This tweet and discussion came out the other day:
Start your morning with a good ol' debate. #NHLTopPlayers pic.twitter.com/ZmG6Wlaipk
— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) August 20, 2018
Kyle was a possible Calder Trophy candidate as well as a 31 goal scorer on the left side this past season. Only 7 left wingers scored more than his 31 goals and 5 right wingers. He had more goals than Panarin and Arvidsson too. So why wasn't Connor on that list?
As a player relative to his possession stats he was at 49.36% Corsi rating at 5 vs 5 which is only slightly behind Laine's 50.17%. He was number 6 on the list. When looking at High Danger Corsi For % Connor was 10th in the league as a LW at 5 vs 5. He was also right with Panarin in GF/60 at 2.8 vs 2.82 and ahead of Voracek and Kane.
His GA/60 rate was better than Hall, Gaudreau, Ovechkin, Kucherov, Kane and Kessel too at 5 vs 5. However, he also played with two other players on the top 20 lists, Wheeler and Scheifele.
The problem here is that when Connor is without Scheifele and to a less extent Wheeler things start to drop. It's not his fault he works well with those two players but it is his fault to a limited extent that things change when he's not with them. That is simply what the stats say.
The point for Jets fans to remember though is that Connor is just in his second season and could have room for improvement on what he's doing now. Furthermore the player who is right next to him in production and ahead in other areas is Nik Ehlers. Given that list and the Jets talent it's not impossible to think that they could have four players on that list come next season with Laine, Wheeler, Connor and Ehlers but that requires the last two taking a major step forward.
Be certain of one thing just because the NHL has a top 20 list does not represent all 31 teams. If you expand that list out to 31 (and why would they not) Kyle Connor and Nik Ehlers are likely both on it. That says a ton about the depth in the organization right now and with training camp coming people can start thinking about Vesalainen's future now too.