"Wild About Numbers": Does Justin Fontaine Have A Part To Play In The Wild's Long-Term Plans

Fontane's road to the NHL has been somewhat rocky. After a stellar college career with the UMD Bulldogs, including an NCAA Championship win in 2011, he signed with the Houston Aeros as an undrafted free agent. In his two seasons with the Aeros he scored 111 points and was the team's leading scorer in 2012/13. During those two seasons he never received a call-up to the Wild. Even in 2011/12 when pretty much every single Aeros player was called-up at some point, Fontaine was always overlooked. This may have been due to the controversial Twitter incident he was involved in during February 2012 which earned him a 2-game suspension from the Wild.

The main knock against him succeeding in the NHL was his lack of size and the sheer volume of young forwards that the Wild possessed who all seemingly had much higher upsides. What he had going in his favour was a knack for scoring goals, positional versatility and the kind of offensive mind-set that the Wild have sorely lacked for years.

-Next, let's look at his production rates and where he ranks among Wild players (25% of games played) in all situations and also just at even-strength:

-Now that we know he is productive, let's see how sustainable that production is:

-Now for his 5v5 possession numbers and on-ice percentages:

-To get a better idea of his role in the team, let's look at his deployment statistics:

-Just to provide a visual representation of his Corsi (bubble colour: blue=positive, red=negative), TOI/G (bubble size), Quality Of Competition (Y-Axis) and Offensive-Zone Start Percentage (X-Axis), here is a Player Usage Chart:

-Finally, here is a list of how much TOI he has had with each Wild forward at 5v5 this season:

I think Fontaine still needs to do more to prove that he can be an important part of a Wild team that is hoping to be challenging for the Cup within the next few years. Right now it's hard to gauge what his potential is. He could be playing a role for the Wild next year, he could be dealt somewhere else as part of a bigger trade, or he could be back in the AHL if his scoring slumps. It's hard to say right now.

He's still only 39 games into his NHL career, and though he is 26 and fairly far along in his developmental curve, I think we will have a clearer picture of what his future holds by the end of the season. What I want to see from him going forward is; some more assists, to keep chipping in with goals here and there, to improve his defensive play and try to become a more well rounded player as opposed to just a goalscorer. He needs to get better at winning puck battles along the boards and be more of a factor every shift, which hopefully will come with experience.

What's your take on Fontaine's long-term outlook, Wilderness?

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