Tomas Fleischmann is the front runner to center the Caps second line between Brooks Laich and Alexander Semin this coming season, which has the fantasy guys at THN claiming he will likely get 65 points whether he plays wing or center. Like I said: fantasy.
There is no doubt Flash had a good campaign last year racking up a career high of 51 points – but that came with a shooting percentage of 19% which is unlikely to be repeated.
That’s because puck possession is a skill while actually scoring the goals is mostly luck. This is why we see no consistency in individual shooting percentage year after year.
In fact, if we look at all the forwards who played more than 20 games since the lockout to 2008-9 that shot 19% or better, we can see how difficult it is to repeat.
| Event | GP | G | A | PTS | S | S% |
| Players who shot 19%+ since lockout | 75 | 30 | 33 | 63 | 144 | 21.1 |
| Same players the following year | 76 | 22 | 34 | 56 | 166 | 13.8 |
As a group they take 15% more shots (166 vs 144) the next year but end up with 26% less goals (22 vs 30) on average. Plus, there was only one repeat performer in the group: Alex Tanguay, who potted 23.2% of his shots in 2005-6 then followed up with 20.6% in 2007.
I say Fleischmann regresses back to 13-14% shooting and ends up with about 25 goals. What do you think?
