I don’t know about you. But for me, math and fun don’t often go together. Especially if we’re talking trigonometry or calculus (shudder).
Still, having reached the halfway mark of the 2016-17 NHL season, I thought it might be kind of enjoyable to do some Penguins projections.
There’s no rocket science involved, but some subjectivity. For skaters who’ve played a full slate of games, I simply doubled their present output. The same goes for “bubble” players and call-ups like Eric Fehr and Steve Oleksy, and goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray.
In the cases where players have missed time due to illness or injury, such as Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang, I assumed a full complement of games in the second half and applied their present scoring rate.
For an extra twist, I compared the projections to their career averages entering the current season, based on the estimated number of games played for ’16-17.
On a team basis? The black and gold is on pace to go 52-20-10, with 114 points. Which would represent the second highest win and point totals in the club’s storied 50-year history.
If the Pens continue to produce at the same rate? They’ll tally 284 goals, the most since ’96-97, and yield 236, the highest since the ’08-09 Cup winners.
SCORING | ||||||||
2016-17 Season | NHL Career Average | |||||||
Player | POS | GP | G | A | PTS | G | A | PTS |
Crosby | C | 76 | 56 | 41 | 97 | 36 | 65 | 101 |
Malkin | C | 82 | 34 | 56 | 90 | 38 | 59 | 97 |
Kessel | RW | 82 | 26 | 56 | 82 | 30 | 33 | 63 |
Sheary | LW | 75 | 24 | 31 | 55 | 12 | 5 | 17 |
Letang | D | 70 | 7 | 46 | 53 | 10 | 34 | 44 |
Schultz | D | 82 | 14 | 38 | 52 | 9 | 24 | 33 |
Hornqvist | RW | 76 | 22 | 28 | 50 | 23 | 24 | 47 |
Kunitz | LW | 76 | 9 | 28 | 37 | 22 | 29 | 51 |
Bonino | C | 82 | 12 | 24 | 36 | 14 | 23 | 37 |
Rust | RW | 79 | 21 | 14 | 35 | 7 | 12 | 19 |
Cullen | C | 82 | 14 | 18 | 32 | 15 | 27 | 42 |
Hagelin | LW | 82 | 10 | 22 | 32 | 17 | 23 | 40 |
Cole | D | 82 | 4 | 26 | 30 | 3 | 13 | 16 |
Daley | D | 77 | 6 | 19 | 25 | 7 | 17 | 24 |
Wilson | LW | 79 | 10 | 13 | 23 | 16 | 3 | 19 |
Fehr | RW | 70 | 10 | 4 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 26 |
Dumoulin | D | 70 | 0 | 14 | 14 | 1 | 12 | 13 |
Kuhnhackl | RW | 65 | 5 | 8 | 13 | 8 | 15 | 23 |
Guentzel | LW | 10 | 6 | 2 | 8 | — | — | — |
Maatta | D | 80 | 0 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 20 | 28 |
Ruhwedel | D | 10 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Murray | G | 40 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Oleksy | D | 18 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
Sestito | LW | 16 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Fleury | G | 52 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Pouliot | D | 14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
Warsofsky | D | 8 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
GOALTENDING | ||||||||
2016-17 Season | NHL Career Average | |||||||
Player | POS | GP | SH | GAA | SV% | SH | GAA | SV% |
Murray | G | 40 | 4 | 2.28 | .925 | 3 | 2.00 | .930 |
Fleury | G | 52 | 0 | 3.12 | .908 | 3 | 2.56 | .912 |
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