Brett Connolly‘s about to be rich. It couldn’t happen to a better 27-year-old silver fox.
By The Numbers
| 81 | games played |
| 13.3 | time on ice per game |
| 22 | goals |
| 24 | assists |
| 50.7 | 5-on-5 shot-attempt percentage, adjusted |
| 50.6 | 5-on-5 expected goal percentage, adjusted |
| 58.5 | 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
Here’s the way nobody’s NHL career ever goes:
| Age | Games | Goals |
|---|---|---|
| 19 | 68 | 4 |
| 20 | 5 | 1 |
| 21 | 11 | 1 |
| 22 | 55 | 12 |
| 23 | 71 | 9 |
| 24 | 66 | 15 |
| 25 | 70 | 15 |
| 26 | 81 | 22 |
Everything about Connolly’s early years pointed to settling in at the AHL level to wreck teenagers’ souls until he chose to retire. The NHL didn’t work out for him in Tampa, and it didn’t work out for him in Boston. He didn’t even play all that much in his first season in Washington. But then he hit 15 goals. And then he did it again in a year with harsher headwinds. And then, this season, he smashed through the twenty-goal mark, making him a very attractive free agent heading into the summer.
Connolly’s 22 goals came despite a lowered shooting percentage. It was all process: a 30-percent increase in shot attempts, a 78-percent increase in rebounds created, and a 92-percent increase in high-danger chances. He added major increases in assists (13 of his 24 of which were primary) as a supplement. He was an offensive dynamo in a spot in the Caps’ lineup that opponents overlooked at their own peril.
Connolly did what in role-playing games is called min-maxing: find out what you do well and do it all the time. Turns out what Connolly does well is take fast-developing, opportunistic wristshots from danger close. From Sean Tierney:
This is one way to score a lot of goals, but it is not an easy one. Getting to those locations without getting banged up is hard; getting to those locations while maintaining finesse with your shooting is incredibly hard. It’s the kind of hard work that you do on a two-year, $1.5-million AAV deal to unlock for yourself a whole new world of possibility for yourself and your family.
Problem is this: that new world probably won’t be in Washington. I won’t hazard a guess at what Connolly’s next contract will look like, but I suspect it will be too rich for Washington, who will have a tough cap situation coming up. So the check comes due: all the joy Connolly delivered to us these past few years as an unlikely and unassuming reclamation project who became a beloved scoring fiend and a man of principle comes at the cost of losing him now.
Icon:
Conno on RMNB
- So, there will be a theme here to start. The context is this : Way back in December of 2017, Brett Connolly left Evgeny Kuznetsov hanging on a fist bump.
- But then in October 2018, NHL fans voted for the failed fist bump as the GIF of the year. Connolly acknowledged the flub, but…
- …Scant days later, it happened again.
- Then in Act III, in December, contact was finally made.
- Anyone thinking Connolly’s scoring increases over the past few years were a fluke saw these moves against Bobrovsky and then promptly reconsidered.
- Our friend Tyler got a tattoo of Brett Connolly’s amazing tattoo-pizza-beard-general-vibe photo. Connolly’s pal DSP supported the effort.
- In March, Connolly hit the twenty-goal mark for the first time in his career.
- Connolly did not join the team at their White House visit.
- Juuuust another sick Connolly goal.
- Connolly also tried to get the Caps into Game Six, but oh well.
Your Turn
If you wanted to bring Connolly back, and we all do, how would you make it work? If not here, where would you like to see him land? What would be a good fit?
