The Columbus Blue Jackets are a peculiar case study in today's NHL.
This is a team with just nine regulation goals in its past seven games. And yet, it's not for a lack of trying: In those seven games, the Blue Jackets have averaged 33.7 shots per game, and topped 40 shots on goal twice.
Despite the lack of scoring, the team managed to go 3-4-0, with two of those wins coming after regulation. Thank you, Sergei Bobrovsky.
Whether or not you're fully on board with analytics, perhaps one thing everyone can agree on is this: shooting the puck is a good thing.
Corsi is the standard metric for judging play-driving teams and players based solely on shot attempts. From an old-school standpoint, consider that every hockey scoreboard in the United States, from a youth league in middle-of-nowhere Ohio to Nationwide Arena leaves just enough space for both teams shots on goal next the ultimate metric: goals.
Good news: The Blue Jackets lead the NHL in shots.
Bad news: They're 20th in the league in goals scored.
The discrepancy between shots and goals lies in their paltry 7.6% shooting percentage, putting them at 28th in the league.
Only five players on the team have a shooting percentage at or above 10%, but it's certainly not the five players that the team needs to be successful.
| Player | Shots | Goals | S% |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonny Milano | 8 | 36 | 22.2 |
| Pierre-Luc Dubois | 10 | 88 | 11.4 |
| Lukas Sedlak | 4 | 37 | 10.8 |
| Nick Foligno | 9 | 86 | 10.5 |
| Oliver Bjorkstrand | 8 | 80 | 10 |
Not all shots are created equal, and there's no debate there. The fact is that the Blue Jackets are doing a good – but not great – job at generating high-quality scoring changes.
Consider the below charts from Micah McCurdy, a leading voice in the advancement of accessible hockey statistics. Micah's heat maps show where teams are producing (or not producing) shots from all locations in the offensive zone.
The Blue Jackets are doing a fine job of generating shots in the net-front area, which is good. However, their shot production in the slot (the area between the face-off dots but in front of the goalie) is lacking. Shots coming from the right-point are largely coming from Seth Jones, though it's possible David Savard is contributing as well.
Contrast that with the Tampa Bay Lightning, without question the most offensively dynamic team in the NHL thus far this year. While they lack the immediate net-front presence of Columbus, they are completely dominant in the slot area, where they're scoring nearly at will.
Per NaturalStatTrick, Tampa leads the NHL in generating 54.68% of scoring chances at 5v5. Columbus sits at 13th at 51.14%.
Clearly, Columbus has room to improve their heat map, but what this tells me is that they're largely doing an okay job creating high-quality shots. Why, then, are they struggling to score?
By my estimation, it's simply been an unlucky shooting year for several of the Blue Jackets' top scorers. Cam Atkinson (even before his injury) was shooting just 6.4% (6/94), 13th on the team. His career average is 11.1%, and last season he tallied 35 goals and scored on 14.6% of his shots on net.
Boone Jenner, now several years removed from his 30-goal campaign, has just four goals, but also has 100 shots on goal. Something's got to give. I'm not suggesting that he's going to regain his form (that was likely an aberration), but shooting 4% is just criminally low. His career average is 10.3%, even when considering that he has just 22 goals in the past season and a half, on 311 (!) shots (7.0%).
Zach Werenski leads all NHL defensemen in goals with 11, but after him, one could make the case that every Blue Jackets defenseman is at least a little bit snake bitten. Even Seth Jones, who has eight goals, is shooting just 5.6%.
The other seven defensemen who have seen regular minutes for the Blue Jackets this season have combined for 393 shots on goal, but have scored just 16 goals, or just 4.1%. Take Jones and Werenski away (no, please don't), and the team's defense has scored eight goals on 250 shots (3.2%).
Even Artemi Panarin, unquestionably the Blue Jackets' most dynamic forward, has 12 goals on 131 shots, good for 9.2%. While this isn't nearly as egregious as his counterparts, it's still much lower than his prior two season totals of 16% and 14.7%. Not once have the Jackets benefited from the one-timer that he made so famous in Chicago. It's unlikely that he hits the 30-goal marker for the first time in his career.
It may seem like the time is now for panic in Columbus. I'll be the first to admit that it's been hard to watch this team struggle to find its way for the past few weeks/months.
The truth is that these numbers should average out. That's encouraging. Jenner should get a few bounces to go his way. Atkinson could get a few breaks. Panarin needs to apologize to goalposts around the league and ask for forgiveness.
All that is to say, it's hard to imagine this team continues to shoot just 7.6% for the rest of the season.
Follow 1st Ohio BatteryFacebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube
