TJ Oshie didn’t come close to matching last year’s gaudy goal total, but he became a postseason assassin on the power play to help the Caps win the Cup.
By The Numbers
| 74 | games played |
| 18.4 | time on ice per game |
| 18 | goals |
| 29 | assists |
| 50.4 | 5-on-5 shot-attempt percentage, adjusted |
| 59.6 | 5-on-5 goal percentage, adjusted |
Visualization by HockeyViz
About this visualization: This series of charts made by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows various metrics for the player over the course of the season. A short description of each chart:
- Most common teammates during 5-on-5
- Ice time per game, split up by game state
- 5-on-5 adjusted shot attempts by the team (black) and opponents (red)
- 5-on-5 adjusted shooting percentage by the team (black) and opponents (red)
- Individual scoring events by the player
- 5-on-5 adjusted offensive (black) and defensive (red) zone starts
Peter’s Take
Told ya so.
My O/U on Oshie goals next season is 19.5.
— Peter Hassett (@peterhassett) June 18, 2017
I love Oshie but he will have to get lucky to score 20 goals next season.
— Peter Hassett (@peterhassett) June 23, 2017
(Feel free to enjoy the replies to those tweets.)
Oshie ended up scoring 18 goals in the regular season, including a 22-game stretch from late November to late January in which Oshie scored just one goal (while notching 11 assists). Oshie didn’t come close to hitting the 30-goal mark, which is exactly in line with expectations based on two priors: Oshie’s shot rate and his injury history – the latter factoring in heavily in his 2017-18 goal total.
For the second season in a row, Oshie missed time to a concussion. This time it was eight games. That deprived Oshie of the opportunity to score, but it doesn’t appear to have had lingering effects on his output.
While Oshie has a propensity for injury, it’s not the injuries that are slowing his scoring rates when he does play. Oshie simply doesn’t have the rates to justify further 20-goal seasons without an obscene amount of luck. The aging curve will be increasingly vicious to his output and resistance to injury as his contract wears on.
But that doesn’t matter right now. Whatever we make of his resilience or production, Oshie’s performance in the postseason was dynamic and thrilling. He added 21 points to the championship effort, throwing big hits to drive play in his team’s favor, and recording six goals from the slot on the power play – the long-fabled “second wrinkle” that the Caps extra-man unit needed to stay deadly once opponents shut down the Ovi Spot.
Oshie will likely never be a 30-goal scorer again, and twenty goals may soon become a pipe dream, but his contributions shouldn’t be overlooked.
Osh on RMNB
- I want to start with the conversation around Oshie’s contract. More than a year ago, the Caps signed Oshie to an eight-year deal at a reasonable price. I then wrote a piece on RMNB about where Oshie’s previous goal totals came from and how they were unlikely to continue. Brian MacLellan said he didn’t know “what the stink is” about the contract. Then, MacLellan made a comparison between Justin Williams at age 36 and where Oshie will be at the same age; which I indulged somewhat vociferously. And that’s that and we never discussed it again.
- Oshie actually began the season on a hot streak, putting himself on pace for 30 goals early, but this time on the strength of high power play shooting percentages. He even scored two goals in one period in mid-November and led the league in power-play goals, but it did not last.
- Oshie chipped a tooth in late October against Detroit, but the real inflection point was Joe Thornton’s butt-check in early December.
- It’s not an Oshie recap without a jokes-tier shootout goal.
- Oshie went 14 games without a goal, but on February 1 he snapped the streak. Oshie said “hopefully the flood gates will open up for me here.”
- Oshie went 19 games without a goal, but on March 16 he snapped the slump. Oshie credited his comeback to a, um longer, stiffer stick.
- Upsetting: Oshie buttons shirts wrong.
- Oshie does ads for Ledo’s now. The ice-skate-to-cut-pizza one is real good.
- Oshie probably played hurt in the playoffs, but he played, and he played well.
- Yeah, I’m not gonna do a bunch of bullets about butt slashes, but there were a thing again. “Frozen cheeks!”
- And finally, to the tune of Apache:
When you've still got to finish playing a hockey game but your jam comes on. pic.twitter.com/3doMtK0dDc
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) March 4, 2018
Your Turn
How does Oshie’s role evolve as he gets older? At one point should he drop in the lineup to allow younger, more productive forwards to get ice?
Read more: Japers’ Rink
Headline photo: Cara Bahniuk
