Just as every NHL season brings a few underachievers and disappointing starts, it also brings a few surprises — whether it’s a player rising up for the first time on the way to becoming a known difference maker league-wide, or a player who had been in decline experiencing some resurgence.
Here are some first half performers who really surprised us with their contributions.
Michael Grabner, New York Rangers
In 42 games, Grabner has already more than doubled his goal output from last season and has bettered his goal total from the past two seasons combined. He needs 15 more goals to match his career high of 34, which he scored in 2010-11 as a 23-year-old member of the New York Islanders. That season was one heck of an outlier for Grabner, considering the second-most goals he’s ever scored in a season is 20.
With a 21.8 shooting percentage, the now-29-year-old is shooting 9.2 percentage points higher than his career average, so he may start to cool down — and it may have already started since he managed just two goals in 14 December games before converting five times last week. What makes this more surprising is that Grabner gets almost no time on the power play and is second to Auston Matthews league-wide in 5-on-5 goals with 16.
Alexander Wennberg, Columbus Blue Jackets
Let’s be honest, not even the Blue Jackets, who drafted Wennberg 14th overall in 2013, thought he was going to be this good, this fast.
“This team does not sign Sam Gagner as a free agent this summer if they believed they were set down the middle with (Brandon) Dubinsky, Wennberg and (William) Karlsson, that’s why (Gagner) was signed,” Blue Jackets beat writer Aaron Portzline said on the Tape to Tape podcast last week.
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In his third full season, Wennberg is already just four points shy of the career-high 40 he put up last season. More of a playmaker than a goal scorer, he’s also benefitting from great seasons by linemates Cam Atkinson and Brandon Saad. Will Wennberg slow? Well, both Atkinson and Saad are converting goals at rates higher than their career averages, but not so much higher that you’d expect a sharp turn south. After all Atkinson, at 27, is a late-blooming goal scorer coming off a 27-goal year and Saad is a 23-year-old emerging scorer who has increased production rates each of the past four seasons.
Wennberg may not keep up the 70-point pace he’s on, but he is a legitimate offensive producer.
“He now looks like a No. 1-2 centre most nights,” Portzline said.
Mitch Marner, Toronto Maple Leafs
The conversation around Marner coming into the season was whether he should be kept in the NHL, or sent back to junior where he would dominate and play a lead role on Canada’s WJC team. When it was announced he would stay with the Leafs, most fans of the team liked his upside, but probably had tempered expectations for how the 19-year-old, 5-foot-11 Patrick Kane-like Marner would do. As great as Auston Matthews has been as a rookie, Marner’s production and two-way play have probably been more surprising.
When Kane came into the NHL right after being picked first overall in 2007, he posted a monster rookie season with 21 goals and 72 points. Right now Marner is on pace to take a run at Kane’s huge freshman totals and is on pace for 20 goals and 68 points — enough to break the current Leafs rookie scoring record of 66 set by Peter Ihnacak in 1982-83. Of course, he may not end up as the record-holder if Matthews stays healthy.
What’s great for the Leafs and their fans is that with Marner converting on 9.3 per cent of his shots, he’s not having this tremendous rookie season because of luck. Nothing about that shooting rate is unsustainable.
What does Kane think about the rookie who is often compared to him? Well — he believes Marner may own the better all-around game, as he said on Hockey Central at Noon on Wednesday:
“I think there’s obviously some comparison there with the size and that we both played in London. He’s a top pick (fourth overall in 2015) as well,” Kane said. “One of the things with him that I really notice when I watch him is he’s got that all-around complete game where he’s blocking shots, playing defence–which I never really did that much at that age–and he has what seems like great chemistry with that line he’s been on with (James) van Riemsdyk and (Tyler) Bozak.
Justin Schultz, Pittsburgh Penguins
We all know about the tale of Justin Schultz by now. Drafted in the second round by Anaheim in 2008, opting for free agency and the Edmonton Oilers, and never able to find himself as a productive player on those poor Northern Alberta teams. Finally he was traded to the Penguins last season and now he’s being utilized in a way that allows him to play to his strengths.
In Edmonton, Schultz always averaged more than 21 minutes a game as the team tried to push him into a top pair position — perhaps because they had no one else capable to do it anyway. This season in Pittsburgh, his average TOI is 18:31 and he’s not being put in situations where, say, he regularly starts shifts in the defensive zone against the other team’s top line. Schultz thrives as an offence-driving defenceman and the Penguins are using him as such. The result? Schultz has by far the best CF% of his career at 52.87 per cent — only the second time he’s been above 50.
It’s worth noting that, while he is surely no Kris Letang, Schultz filled in nicely on Pittsburgh’s top PP unit when Letang missed time to injury in December. In seven games Letang missed, Schultz posted four power play points.
But before you go thinking Schultz has 26 points in 41 games because he’s been getting a lot of power play time, he’s got most of his offence at even strength. He is tied for fifth among defencemen in even strength goals with six and eighth in even strength points with 17 — just three shy of Erik Karlsson.
As Andrew Berkshire wrote on Sportsnet.ca in early January, Schultz is no longer a reclamation project — he’s a solid contributor for the Penguins.