Rasmus Sandin had a difficult season with a nightmare ending.
By the Numbers
5
Goals
24
Assists
73
Games played
19
Minutes per game
On-ice percentages
48%
Shot attempts
50%
Expected goals
49%
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 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. The player’s shot speed, skating speed, and skating distance are at top along with percentile rank. At bottom left is a shot location map, and at bottom right is zone time per zone.
Gratuitous Generative Art by Peter
Peter’s Take
We start at the end: in April, Sandin suffered an major knee injury in a game against Pittsburgh. He got ACL surgery later that month and will be out for 6-9 months – somewhere between November and February.
That’s a devastating ending to a cloudy season for a complicated player. If we ever held out hope for Sandin to provide tertiary scoring, we have stopped. His 26 points is a career high-water mark, and I think that’s the most we’ll ever see. He’s just not that guy.
That wouldn’t be a problem if Sandin made up for it with great play without the puck, but it’s complicated. Sandin makes exit passes well, but among the non-forward-y defenders his ability to deny zone entries might have been the team’s weakest this season. His pairings with Roy, Fehervary, and Carlson were all underwater in expected goals. He did better in process but worse in results with Van Riemsdyk (an interesting combo), and saw positive goal ratios only with Roy (9 to 8) and in limited but prolific minutes with Chychrun (10 to 6 in just 126 minutes – wow). Among full-time defenders, his on-ice goal differential was the worst – just a hair under even at 49 to 51.
Sandin had injuries in October and January, so I’m keeping an open mind about how those might have colored his season. My gut says he’s better than we saw this season, but I don’t know what good that does us now.
I remember in March on the RMNB Discord, we were musing about how Sandin might be bound for the trade market this summer. Weeks later his knee exploded, and now he’s a frozen asset through the rest of the calendar year. Sandin will earn $4.6M a year through 2029, during a lot of which he’ll be recuperating from surgery, a process that can take years before the player returns to their old self. And Sandin’s old self? Not great. This whole situation? Not great.
Sandy on RMNB
- Ovechkin gave Sandin a stick the day he broke the NHL goals record: “I asked for it pretty quick.”
- House hockey with Ovi.
- Sandin shared his password with John Carlson so he could watch Nicklas Backstrom’s SHL games.
- He had an upper-body injury in October. Missed a week.
- Right after getting traded, Timothy Liljegren texted Sandin: “We had a lot of fun years together in Toronto. He was pumped.”
- Watch the hit, if you dare.
- We knew rehab was coming, but we didn’t know the full scope until…
Rasmus Sandin undergoes surgery to repair ACL tear in right knee, will be out 6 to 9 months
Your Turn
What are the Caps going to do here? They need a replacement in the short-term, but then they need a real plan for when Sandin comes back.
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