Islanders Anthony Beauvillier Is On Pace To Triple Assist Total

Anthony Beauvillier is never someone who put up a bunch of assists. This year, he’s on pace to be more of an assist guy with the Islanders.

Through Anthony Beauvillier’s young NHL career with the Islanders, he’s been an inconsistent goal scorer who was never one to pick up a high number of assists. His career-high in assists is 15, which he did twice.

Last year, arguably the worst year of Beauvillier’s career, he only had 10 assists. 10 assists over an 81 game sample size is pretty rough, especially when you consider that he spent a good chunk of time on a line with Mathew Barzal and Josh Bailey.

This year, at age 22, it was very much a make or break year for Anthony Beauvillier. So far, he’s exceeded expectations especially on a line with Brock Nelson and Derick Brassard.

Through 12 games he has seven points. Based on years gone by you’d likely assume that he has like six goals and an assist to go along with it. Actually, it’s essentially the inverse of that. He has just two goals and five assists.

He’s on pace for roughly 14 goals, which is a bit lower than where he’s been over the last two seasons (21 and 18 goals). With Beau, we know his scoring comes in bunches so in all likelihood it’s a safe bet to assume that he’ll end up with around 20 goals when it’s all said and done.

The difference so far is the assist numbers. In 81 games, he had just 10 assists all of last year. That’s mindboggling almost. Now, he has five in just 12 games a pace of 34 assists. So what has changed for Beauvillier?

Well, he’s doing the little things right. In years gone by if he wasn’t shooting the puck, he wasn’t an effective player. Check out the play on the Ryan Pulock goal:

Beauvillier’s play along the boards kept the play alive. Eventually, it got to Pulock and he was able to rocket one home. The same thing could be said about his assist on the Michael Dal Colle goal. He was the lone reason for this goal.

So Beauvillier comes flying into the zone, puts a shot on goal, follows his shot and puts the puck where he thinks a teammate will be. It’s brilliant, that’s a playmaker move.

Want your voice heard? Join the Eyes On Isles team!

Write for us!

Barry Trotz has relied more on Anthony Beauvillier in and so far he’s answered the bell. On pace for 48 points, we hope this is the Beau that is here to stay.