Islanders last decade’s point share leaders: John Tavares towers over field

With the break now into week number three, I’ve had lots of time to think about the New York Islanders. Stuck in my head is who was responsible for the most points since 2009?

With time on my hands, I wondered about which players contributed the most to the New York Islanders over the last decade. By “contributed” I don’t mean straight production like points and assists. That’s easy to figure out. By “contributed” I’m talking about points in the standings.

What player, due to their play, is responsible for the most points in the standings for the Islanders since 2009?

Thankfully, Hockey-Reference already breaks this down by season for every player. Each player get’s an offensive point share and defensive point share stat by season. Each number represents an estimate on how their offensive or defensive play resulted in points for the Islanders.

If you want to learn how they come up with those numbers you can read all about it in this post they published on

Calculating Point Shares

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The Results

First, a straight cumulative tally (who had the largest total point share since 2009-10) and then I broke it down to who returned the most points per game played.

Offensive Point Share (OPS)

I doubt anyone was shocked by these results. John Tavares was easily a top ten player for this franchise. His talent level towered over the rest of the players on the teams he played on. Which was a problem that would eventually manifest itself by Tavares signing with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2018 free agency period.

With the production he had in 669 games for the Isles, there was never a doubt he’d top the offensive point share list. His 61.5 offensive point share towers over the rest of the field.

Anders Lee, who is second in goal scored over the decade, makes perfect sense as the second rank.

Josh Bailey, whose been around since 2008, wasn’t much of a surprise either. With 797 games played over the decade, he’s the longest-tenured Isles, by far. He’s produced at a decent rate throughout his tenure with the Isles, so on a cumulative basis, it makes sense that he’s near the top.

Defensive Point Share (DPS)

I was way off with my pre-data capture guesses. I figured the top three names in DPS would be, in order, Mark Streit, Johnny Boychuk, and Nick Leddy. It was rightfully pointed out to me that Travis Hamonic would likely pop up in my listing. I clearly put too much stock in a defender’s offensive production even when that’s not what DPS does.

Hamonic leads the way with a 20.1 cumulative DPS with Johnny Boychuk and Thomas Hickey not far behind him. All of them played big minutes and had good +/- figures for the Isles. Boychuk holds a +34 with the Isles while Hickey sits with a +35.

Total Point Share (TPS)

Again, Tavares with a healthy lead over anyone who suited up for the Isles since 2009. Bailey jumps up to second with some impressive defensive numbers. His 12.4 defensive point share ranks eight overall.

Controlling for Fewer Games Played

If Mathew Barzal had the same number of games played as say, Josh Bailey, would he still be ranked ninth (14.9 OPS) in offensive point shares on this team? Obviously not. So I tried to control that by removing the experience bias.

Instead, I tried to answer this question: How many points did player ‘X’ net the Isles on his play alone based on the number of points available?

It’s a crude way of doing this but it was the simplest way to get to what I was looking for.

I also limited the field to players that played at least a full season over the decade. That’s ten percent of the total period. If I didn’t put a filter on the number of games played Ty Wishart would rank second in DPS and Thomas Vanek would rank second for OPS and first for TPS.

Again, if not for removing players who had fewer than 83 games played, Thomas Vanek would be second in OPS. Which makes you wonder how good that line of Tavares, Vanek, and Okposo could have been if they had played more than 47 games.

I knew Barzal would jump up from his ninth cumulative rank when I changed the ranking to a per-game rank. I didn’t think he’d jump as high as third. Fourth on the list was Anders Lee.

Seeing Johnny Boychuk third in DPS helps me rationalize any sad feelings I have about the thought of him being traded away or bought out. Boychuk has been an incredible player for the Islanders since they acquired him from Boston. He might not be worth $6 million now, but he’s earned that payday over time.

There are no great truths revealed by this. We all knew how good Tavares was with the Isles, even if you dislike the guy now. But it’s interesting to show who helped the Islanders the most over the last decade and how barren the talent level has been for a while.