Top 3 Avalanche on Fire & Ice
· Yahoo Sports
With 18 games now in the books, it’s time to look at some individual performances for the Colorado Avalanche over this stretch. While there’s different ways to measure how well someone is playing, here we will focus primarily on shooting percentage to identify those riding the wave of good fortune and who may be primed for an uptick.
On Fire
It’s easy to identify which Avalanche player has been the hottest in the early season and that is none other than Artturi Lehkonen. He’s always had an unexplained magic quality to go along with quick hands and a nose for the net, which would often find him scoring in bunches. A hot streak was never a surprise but landing among the top three in goals in the NHL was a bit eye-popping. To achieve this, Lehkonen was shooting as high as 45% at one point. However, he has already started to cool down a little to his current 31.2%. His 12 goals (on 38 shots) still leads Colorado and the Finn is on pace to hit a career high in goals if he can top 27.
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Five goals for Devon Toews is already a successful season compared to the three he scored in 68 games last season. Converting on 34 shots means Toews is enjoying a mark of 14.7% shooting, which is a significant uptick over his 6.4% career average. Good news is Toews is shooting the puck a bit more this season to a rate of almost two shots per game. The coaching staff also seems to be consciously limiting the 32-year-olds time on ice just a touch this season as Toews has been averaging under 21 minutes per game, which is the lowest in his career since the 2019-20 season, the defenseman’s first full campaign with the New York Islanders. Even if Toews can’t quite keep up the goal scoring rate, perhaps the decline in ice time will keep him fresher and more productive overall.
Two goals in the shutout win against Detroit solidified Martin Nečas’ place on this list as he now holds the second highest shooting percentage on the Avalanche with 23.7%. He has moved to third on the team with nine goals and tied with Nathan MacKinnon and Nazem Kadri for the most power play goals with three. Nečas scored a career high 38 goals last season and is on pace to hit 40 goals this season. The right wing is someone who can generate a higher volume of shots, particularly on the power play, and therefore support his increased goal output with more opportunity.
On Ice
Brent Burns and Sam Malinski both are still looking for their first goal of the season. It hasn’t been without trying as they each have put the puck on net a fair amount. Burns has fired 27 shots and Malinski with 23, which places them third and fourth the defensive core with shots on goal. The pair of defenseman are also now on the league leaderboard for number of shots without a goal. Which one will break through first?
Updated Most SOG without a Goal
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Darren Raddysh – 41
Noah Dobson – 34
Moritz Seider – 32
Jaccob Slavin – 30
Kris Letang – 29
Simon Nemec – 27
Braden Schneider – 26
Brent Burns – 25
Sam Malinski – 23
Amadeus Lombardi – 23
Mavrik Bourque – 23
Jeremy Lauzon – 23
It remains to be seen what his true goal scoring ability and realistic expectation is at the NHL level but there’s a fair argument to be made that TJ Hughes has been somewhat snakebitten. He is currently tied for second on the team with 46 shots on goal but has only converted two into goals, which gives the rookie a shooting percentage of just 4.3%. As long as Hughes keeps getting regular minutes, he should see an uptick in goal production, but so early in his career is tough to peg just how much of a bounce up to expect from him.