Analytics expert Garret Hohl reveals “the NHL's biggest puck hog this season.”

The NHL's biggest puck hog is...

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Published 5 years ago
Analytics expert Garret Hohl reveals “the NHL's biggest puck hog this season.”
Jesper Zerman/Bildbyran/Zuma

A National Hockey League analytics expert has just produced a very interesting conclusion, one that I imagine was done in jest and good nature. 

Analytics expert Garret Hohl of Hockey Data Inc took a look at a number of statistic to come up with a determination for the player that he believes is the biggest puck hog of the 2018 - 2019 National Hockey League regular season. Hohl looked at shots, Fenwick, Corsi, and xGoals to ascertain who the player that would claim the dubious title would be, and after careful analysis he determined that none other than Brendan Gallagher of the Montreal Canadiens is this seasons biggest puck hog.

Here's what Hohl had to say on the matter:

Brendan Gallagher; takes the largest percentage of his team's shots, Fenwick, Corsi, and xGoals while he's on the ice. Yet, that barely works out to to 20% of all events with him on the ice. The other 9 skaters still account for 80%.

What is interesting about this analysis is just how successful the Montreal Canadiens offense has been this season relative to the talent on their roster. What I mean by this is that the Habs have several players hitting career highs in a season where not many expected them to be a legitimate playoff contender, career highs that are being hit in spite of Gallagher's alleged puck hogging ways. 

Just to give you an idea Gallagher himself has already passed his career high for goals by 2 (33), although I suppose give the revelation that should not come as a surprise. But what is surprising is that forward Max Domi has eclipsed his previous total while Jeff Petry, Andrew Shaw, and Jonathan Drouin are within 1, 2 and 3 goals of beating their career highs as well. Meanwhile when it comes to assists Domi has eclipsed that total as well, as has forward Phillip Danault beating his previous total by a whopping 10 assists already. The aforementioned Drouin has 1 assist more than his previous career high as does Jeff Perty. Meanwhile Andrew Shaw is up two assists on his previous career high and Tomas Tatar has a whopping 4 assists over his previous career best.

Maybe Gallagher's puck hogging has been a good thing for the Habs?

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