (six games) and the bounces be the bounces, so 59 goals at evens, shattering Gretzky’s mark, well that just isn’t realistic. But with his historic ability to finish at a high rate at evens, 50 EV goals (which would be second only to Wayne, surely, and in a lower scoring era) is really attainable. And with Luongo behind him, an EV+/- of +60 is realistic. That’s Bobby Orr/Wayne Gretzky country. And with any kind of PP year at all, he would be the runaway winner of the Hart trophy, with a closely contested battle for silver between Iginla, Ovechkin and Zetterberg.

And Vancouver fans would be arguing for recognition of Daniel’s place amongst the best to have ever played the game,

Obviously it’s Henrik who has been fully healthy and his game involves scoring more assists, but his +/- could easily end up in the 40s when all is said and done, and he’s definitely in the discussion from the Hart despite being the same player as ever.

Obviously nobody’s clamoring to trade Daniel but he’s not getting Hart consideration either but it’s not role that has torpedoed his chance, but injury.