Filip Zadina

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

10 goals and 14 assists in 74 games — 24 points, a minus-24 and 10 penalty minutes at 14:11 a night, the 36th percentile among forwards.

47.0 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 902 minutes, the 26th percentile. His ice went 32-48 against an expectation of 37.92-42.79 — six fewer goals for than the chances promised and five more against.

The Finesse Game

8.81 shots per 60 is the 73rd percentile among forwards — he shoots plenty. Ten goals on 154 shots is 6.5 per cent, the 10th percentile, which is the whole problem.

43 per cent came from the slot, the 20th percentile, at a median of 28 feet, the 76th. He shoots from the outside, often, at a low conversion rate, and that combination is what a shot chart looks like when a scoring winger is not scoring.

1.05 even-strength points per 60 is the 10th percentile while 33 per cent of his points came on the power play, the 85th. Eight of his twenty-four points arrived on the man advantage. Strip it out and there is almost nothing.

86.9 mph is the 27th percentile. A soft shot, taken from range.

The Physical Game

6-0 and 190. 3.26 hits per 60 is the 40th percentile and 1.94 blocks the 61st. Neither number is doing anything and neither is expected to.

21.7 mph is the 42nd-lowest top speed of the 365 forwards the tracking covers and 3.8 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 32nd percentile. 10.04 miles per 60 is the 83rd percentile — he covers a lot of ground at low speed, which is the most common shape in the league and does not distinguish him.

0.29 penalties taken per 60 is the 9th percentile and drawn minus taken is plus-0.57, the 90th. Ten penalty minutes in seventy-four games. The discipline is genuinely excellent and it is the best thing on the page.

38.4 per cent of his even-strength time was spent in the attacking zone, the 6th percentile.

The Intangibles

Sixth overall in 2018, and 160 NHL games at 22 with 25 goals and 61 points.

Four seasons of nine, twenty-eight, forty-nine and seventy-four games, and the points per game has gone 0.33, 0.54, 0.39, 0.32. There has been no development curve; there has been a flat line at a third of a point a game.

With Gustav Lindström he took 55.7 per cent of the chances over 455 attempts and 43.8 without him, and with Robby Fabbri 56.1 over 362. Those are the two best fragments on his page and both belong to bottom-six team-mates.

A sixth overall pick who is 22 and has not held a top-six job is not a bust yet. What the file says is that the shot volume is real, the location is wrong, and one-third of the production depends on a power play he is not guaranteed a place on.