Coming off a career-year with the New York Islanders, Brock Nelson will look to replicate his success next season. He had 25 goals and 53 points this past season, the highest point total of his career thus far. But can Nelson keep up the same pace next year? We can look at his career track record to take a guess.
Nelson has totalled between 40-45 points in three of his last five seasons, 35 points once and 50+ points once as well. This season, one major change that likely helped Nelson to achieve his point total was his ice time increasing in the absence of John Tavares. Until last year, he had played between 14:40 and 15:55 per game in four straight seasons. This past season, he played 17:58, a massive increase from his regular career totals. But just because he may get the same ice time next season doesn’t mean he’ll necessarily replicate the same point totals.
What stands out though is that while Nelson was on the ice, the Islanders’ shooting percentage was 10.1%. This is the highest of Nelson’s career and only the second time it’s even passed the 9.5% mark. Looking in a broader lense as well, a major reason his plus-20 rating came to be? While on the ice this year, Islanders goalies had a .941 save percentage.
So even if Nelson gets the same minutes as last year, he probably isn’t going to get as lucky as he was last season. This isn’t meant to chalk up Nelson’s play just to luck– it really was the best year of his career. It just shouldn’t come as a surprise if his production falls short of the 53-point-mark next season and lands somewhere in the 45-50 point range.
*For those interested, I’ll be starting to cover the Carolina Hurricanes on HockeyBuzz.com as well. This doesn’t mean there will be any less Islanders articles, just more articles from me overall. If you’re interested, I’ll have new posts out for the Hurricanes by the end of the month!*
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