We’re now over a quarter of the way through the 2019-20 season, how are the Islanders forwards doing in terms of production? At least six are on pace for a career-year in at least one offensive category.
With 22 games played of the 82 game regular season, the New York Islanders are now 27 percent of their way through the 2019-20 regular season. So I figured it was a good time to see how the Isles forward are doing in terms of offensive numbers.
Not only did I want to see how well they’re doing right now, but I wanted to know what kind of pace the forwards are setting.
By now we aren’t seeing the ridiculous pace stats from the start of the season. By now, things have leveled off. What you see is probably what we’re going to get (for the most part) by game 82.
Big Numbers…for Some
I’m only looking at the common offensive numbers. I’m not trying to get fancy or trying to understand why a certain player is performing well, or not. I just wanted to know, for curiosities sake, how our forwards are projecting by the end of the year.
To do this I’m using ESPN’s projected stat line. You can find it by going to the player’s page, like Brock Nelson’s page and looking for the “Projected” line just below the “2019-20 Regular Season” stats.
Here’s what they’re projecting for all the Islanders forwards:
If you don’t know how to calculate pace stats for goals or assists the math isn’t too hard to do. Divide the stat you’re trying to pace out, for example, Mathew Barzal’s goals, by the number of games played. For Barzal, that’s nine divided by 22. Now multiply it over a full 82 game season, and it gives you 34.
For someone like Jordan Eberle, who hasn’t played a full season so far all you do is subtract the number of games he missed from 82.
So what does the table tell us?
At first, it confirms things we already know. We know Barzal is scoring like mad. We know that Brock is having a better season than last year, and we know that Beau is finally turning into that top-six winger we hoped he could be.
(Note: The numbers in bold represent career-highs.)
But what this table also shows us is just how off the mark some of the forwards are. Guys like Anders Lee, who’s on pace for 37 points by year’s end. You’d expect Lee to be up amongst the leaders on the team, but he’s right there with Casey Cizikas.
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It’s not to say that Anders Lee can’t find a way out of his current slump. All this does is highlight how far off he is from the rest of the top-six.