Adrian Kempe

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

Thirty-five goals in seventy-eight games at 26, after five seasons that produced two, 16, 12, 11 and 14. His previous best was the sixteen of 2017-18. This was not a step; it was a different player’s season attached to the same name.

Fifty-four points, a career-high seven game-winners, and minus-2 at 18:35 a night.

The Finesse Game

10.22 shots per 60 is the 90th percentile and 14.2 per cent is the 74th. The volume is real and it is new.

Where the shots came from is the strange part. 38 per cent from the slot is the 8th percentile, against a 30-foot median that is the 90th. He scored thirty-five goals while taking a smaller share of his work from dangerous ice than ninety-two per cent of the league — and the engine is 98.0 mph of shot speed, the 95th percentile. He beats goaltenders from range because the puck arrives before they are set. That is a repeatable skill and a thinner one than scoring from the paint.

1.90 even-strength points per 60 is the 58th percentile and thirty per cent of his points came on the power play. 51.5 per cent of the expected goals is the 63rd — the middle of this roster, not the top of it.

The pair file is the caution. 52.5 per cent with Kopitar across 1,557 attempts; 47.3 without him, while Kopitar climbs to 56.7. Behind Tobias Bjornfot he fell to 41.7 per cent over 452 attempts and rose to 54.7 with any other defenceman.

The Physical Game

4.59 hits per 60 is the 58th percentile, which for a man with his speed is lower than it looks — he arrives first rather than finishing checks. 1.12 penalties drawn per 60 is the 79th and 0.91 taken is the 74th, so the net is a modest plus and forty-six penalty minutes is the whole of it.

1.16 blocks per 60 is the 22nd percentile. He is not part of the defensive structure and the club does not pretend he is.

The Intangibles

24.0 mph is the 4th-fastest top speed of the 365 qualified forwards and 11.3 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 92nd percentile. Add the 95th-percentile shot and the physical package is genuinely rare: elite speed and an elite release, in a 6-2 winger who is 26.

Whether thirty-five is the number or the outlier, nothing here settles. Six seasons say one thing and the shot rate says the tools were always present. What changed is not something this record can see — and the pair file’s answer, that he spent 1,557 attempts beside a 1,000-point centre, is the one explanation that is measurable.