Prior to the season, Pavel Zacha made it no secret he'd like to be a more aggressive shooter in 2018-19 than in previous years.
The planned change in mentality seemed to pay off as he comfortably set a career high in goals – at 5v5 and overall – despite appearing in just 61 games, eight fewer than his previous low.
But did Zacha actually generate more shots? Let's take a look.
In a word, no. Quite the opposite. Both his shot on goal and shot attempt numbers dipped by ~1 per 60 minutes played.
Zacha ranked 336th among forwards in SOG/60 – below names like Luke Glendening, Zack Smith, Brett Seney, and Tim Schaller. Encouraging stuff.
If Zacha scored more and shot less, was he simply prioritizing quantity over quality? Fair question, but no.
In 2017-18, Zacha generated chances and high-danger chances at a higher rate. Unsurprisingly, that led to a higher expected goal output. Though he recorded .63 ixG/60, he only scored .37 per 60.
This past season, despite the dip in shot and chance generation, Zacha scored .59 per 60.
Why?
The simple explanation is shooting percentage. Zacha converted on more than 11% of his 5v5 shots after capitalizing on ~5% the prior two seasons. Though it's fair to say he was probably unlucky previously, he was *too* lucky this year.
I mean, NHL goaltenders should do much better than stopping 88.89% of Zacha's shots at 5v5. He isn't Alex Ovechkin or Vladimir Tarasenko.
While it was nice to see Zacha take a step forward in the goal scoring department, it wasn't due to a more aggressive mentality and the spike in shot/chance generation that should come as a result.
Zacha's goal output – on both a per 60 and per game basis – will likely head south if that doesn't change next season.
Numbers via NaturalStatTrick.com Recent Posts Stay away from Jordan Eberle