It is my feeling that Mark Arcobello should be the 2C of the Oilers next year barring the addition of another more established Center. I've spilled a lot of digital ink expounding his ability as a two way player, evidenced by his possession numbers, but I rarely talk about his offensive contributions.
Possession numbers are great and it's common sense that if the puck is being shot more often at the other Goalie than your own then good things will happen more often for you. However, if Arcobello is going to occupy the 2C spot then the burden of scoring is going to be put on him more than it was last year. At the end of the day he will be the pivot of a scoring line and his ability to close on those chances will affect Wins and Losses.
Let's keep a couple things in mind about Arcobello. First and foremost, he's going to be 26 years old when the season starts and I think we should assume that he's in his prime already. If he gets BETTER than he was this past season that he would likely be the exception to the rule and it should be a complete surprise. Second, the NHL club already has a future planned for the 2C position that doesn't include him and he goes by the name of Leon. Draisaitl is 18 and his Head Coach is desperate for wins so I'm going to plan as if Arco will take the 2C role but if the big German is ready he will eat away at those minutes.
Here are Mark Arcobello's pertinent Offensive numbers from last year as per
stats.hockeyanalysis.com. The numbers are presented over 60 minutes of play. At 5v5 he had 0.367 Goals/60, 1.469 Assists/60, and 7.10 Shots/60. That Goals/60 is awful and easily the worst of any player who will be in the Oilers' top 6. For the purpose of predicting future goal scoring I will be far more interested in the combination of Shots/60 and Shooting Percentage since at the end of the day sh% is pretty volatile and something we should expect to change from year to year.
Now last year Arco played 490 minutes at 5v5 but that number should be roughly 1100 if he takes top 6 minutes all year long. This is based on the minutes played by Hall, Perron, Eberle, RNH, and Gagner. Our biggest obstacle here will be how good the most recent 3rd Overall pick will be this coming season. But, since the scenario of Draisaitl outplaying Arco would be a happy one we'll assume Oiler fans won't ever see it.
Let's start with Goals. Last year Arco's shot was comically bad and I would be shocked if he wasn't working on it all summer, but the 5.17% that he shot last season is an incredibly low number. It was actually the 2nd lowest for Oiler forwards who actually scored a goal last year (Ryan Jones tops it or...uh...bottoms it). Let's assume that his Shooting Percentage evens out to a more normal number next year. Arco shot 9.2% and 9.3% in two full AHL seasons so let's use 9.2% as a reasonable number.
Now, given his 5v5 Shots/60, the 1100 minutes he would play, and his AHL Sh% we end up with 130 shots for 12 Even Strength Goals. This would put him right near the level of Even Strength goal scoring as an RNH who was coming off of shoulder surgery. If he stays in the 2C spot all year this should be an accomplishable number of goals.
As for Assists this is actually where Arcobello shines. His playmaking ability was as evident in the NHL last year as it had been in the AHL where simply dominated this past year. In terms of Assists/60 the only Oiler with a better number was Taylor Hall. What is also encouraging is that when broken down into 1st Assists and 2nd Assists the rate at which Arco picked up the Primary Assist was again only 2nd to Taylor Hall. It seems very likely that his vision may be up to par.
If we extrapolate his numbers into his new role we end up with 27 Assists. That's actually quite a bit (remembering that this is all 5v5). I think it would be much more reasonable to assume some lower Assist totals just as I think it would be reasonable to have expected higher Goal totals. In total if we use his Shots/60 and Assists/60 for last season with a reasonable Sh% we end up with a capable if not good performance from Arcobello as the 2C.
I'm going to leave out Power Play numbers for now because they might be handed to Draisaitl as a way to give him soft minutes, but I think Arcobello is more than able to handle 2C duties. It really just depends on if that shot is really as bad as it was last year or if he just ran into some bad luck.
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