Josh Ho-Sang left a huge impression after his call up to the New York Islanders in March of 2017. Although, this impressive statistic may surprise you.
How good was Josh Ho-Sang’s first 21 games with the New York Islanders? Well, he certainly passed the eye test. His 10 points (4, goals, 6 assists) may not seem like super star level production, but he excelled in one category specifically that’ll really jump out on you.
We like to keep it straight forward with you here at Eyes On Isles. We, as a team, are very high on Ho-Sang’s potential. Mitch just recently wrote about how Ho-Sang was among the best in the league in possession, so I figured I’d add on to that and show that his shooting percentage last year was also quite impressive.
Ho-Sang led the Islanders in this category. A whopping 18.2 percent of his shots found the back of the net. The next closest was Anders Lee with an impressive 17.8 percent, then Jason Chimera followed with 16.5 percent.
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Yes, it’s a small sample size, roughly a quarter of a season, but impressive nonetheless for the 21-year-old. So how would he have stacked up amongst the league leaders in this category? Also, quite well.
T.J. Oshie was the leader in this category with an impressive 23.1 percent. Ho-Sang would have finished seventh in the league overall in this category right behind Rickard Rakell’s 18.6 percent.
Assuming he kept that pace over a full season, Ho-Sang would’ve finished ahead of Sidney Crosby, Brad Marchand, Nikita Kucherov and Marian Hossa to name a few. That’s a lot of star power.
You may be wondering what does this all mean? Essentially, Ho-Sang’s shot selection is excellent. He’s not just firing shots on net in poor scoring opportunities. Instead, he’s finding opportunities and finishing at a high volume.
That speaks a lot to his “Hockey IQ” for such a young, and relatively inexperienced player. Often times when a player isn’t scoring he’ll make up for his lack of production with a higher frequency of shots on net hoping one breaks through.
It’s a bad habit as they may be wasting a better look elsewhere. That’s another thing I noticed about Ho-Sang as well, he can be a playmaker.
Sometimes you have to know when to just drop off the puck to your captain and let him do his thing. This high percentage shooting percentage is something I want to see continue over into 2017-2018.
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There will be times over the course of Ho-Sang’s first full season when he struggles. If he responds by just throwing pucks on net for no reason that’s not good. Instead, if he shows patience and lets the game come to him. Everything will work itself out and he’ll be the player we all expect him to be.