By Tony Abbott -
Despite snagging two points in Sweden, the Minnesota Wild's season remains in danger of slipping away. They entered Monday's action four points out of a playoff spot. Not only do they have to get back into the top eight spots in the Western Conference, they'll need to leap-frog the Calgary Flames and Seattle Kraken and displace the Anaheim Ducks or Arizona Coyotes.
The pressure is growing as the Wild continue to spiral. We're hearing that Dean Evason's job is safe, with the "for now" caveat from reporters. In that same report, we heard general manager Bill Guerin held a meeting where he held what Marcus Foligno called "a bit" of a scream-fest.
It's not hard to guess what might have drawn the GM's ire. The penalty kill has been awful, the goaltending has been rough, and the defense is leaky. But the biggest salaries always become the lightning rods in times like these, so Kirill Kaprizov ($9 million cap hit) and Matt Boldy ($7 million) are also catching "a bit" of blame.
Our Brevan Bane did a deep dive into Kaprizov's game, so we won't re-hash Dolla Bill Kirill's struggles now. We'll just point out that in the eight games since Boldy returned from an early-season injury, the two have combined for just three goals (all from Kaprizov), with only one coming at 5-on-5.
No one will suggest that the Wild are getting enough from Kaprizov. He's spent three seasons as Minnesota's engine. He has to get going for the team to succeed. Similarly, no one will suggest that Boldy being on pace for an eight-goal season is good.
Still, there's a distinction between Kaprizov's slump and Boldy's. You want to see both of them score more, of course. But Boldy's struggles aren't as drastic as the headline of "One Goal" makes it sound. Because of that, there's more immediate hope for Boldy to turn things around very soon.
Let's start here: Goals aren't the only measure of offense, even by the simplest statistical measures we have. There's a reason we record assists, after all, and Boldy's doing very well in that department. His 1G-7A-8P stat line translates to a 60-point season over 75 games (which he'll reach if he doesn't miss another game) with 50-plus assists.
And yes, most people will say something akin to They're paying him to put the puck in the net! They're not wrong about that, but they are wrong about him putting the puck in the net -- just not with his stick. Five of Boldy's seven assists are primary assists, meaning he directly set up the goal-scorer.
Ultimately, hockey is a team game. So, to some extent, who cares who actually knocks the puck in? If Boldy's directly responsible for the goal being scored, is it functionally different whether he shot it or not?
Kaprizov is getting his points, too, with five goals and 10 assists (six primary) on the season. But what's encouraging about Boldy's production as opposed to Kaprizov's is that Boldy's points are coming at 5-on-5 play. Or at least, his lone goal and five of his assists (including four primary).
Boldy's six 5-on-5 points rank 11th on the team. But remember, he only has 10 games on the season, as opposed to the 17 like most other Wild players. His six points trail, say, Marcus Johansson (seven), are tied with Foligno (six), and actually leads Kaprizov (five). Johansson, Foligno, and Kapriov have played 17 games.
On a per-minute basis, Boldy's production compares to some of the league's best at 5-on-5. His 2.41 Primary Points/60* at that strength is tied for 25th in the NHL among 372 forwards with 100-plus minutes. That player he's tied with? It's none other than Mikko Rantanen, a perennial All-Star and borderline Hart Trophy candidate.
That's not the only impressive name he stacks up with. His 5-on-5 production isn't far off from Elias Pettersson (2.47 Primary Points/60) and Evgeni Malkin (2.42) and even sneaks past Nikita Kucherov (2.40). Star players like Kevin Fiala, William Nylander, Sasha Barkov, and Roope Hintz are eating Boldy's dust.
We get that no one will be happy if this all keeps up, and Boldy just has a 60-point season with fewer than 10 goals. But you know Boldy's not scoring eight goals this season. Hockey Wilderness knows it, and the stats tell us that, too.
With one goal on 27 shots, Boldy is shooting 3.7% in a league where no top-six forwards shoot 3.7% over the long term. We only have 128 games of history going in, but Boldy's career shooting percentage entering the year was 12.5%. He's too talented of a shooter to keep shooting this low forever, which is what we saw last year when he had a more lengthy slump than this and finished with 31 goals.
This season, he's had 47 unblocked shot attempts, totaling 3.68 expected goals. That means Boldy "should" have about three more goals right now. That would put his point total up to 11 in 10 games, with four goals, which would lead to much less hand-wringing about his game.
This includes being in the NHL's top-30 in unblocked shot attempt rate in all situations (15.4 per hour) and first on the team in unblocked shot attempt rate (13.0 per hour) at 5-on-5. He's second to only Joel Eriksson Ek on the team in terms of shots on goal per hour at 5-on-5 (8.2 per hour).
Eagle-eyed readers might have spotted that 47 unblocked attempts minus 27 shots on goal means that Boldy's missed the net 20 times. Is that a problem?
Maybe in the short term. But just like how Boldy isn't going to shoot 3.7% all season, he's not going to miss on 42.6% (21st-highest rate among forwards with 100-plus minutes; hat tip Moneypuck) of his unblocked attempts over the long haul. It's much likelier that he will regress towards his 30.0% rate of unblocked attempts that result in a miss, which should help his scoring.
But it should be said that the missed shots aren't quite the problem they might appear to be at first glance. It's not always better to get a shot on net. A classic example is this: Would you rather see a player miss a corner or fire directly into a goalie's chest plate? One's a missed shot, and one's a shot on goal, but the possibility of hitting a corner and then missing by an inch is better than a low-percentage shot on goal.
Some of the NHL's top goal-scorers miss the net a lot. Mark Scheifele scored 42 goals last year despite missing the net on 31.6% of his unblocked attempts. Pettersson, Mika Zibanejad, and Andrei Kuzmenko all scored 39 goals despite missing over 31% of their unblocked attempts. For a certain kind of goal-scorer, missing the net is the result of the process that helps them fill the net more.
And Boldy would know that, scoring 31 goals despite missing 32.7% of his unblocked shots last year.
None of this is to say that you shouldn't expect more from Boldy. The Wild need him to produce and, yes, to score some goals. But there's good news for Boldy that might not be there for his star counterpart in Kaprizov. Boldy's been productive at 5-on-5 and generally doing the right things to score goals. He's on-pace for 27.6 expected goals, even after missing time, which still gives him a chance at 30 goals once his luck corrects. It's easy to be frustrated by Boldy's first 10 games, but most indications are that we're not far from seeing "The Real Boldy."
*Primary points refer to Goals + First Assists.
All data via Evolving-Hockey unless otherwise stated. Missed shot percentages come from Moneypuck.
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