By Bob Trask – There have been a few pleasant surprises and some huge disappointments among Habs forwards when it comes to point production this year. There have also been a handful of players who have brought what they have always brought to the table in terms of offensive production.
The overall result has been a disappointing offensive performance at the team level.
The point production this year compared to the career average point production of a few selected forwards is illustrated in the table below.
A caveat: A large sample size with regard to games played (Gallagher, Armia, Hoffman) is a more accurate reflection in relative terms than a small sample size (Caufield, Pitlick and Poehling).
Comparison
| PLAYER | INCREASE/DECREASE |
|---|---|
| Brendan Gallagher | -35.6% |
| Paul Byron | -34.3% |
| Joel Armia | -33.3% |
| Mike Hoffman | -32.1% |
| Jonathan Drouin | -0.3% |
| Josh Anderson | +1.0% |
| Cole Caufield | +2.1% |
| Christian Dvorak | +6.1% |
| Nick Suzuki | +10.3% |
| Jake Evans | +11.9% |
| Rem Pitlick | +12.2% |
| Ryan Poehling | +18.3% |
This disappointment in this is the lack of production from the veterans who were supposed to be the leaders on the team. Instead they have stumbled while the younger players have been relied upon too heavily to try to pick up the slack.
More reading…
- Pronger Fails To Gain Sympathy About Net Pay
- Off-Season Trade Candidates by Bob Trask
- Habs Offense Running Dry
Your comments are reasonable. This team, even healthy, was not a contender. Habs cannot really improve without more change. I suspect it will be more gradual because it takes time to learn and develop. The young core is a great start and more established players will move on as younger players either develop or are acquired I can’t even guess at the specifics but with Gorton, Hughes and St-Louis I believe the changes will be well thought out.