There have been a lot of articles written about Phil Kessel and his projected goal totals now that he is in Pittsburgh. Will Phil score 40? Will he score 50? etc...
There haven't been too many that have gone into great detail about the subject on an analytical level.
I am going to cite two different examples that lend itself to a positive Phil Kessel forecast for 2015-16 in Pittsburgh, but just how positive?
The assumption that Phil Kessel will improve playing with Sidney Crosby instead of Tyler Bozak isn't groundbreaking at all. However, it is always better to try and provide specific details to why that is the case.
The first example is from an article in October of 2014 written by Jonathan Willis of Sportsnet. Here is the important graphic from that article:
There is tangible evidence of the offensive bump players receive playing with Crosby or Malkin.
The qualifier for who Jonathan Willis included is here:
It’s difficult to quantify exactly what playing with Crosby and Malkin does to a player’s scoring totals. One method is to look at those who have played with the game’s most dynamic duo and compare their points-per-hour before and after. Fortunately, HockeyAnalysis.com‘s with or without you (WOWY) function makes this relatively easy. I looked at every forward who spent significant time (minimum of four hours) with either Crosby or Malkin and significant time in another NHL city over the past seven seasons at even-strength and compared their scoring totals.
Something to keep in mind is that none of these players who fit the criteria are even close to being as good as Phil Kessel. We all know the only other stand alone star winger the Penguins have had in the Crosby/Malkin era was Marian Hossa and that was only for a few months seven years ago.
The second positive forecast is from Domenic Galamini
Galamini has released some individual player projections for 2015-16 and conveniently Phil Kessel was one of the players.
Phil Kessel should improve from his 2014-15 season, but by how much?
To break this down into simple terms Phil Kessel played 1149:32 at even-strength last year. In that time he had 14 goals and 30 points. This was a disappointing season for Kessel considering his past history.
In these projections if Kessel plays the same 1149:32 he will improve his 5v5 goal total from 14 to 18 and his point total from 30 to 39.
Considering Phil Kessel has only scored 10 or more power play goals twice in his career he will have to do better than Domenic's projections to hit the allusive 40 goal mark.
In Kessel's 2013-14 season he had a Goals/60 of 1.21 and a points/60 of 2.41. This is a tad higher than his 8 year average (2007-15) of 1.05 and 2.13.
To make my personal prediction for Phil Kessel's 2015-16 season I am going to use his 2013-14 season which towards the high end and split the difference with Domenic's 2015-16 predictions.
After averaging the numbers out it boils down to a 1.08 goals/60 and a points/60 of 2.22. If Kessel plays ~1200 minutes (his 4 year average not counting lockout shortened season) of even strength hockey this year that would net him 22 goals and 44 points.
Even if Phil Kessel were to pot a career high 15 power play goals he would still come up short of that 40 goal plateau.
After crunching the numbers I did not expect the 40 goal plateau to be such a tough milestone to hit for Kessel while having Crosby as his center but unless he blows away Domenic's projections he is likely to remain a quality 30 goal scorer and not quite a 40 goal scorer.
Thanks for reading!
Follow me on twitter
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»