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Coyotes Richard Panik Massively Underrated

July 19, 2018, 12:55 PM ET [89 Comments]
James Tanner
Washington Capitals Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT


Richard Panik is a 27 year old left shooting right-winger from Slovakia.

The Coyotes acquired him from one of their many trades with Stan Bowman and the Chicago Blackhawks. He started with the Lightning for two years after they picked him in the 09 Draft in the second round, the Leafs had him for a year, the Hawks had him for three and now the Coyotes have him.

He has less than half a point per game in his NHL career.

So how is the oft waived/traded forward 'underrated'?



Defense.

https://public.tableau.com/shared/R8C8FR4T6?:display_count=no

If you click the link it will take you to Ryan Stimson's Player Traits and Performance Evaluation Tool. It's a handy little chart that allows you to quickly assess a players performance.

In the link I have compared Panik to the NHL's preeminent defensive forward, Nino Niederreiter. Nino gets a 97/100 rating on Defense, and Panik gets a 93/100.

Nino is the better player (and younger) but the difference isn't as much as you'd expect.

In fact, according to Corsica.com Nino was worth 1.26 Goals Above Replacement last year, while Panik was worth 3.56.

(For comparison, Ovechkin led the NHL last year worth 38 GAR and McDavid was worth 34).

Some players who had a similar impact to Panik: B. Schenn, Getzlaf, Joe Thornton, Matt Duchene.

For a guy who scored only 14 goals and 35 points, that's pretty good. It means almost all of his impact is coming from defense. These kinds of players are so so so underrated because people only tend to care about things they remember, and you remember goals and do not remember 'good defense.'

Along with Nick Cousins, Panik led the Coyotes in Shot-percentage last season. Once he joined the Coyotes (35 games played) he led the team in possession, posting a 54.35% CF on a team with ZERO OTHER POSITIVE POSSESSION PLAYERS.

(Somewhat ironically, he was traded for the Coyotes other best possession driver, Anthony Duclair, who, at the time of his trade, was the Coyotes best possession player relative to his team at + 2%) (Panik was + 6% relative).

Last year Panik was paired with Stepen, who was a 46% possession player without Panik and a 53% player with him.

Last year, other than superstar John Toews, who is going to crush it regardless of who he plays with, Panik improved the performance of every player he played with.

He plays elite defense.

He drives possession.

He makes everyone he plays with better.

Also, he scores quite a bit more at even-strength than you probably think: Panik led the Coyotes with .91 goals/60 last year and also led in points / 60 with 2.09.

Last year John Tavares had .93 goals/60 and 2.02 points per 60. Now Panik only did it for 35 games, and no one is saying that he is as good as Tavares.

But over 72 games with Chi and Az combined, Panik scored 1.85 p/60 good for 111th in the NHL and more than E.Kane, Hartsman, Kadri, Bozak, Landescog, both Sedins, Domi, Seguin, Neal and more.

Richard Panik is elite defensively, and he scores at a 5v5 rate that is just under a 1st line rate. At a $2.8 cap hit, he is offering some of the best value in the NHL dollar for dollar.

A lot people are not going to believe that the Coyotes can be a good team this year, but John Chayka is a master of finding these types of undervalued players (Cousins, Demers, Panik, Hinistroza, Oesterle) and the Coyotes are going to ice a secretly very good roster this year.

OUTLOOK

I will uncharacteristically refrain from making any outlandish predictions, but I think that the Coyotes have a real chance to make the playoffs this year. Only the Predators and Jets are absolute locks for the playoffs in the West. I highly doubt the Oilers and Flames will be as unlucky as they were last year, so lets go ahead and put them in, along with the Blues.

You can definitely count out the Hawks and the Canucks, so that leaves the Coyotes fighting with the Wild, Vegas, Ducks, Sharks, Kings, Avalanche and Stars for one of the final three playoff spots.

I think they're a better than 50% chance to beat out that collection of imperfect teams. I think they could be the surprise team in the NHL this year.

I've digressed me brothers, but please enjoy a bit of the Ol' Ludwig Van and have a very nice day.


stats corsica.hockey and naturalstattrick.com
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