I recently read yesterday's fanpost on Nazem Kadri.



It highlights Nazem Kadri's increased shot rate, and then goes on to assess potential risks associated with this increase in shot rate. The quoted TL;DR (too long, didn't read) is this:

TLDR Kadri's shot rate has increased by 47% this season and should fall back to career average next year Kadri's 5v5 ES goals is 3 goals under what we might expect given the low quality of scoring chances Kadri's 5v5 ES points are about 8 points under what we might expect, perhaps in part because of him taking too many shots in place of playmaking passes and from producing too few high quality chances You can reject or alter the the second and third point but to be convincing we would need to provide an explanation for the source and impact of Kadri's rise in shot rates in the first point

The first point is backed up by work done by Tulsky which is linked in their post. So I won't try to dispel that.

However, there remain elements that were previously unconsidered, and the conclusion was wishy-washy. I thought I'd dive into it a little more, and perhaps reach a less fence-sitting overall conclusion.

Also, a conclusion of the previous article was that Kadri was getting "low quality scoring chances" based on only a 0.5 HDSCF/60 difference from his career-best seasons. In fact, his "bad" year this year sits 48th of 311 forwards with 500 minutes of 5v5 TOI. I find it incredibly difficult to consider that conclusion accurate.

Possession Metrics

These articles by Steve Burtch, Sam Ventura, and DTMAboutHeart on how Score Adjusted Corsi For (SACF)%, Scoring Chances For (SCF)%, and Expected Goals For (xGF%) lead to future GF% are important pieces.

The basic conclusions of the above articles are that higher possession metrics are linked to better future production. It's an obvious corollary that more shots would have a similar result. We know, as the aforementioned article showed, that Kadri's shot rate has increased. Has he also increased his possession numbers?

Year iCF60 SVACF60 SCF60 xGF60 GF60 2014-15 15.17 57.84 29.78 2.62 2.5 2015-16 19.92 63.94 33.13 2.69 2.05 Differential 4.75 6.1 3.35 0.07 -0.45

The answer is unequivocally yes. His GF60 is lower but these stats are intended to indicate his future performance, as explained in the articles above. It stands to reason that, next season, Kadri will have much better production statistics.

Shooting Percentage

This was an element that was mentioned and yet somehow glossed over in the previous article. This article by Hawerchuk on Arctic Ice Hockey does a very good job of explaining how shooting percentage can be luck driven, and usually regresses to the mean. This means that when a player is shooting at a shooting percentage very far away from their career average, they're likely to regress back to that career average over the course of time.

What we've seen with Nazem Kadri is a season much lower than his usual shooting percentage. This graph shows where he's been at over his career:

As you can see, the seasons where his shooting percentage is very high, his GF60 is lower than his xGF60. And, when you look at the current season, the opposite holds true.

We can clearly expect Nazem Kadri to regain his career average shooting percentage, or close to it, and close the gap between his xGF60 and his GF60. Just for reference, if his xGF60 was his GF60, he'd be in the top 100 forwards in the league, among names like Patrick Sharp and Sean Couturier.

Conclusion

Time for a conclusion with some certainty. It seems clear now that bad luck is ailing Nazem Kadri from making this a very good contract year for himself. With some persistence, good coaching, and good linemates, Kadri will undoubtedly turn it around and see himself a nice year next season for the Leafs.