Watching the first two months of the Utah Hockey Club’s season has felt like a wild roller coaster ride. It was full of highs, including their three-game win streak to open the season and dominant wins against the Carolina Hurricanes and Vegas Golden Knights. However, it included plenty of lows, including a four-game losing streak and having just won back-to-back games for the first time since Oct. 12.
Much like Utah’s team results, several Utah players have had inconsistent results since the start of the season. Some have been extremely hot, and others have been ice cold. With two months of the season played, let’s talk about Utah’s hottest hand and a guy who has gone ice cold after a hot start.
Barrett Hayton Has Not Scored In 30+ Days
Utah opened their season at the Delta Center against the Chicago Blackhawks. Barrett Hayton started the season red-hot with a goal and an assist in the victory on opening night. He led Utah in scoring chances, high-danger chances and expected goals at five-on-five in this game against the Blackhawks, driving much of the offense.
In the next two games of Utah’s three-game win streak to open the season, Hayton scored two more goals and had another assist for five points in three games. Since then, he has only scored two goals and has only tallied four assists in Utah’s next 24 games. He has played at a 23.91 point per 82-game pace for just over a quarter of the season. He has not scored a goal since Oct. 30 and went 30 days without a primary point until Utah’s 6-0 win against the Vegas Golden Knights, where he finally got his first primary assist.
Despite how disappointing Hayton’s stats look, he has been nowhere near as bad as these surface-level stats suggest. Since dominating the Blackhawks on opening night, he has found scoring chances in high-danger areas of the ice despite playing on a Utah team struggling to produce the chances. He ranks 10th in the NHL at five-on-five with 6.09 expected goals, 18th with 56 scoring chances, and tied for seventh with 30 high-danger chances.
In addition to Hayton producing many scoring chances at five-on-five, he has been one of Utah’s best defensive forwards. While on the ice at five-on-five, he has had the best Corsi (shot attempt) percentage at 57.78, the third-best expected goal percentage at 58.48 and the best high-danger chance percentage among Utah forwards at 62.89.
Hayton’s lack of production on the stat sheet can be attributed to two things. He needs to convert on a couple more of these high-danger chances he is getting. Most of his shots come from high-danger areas, so you can expect a high conversion percentage. However, his shooting percentage is already 11.1% on the season, so realistically, you can’t expect this to improve too much, considering the average NHL shooting percentage is 10.6%.
The other side is that Utah could try to utilize Hayton more. Utah is a team that loves to control the puck on the perimeter to try and open up scoring chances in the middle of the ice. While this occasionally results in pretty goals, it is not a sustainable way of creating offense, as evidenced by Utah being shut out five times this season. They could get Hayton more involved by getting more pucks on the net. He is exceptional at finding open space that is tight to the net. They could get him a higher volume of these chances, shooting for rebounds and letting him find the bounce. Either way, they must start scoring goals at a higher rate and more consistently, and Hayton needs to be a part of that.
Jack McBain On Pace to Fly Past Career Highs
Through Utah’s first 27 games, Jack McBain has eight goals and three assists for 12 points, the same amount Hayton has. You may wonder why I am calling one guy ice cold and another red hot, even though they have recorded the same points. That is because McBain is not known for his offensive output but rather his physicality, and he is on pace for a career year in Utah’s inaugural season.
McBain’s nine goals in 27 games put him on a 27.33 goal per 82-game pace, already surpassing the eight goals in 67 games he put up last season for the Arizona Coyotes and a lot higher than his career-high 12 goals he set the season prior. His 12 points this season have him on a 36.08 points per 82-game pace, which is well above his career high of 26, which he has hit in back-to-back seasons.
However, Utah can not expect this type of production from McBain the rest of the way. Given his 40.9% shooting percentage, which is about 30% above the league average, he is more than due for some statistical regression. For context and clarity on just how absurd this stat is, say, for example, David Pastrňák of the Boston Bruins, who leads the NHL in shots on goal, had a 40.9% shooting percentage. If that were the case, Pastrňák would already have 47 goals this season and would be on pace to score 132 goals, which would be 63 more goals than Auston Matthews scored last season, where he set the most goals scored in a single season in the salary cap era and 40 more goals than Wayne Gretzky’s record for goals in a season.
When talking about Hayton, I argued that the surface-level stats did not do his performance justice for how well he has played. Now, I will discuss the exact opposite for McBain and illustrate how misleading these box score stats can be.
This conversation already started with McBain’s outrageous shooting percentage, primarily due to luck. He only has 2.94 expected goals in the season, the second-worst among Utah forwards who have played 10 games, despite having the second-highest goals scored for Utah.
In addition to his shooting percentage, McBain has received a lot of luck while on the ice, which has inflated his plus/minus. With him on the ice at five-on-five, Utah has a 63.64% goal share, the fourth-best among Utah skaters. However, he benefits greatly from Utah’s goalies, having a 93.28 save percentage with McBain on the ice, despite Utah’s goalie tandem only having an 89.51 save percentage for the season.
Related: Utah HC: Franchise’s Goaltending Has a Bright Future
Even though Utah has gotten great goaltending while McBain has been on the ice, he has not been helping them make these saves. While on the ice at five-on-five, he has a 49.71 Corsi percentage, fourth-worst on Utah, a 46.88 shot-on-goal percentage, also fourth-worst on Utah and a 47.27 expected goal percentage, the worst among Utah’s skaters.
Between McBain’s wild shooting percentage, extremely low-scoring chance production and poor on-ice stats, he will inevitably cool off at some point. When he does, Utah will need their traditional secondary goal scorers like Lawson Crouse and Nick Schmaltz to pick up the slack.
Utah’s inconsistency this season can largely be attributed to inconsistent results from its players. This team is struggling to get all of their lines rolling at the same time, which has resulted in Utah averaging the eighth-least expected goals per game this season. However, they have now won back-to-back games for the first time since October and three of their last four games, scoring four or more goals in all three of those wins. Utah may be turning a corner and despite the rocky start to the season, they are only four points out of a playoff spot. If they can continue firing on all cylinders for a lengthy period of time, they could keep themselves in playoff contention and play some meaningful hockey in the back half of the season.
All Stats via NaturalStatTrick
