This season, Dylan Strome was asked to make history. He delivered.
By the Numbers
29
Goals
53
Assists
82
Games played
17
Minutes per game
On-ice percentages
49%
Shot attempts
47%
Expected goals
52%
Actual goals
Isolated Impact by HockeyViz
About this visualization: This image by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows how the player has impacted play when on the ice. At the top of the image is the team’s offense (even strength at left, power play at right) and at bottom is the team’s defense (with penalty kill at bottom right). In each case, red/orange blobs mean teams shoot for more from that location on the ice, and blue/purple means less. In general, a good player should have red/orange blobs near the opponent’s net at top, and blue/purple blobs near their own team’s net at bottom. The distributions in middle show how the player compares to league average at individual finishing, setting up teammates to score, and taking and drawing penalties. The number at center is Synthetic Goals: a catch-all number for the player’s impact.
Player Card by All Three Zones
About this player card: This image from Corey Sznajder of All Three Zones shows how the player compares to league averages in different microstats in the defensive, neutral, and offensive zones. Blue bars mean the player has a higher rate in that statistic compared to league average, and orange means a lower rate. The numbers are Z-scores, also known as standard deviations, indicating how far the number is from league average, where more than two standard deviations means the player is on the extreme edge of the league.
Player Card by Evolving Hockey
About this player card: This card from Josh and Luke of Evolving Hockey compares the player to league averages based on their impact on on-ice statistics. GAR means “goals above replacement,” where “replacement” means an average player called up from the AHL. xGAR is the same figure but assuming league-average goaltending. The numbers at top are the player’s percentile ranks overall and then for offense and defense alone.
Player Overview by NHL Edge
About this visualization: The NHL’s advanced statistics program, Edge, tracks player and puck movement. At left are the player’s numbers in various statistics along with the average number for that same stat among players of the same position and the player’s percentile rank in it. At right is a radar chart for various statistics, where the bigger the shape the better the player performs in those measures.
Fan Happiness Survey
About this visualization: At three times during the season, RMNB conducted an open survey with readers, asking the following question for each player: “On a scale from 1 to 5, how HAPPY are you to have this player on the team?” The numbers above show the average score for the player in each survey period.
Slavoj Žižek on Strome
Sports records are fascism manifest: the great man on horseback becomes the corporate brand. But Strome inverts the dialectic. Because, sniff, assists are cringe.
Peter’s Take
I spent years saying Dylan Strome was not the right center for Alex Ovechkin. For the first time in my professional career, I was wrong. As it turns out, with enough reps under him and sufficient support behind him, Strome is exactly what Ovechkin needed to enter history. Strome is a complete player. He has everything but speed: playmaking, individual scoring, strong on the puck like vintage Backstrom, with sometimes similarly good tip-in skills.
In the last five years, only one pair of partners got Ovi producing as much as Strome did with Aliaksei Protas this year. In 2021, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Tom Wilson weren’t so much linemates as much as a funnel of pucks to Ovechkin – and even they couldn’t touch the 22-to-14 goal differential Strome gave Ovi alongside Protas.
It’s too easy to doubt Dylan Strome. He came to the team under odd circumstances, he’s not a pretty skater, and he hits less than any other forward but Protas. He seems to be really into stats – which I think is wonderful, but maybe not super marketable. Strome has accumulated his doubters and haters, especially with regard to his play with Ovechkin. Let’s revisit some losers.
2023:
And for Alex Ovechkin, Strome meant stronger overall play – Washington controlled 50.6 percent of attempts when they were together versus 48.1 percent when Ovechkin was apart from Strome, but it came at the cost of offense. The Strome-Ovechkin pair scored almost a full goal less per hour than Ovechkin did otherwise. But opponents scored two more goals per hour (!!!) when Ovechkin was without Strome, and that is simply unacceptable. Peter Laviolette had to run Ovechkin with Strome – because Ovechkin with Kuznetsov was a car crash on the scoreboard.
Status: Wrong
2023:
Ovechkin is not getting the support he needs. His most common linemates last season were Dylan Strome and Conor Sheary, two players I adore but who we could all agree are not ideal for Ovechkin. Ovechkin needs transition-play wizards with great, dangerous passing.
Status: Wrong
2024:
In the remaining duration of the Ovi Era, I hope [Strome will] stop being the “least worst” option to center Ovechkin (as great as he is, Strome doesn’t have the playmaking Ovechkin needs) as new players come in (but not necessarily come up, if you know what I mean).
Status: Wrong
2024:
I love Dylan Strome, but Ovechkin needs way more offensive creativity than that great two-way forward can provide.
Status: Wrong
Those are all me. I am the loser. I was wrong a lot. I don’t know why you read this.
Strome assisted on 23 Ovechkin goals this season, with the final touch on 12 of them. It went the other way too – with Ovechkin getting a point on ten Strome goals, eight of which came during even-strength play.
So we learned Strome is great with or without Alex Ovechkin, and Ovechkin is great with Strome. So run it back. One more time.
Stromer on RMNB
- Strome is famously a stat-hound. Here’s him expressing his hopes for 2024-25 in terms of goal diff: “I know a lot of guys are motivated and want to build on last year and hopefully turn that goal differential around a little bit.”
- Yes:
Alex Ovechkin and Dylan Strome are one of the NHL’s top scoring duos to start the season
- Strome assisted on all of Alex Ovechkin’s first ten goals.
- On Nicklas Backstrom, who guided Strome: “[We’ve talked about being Ovechkin’s center] a little bit, like when Backy was here. You know, he’s always very, very supportive – very kind to me. And, you know, we golf a lot together. I only played with him for not that many games, maybe like 60 games total. So, you know, I’ve heard a thousand stories about how great of a teammate [he is], and I got to witness that firsthand.” I’ll add that Strome cited games played with Ovi here. Dude loves a stat.
- Another example, speaking ahead of Ovi’s milestone goal: “I’m gonna get 35 straight assists and then not on that one.”
- Carbery, on the injury above: “He doesn’t look great today. He’s going to postpone his modeling career for a month.”
- He got a root canal. On Thanksgiving. For me this is hell.
- Carbs is a very big fan of Strome.
- Brother feature:
- Carbery tried splitting up Strome and Ovechkin early in the new year, but it did not last long.
- This next bit is just Strome ratting on his teammates:
- Hey, Strome actually did get that big assist after all.
- He got the game-winner in Game 2 against Montreal. Ryan Leonard helped.
- Strome injured Logan Thompson, but he felt real bad about it.
- Let’s end it with Wrigley. I wish I knew more about Wrigley.
Your Turn
Did you know Strome is only 28? He can keep doing this for years to come.
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