Yesterday I posted the top 20 players by offensive zone starts. The three players who are well ahead of the rest of the pack are Daniel Sedin, Henrik Sedin and their linemate Alexandre Burrows. Daniel Sedin has over 60% more excess offensive zone starts than any player on any other team.

The Vancouver Canucks are the team that most uses offensive zone starts strategically. They make more effort to start their best offensive player’s shifts in the offensive zone and have defensive players like Manny Malhotra who get the excess defensive zone starts. This increases the Vancouver Canucks team offence. This increases the offensive numbers that the Sedin line gets.

Daniel Sedin led the NHL with 104 points last year. Henrik Sedin finished fourth in league scoring with 94 points. Burrows was well back in the scoring race with 48 points. The Sedin brothers’ offensive numbers are improved by the way they are used. This is similar to the way Evgeni Malkin led the NHL in scoring in 2009 except that Malkin did not get offensive zone starts on the level the Sedins did.

It is very reasonable to be sceptical of the Sedin offensive prowess. If they played a more balanced role (as everyone else in the NHL does), they would not be the highest scorers in the NHL. We can make an approximate guess how many points this usage is worth to the Sedins. Each excess offensive zone start is worth about 0.8 extra Corsi events. For Daniel Sedin this is about 300 extra Corsi events. As a rough rule, 20 extra Corsi events is an extra goal. Thus the offensive usage of Daniel Sedin is worth about 15 points. That would make Daniel Sedin an 89 point scorer. This would place him 4th in league scoring (as Henrik) would drop as well.

There is no question that Daniel and Henrik Sedin are good scorers. Daniel won the scoring title last season and Henrik the year before that. This would not have happened without the offensive way that they get used by the Canucks. As a result, other players are better offensively despite lower point totals. This is a strong argument that neither Sedin brother is the best player in the NHL.

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