One of Edmonton’s few success stories from last year was

Benoit Pouliot. He was targeted, I believe, in large part for his impact on

possession and he delivered not only there but also on the scoreboard. He ultimately went 58GP, 19-15-34 on the season. If not

for injury Pouliot would have surely established a new career high in points to

go along with the career high in goals he produced last year. Are

expectations for him going to be too high for this coming season?

Benoit Pouliot is the kind of player that does a lot of

little things really well. Taken one at a time these little things don’t seem all that impressive.

Taken as a whole and those little things add up to a very effective player. One of

the problems for Pouliot, especially early in his career, is that as a former fourth overall pick he wasn’t being judged on the little things that he does well. He was being judged

on offensive output which left some wanting. Not only was he producing point totals in the low 30’s, it

took him a while to establish himself in the NHL.

There’s no doubt that his limited offensive production

played a role in him bouncing around to five different teams in five consecutive

years. Fair or not, his lack of offense contributed to several teams not

believing he was part of the long term solution to their problems (and one of

those teams was the Chiarelli-run Bruins).

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Maybe it’s part of the fancy stats revolution, or maybe it’s just MacT believed he saw something that others didn’t, but the club took a leap of

faith and went all in on Pouliot last summer, giving him a five year deal at four million dollars per season.

When I mention the fancy stats and Pouliot it’s because he’s

one of the players that was identified by possession metrics like Corsi as a

potential driver of possession. For just a glimpse into what I’m talking

about, here is how Pouliot ranked among forwards on his respective team in Corsi

for percentage relative to his teammates as per Stats.HockeyAnalysis.com over

the last five seasons.

2014-2015 Oilers – 3rd

2013-2014 Rangers – 2nd

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

2012-2013 Lightning – 1st

2011-2012 Bruins – 6th

2010-2011 Canadiens – 2nd

So he was first, second, or third in this metric for all but one of his last five stops. It’s a level of consistency that is pretty impressive. When we venture

to judge Benoit Pouliot we shouldn’t forget that one of the biggest reasons the

Oilers went out to get him is because the puck is in the right side of the rink

more often when he plays.

I say that because last season Pouliot shot the lights out

and found himself on the top line of the club, but replicating that level of success

could prove difficult. The first real experience that Oiler fans have with

Benoit Pouliot has been with him at his best offensively. That could paint some

expectations moving forward that might be difficult to overcome.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

The first year Oiler set a new career high in personal

shooting percentage in 2014-2015 with 18.1% on 105 shots in 58 games. We’re

talking about what amounts to roughly a 27 goal pace for a player whose

previous career high was 16 goals.

When the play was 5v5 Pouliot had a team-high 16.46%

individual shooting percentage. On the 5v4 power play that number jumped to

23.53%.

Over the four seasons prior to that, those numbers were predictably

lower. Pouliot at 5v5 from 2010 to 2014 had a shooting percentage of 10.64%. On

the 5v4 power play over that same time, he shot 19.57%.

Now, those numbers for Pouliot over the last several years

aren’t bad. Not at all. In fact his points per 60

minutes has been pretty darn good for a while. A large degree of his increased overall production also comes from the Oiler winger playing 16+ minutes a night as opposed to

the 11-13 minutes he was getting elsewhere. That said, we still shouldn’t expect

Pouliot to maintain the sky high percentages he was putting up last year. We

should expect solid even strength production. We should expect him to continue

positively impacting possession. We should also be prepared for the goals in

particular to drop off.

If a drop off in production doesn’t happen then that’s fantastic,

but if we’re being reasonable then we shouldn’t be upset come December if

Pouliot is well off the pace he was on the year before. This isn’t an article

to suggest Pouliot doesn’t belong on a line with RNH or that he isn’t capable

of scoring 25+ goals this coming year. It’s all possible. We should just temper

expectations with players whose personal shooting percentage skyrocketed the

year before.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below



