The World Championships have wrapped up from Bratislava, Slovakia and it was Finland who came away with the Gold Medal for the second consecutive year. They defeated Matt Murray, Jared McCann and the rest of the Canadians 3-1.
The most notable performances from Penguins players at the tournament didn’t come from Evgeni Malkin or Matt Murray. They came from Dominik Simon and Patric Hornqvist. Hornqvist stormed out of the gate and was among the tournament leaders in goals. He scored seven times in eight games. The one that caught my eye was Dominik Simon putting up 12 points in ten games playing for the Czech Republic.
Simon is a player that some people got frustrated with last year because he wasn’t putting up tangible offense. He was a 1.66 points per 60 player which is an OK number for a depth player on a 750k contract. However, there is evidence to suggest he will have better offensive results like he did in the World Championships.
He led all Penguins in high-danger shot attempts percentage at 64.01% Sidney Crosby was second best at 58.60%.
Simon’s 59.18% led all Penguins in xGF%
Jared McCann had the following numbers in his 32 games with the Penguins
5v5 Points per 60: 1.33 xGF%: 52.81 HDCF% 58.12
Very similar to Simon in the sense that the underlying evidence points to a player due to see a bump in offensive production. People bullish on McCann should be bullish on Simon for the same reasons.
Simon will be 25 when the new season starts. He’s in the prime of his career. Depending on how Mike Sullivan wants to use him you could be looking at a player putting up close to top six numbers at 5v5 or somewhere in that neighborhood. If Guentzel and McCann are going to play with Crosby somebody needs to play on the left side with Evgeni Malkin. The best option might be Simon.
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