Is Guillaume Latendresse Poised For A Fall?
by Derek Zona on May 25, 2010 3:00 PM CDT
in Special features
13 comments
But what goes up must come down
I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing
The answer to both questions is the same, not likely. Latendresse's performance in Minnesota was built on the back of two trends - first, he increased his shots per game rate by nearly half in Minnesota. During his career in Montreal, Latendresse averaged 1.64 shots per game. In 55 games with Minnesota he averaged 2.41 shots per game. Was this the unveiling of a new player, was it due to Minnesota's system or was it Latendresse's new linemates?
The second trend was Latendresse's shooting percentage. Before arriving in Minnesota, Latendresse was a 12.6% career shooter. In his 55 games with the Wild, Latendresse shot 18.8%. Had he continued at his career rate, Latendresse would have scored only 17 goals in Minnesota, not 25. 18.8% is not sustainable for Latendresse, so in order to maintain these increased offensive numbers, he must again increase his shot rates.
The timing for Latendresse and his agent couldn't have been better. Latendresse is a restricted free agent this off season and will likely be looking for a new contract that far exceeds his $800,000 salary. Minnesota general manager Chuck Fletcher seems to be a sharp guy, so I doubt that he will have the wool pulled over his eyes like colleague Peter Chiarelli.
But Latendresse isn't the only one that will likely see their goal-scoring production fall off next year. Below is a list of players among the league leaders in shooting percentage this season (minimum 500 career shots) that significantly outperformed their career shooting percentage averages in 2009-2010. The final column in the list shows the number of goals that each player scored over expectations, based on their career shooting percentage.
| Player | Team | GP | S | G | 09-10 S% | Career Avg. | Goals Over Exp. Avg. |
| Mikael Samuelsson | VAN | 74 | 219 | 30 | 13.7% | 7% | 14.1 |
| Jussi Jokinen | CAR | 81 | 160 | 30 | 18.8% | 12% | 11.2 |
| Alexandre Burrows | VAN | 82 | 209 | 35 | 16.7% | 12% | 10.1 |
| Stephen Weiss | FLA | 80 | 180 | 28 | 15.6% | 10% | 9.3 |
| Sidney Crosby | PIT | 81 | 298 | 51 | 17.1% | 14% | 9.1 |
| Henrik Sedin | VAN | 82 | 166 | 29 | 17.5% | 12% | 8.6 |
| Steve Ott | DAL | 73 | 146 | 22 | 15.1% | 9% | 8.3 |
| Mike Knuble | WSH | 69 | 151 | 29 | 19.2% | 14% | 7.8 |
| Antoine Vermette | CBJ | 82 | 156 | 27 | 17.3% | 13% | 7.2 |
| Nik Antropov | ATL | 76 | 126 | 24 | 19.0% | 13% | 7.2 |
| Scottie Upshall | PHX | 49 | 119 | 18 | 15.1% | 9% | 6.9 |
| Marian Gaborik | NYR | 76 | 272 | 42 | 15.4% | 13% | 6.8 |
| Dustin Penner | EDM | 82 | 203 | 32 | 15.8% | 12% | 6.8 |
| Glen Metropolit | MTL | 69 | 115 | 16 | 13.9% | 8% | 6.5 |
| Guillaume Latendresse | MTL, MIN | 78 | 160 | 27 | 16.9% | 13% | 6.2 |
We know from the work being done at Behind The Net Hockey that true shooting talent is hard to come by. We also know that shooting percentage can improve by age early in a player's career. There is a chance that some of the younger players on this list, including Latendresse, may be improving that way. But there exists the very real truth that shooting percentage always reverts to the mean, and it's extremely likely that the vast majority of this list will experience that reversion next season.
- One interesting note here is the number of Vancouver Canucks on this list. Samuelsson, Burrows and Sedin combined for 32 goals over expected average. Those goals accounted for approximately five wins for the Canucks last season, or ten points. A 93 point Vancouver team would have been the 8th seed in the West.
- Even though the Panthers' Stephen Weiss has been an outstanding tough minutes player by the underlying numbers and one of the best players in the league by contract value, would 09-10 have been termed his "breakout season" if he would have scored only 19 goals, while still outplaying the toughs?
- Steve Ott posted back-to-back years of 14.5% and 15.1% and Joe Nieuwendyk rewarded him with a $2,950,000 yearly contract. The move was universally lauded by Stars writers. If Ott falls back to his career average and posts 15 goals, will that nearly-three million cap hit remain a great move?
Here is a second list of young players without enough shots to qualify for the above list, but still posted some lofty shooting percentages last season and can't be expected to duplicate those percentages. They are young players still learning the game, so if they can learn to increase their shot rates, they could stem the drop in goal totals that will coincide with the shooting percentage reversion.
| Player | Team | GP | S | G | 09-10 S% |
| Troy Brouwer | CHI | 78 | 116 | 22 | 19.0% |
| Tomas Fleischmann | WSH | 69 | 121 | 23 | 19.0% |
| Steven Stamkos | TBL | 82 | 297 | 51 | 17.2% |
| Brandon Yip | COL | 32 | 65 | 11 | 16.9% |
| Tyler Bozak | TOR | 37 | 51 | 8 | 15.7% |
| Eric Fehr | WSH | 69 | 145 | 21 | 14.5% |
| Gilbert Brule | EDM | 65 | 121 | 17 | 14.0% |
- While Steven Stamkos may, in fact, be a true shooting talent, remember that even Ilya Kovalchuk, a demonstrable shooting talent has only managed to shoot 14.8% for his career. Plug that in for Stamkos and his goals drop by seven.
- Note the presence of two more Capitals on this list. Along with Mike Knuble, they combined for about 29 more goals than expected.
- Chicago's Troy Brouwer benefits from the presence of Patrick Sharp and Marian Hossa, but even the two of them won't be able to stop his shooting percentage from falling. Chicago GM Stan Bowman should shop Brouwer's name on the market to see if he can hook a GM that isn't paying attention to the percentages.
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Allow me to present a counterpont by swiping a few stats from behindthenet.ca, these are Latendresse’s even-strength stats, modified for icetime, over full seasons:
Latendresse 08-09: 1.08 G/60, 1.80 PTS/60
Latendresse 09-10: 1.15 G/60, 1.81 PTS/60
Notice any similarities? Latendresse’s even strength production rates are very good and have been for a while, but they did not take a quantum leap in 09-10. His production has largely stayed level since the 07-08 season — not bad, considering he broke into the league at 19 in 06-07.
So why is his production increased so much? Three reasons:
- His even-strength icetime shot up from 12:05 to 14:18 per game;
- His power play icetime went up from 1:31 to 2:08 per game;
- And his power play production increased from 2.90 points/60 to 3.33 points/60
If you want to know why his shot per game rate increased so much (and really, he was at 2.08 shots per game last year), then look no further than the increase in icetime — over two and half minutes per game.
Conclusion: at even strength, Latendresse didn’t actually get better by going to Minnesota. He merely got the recognition as a productive player he never got in Montreal, and was given commensurate icetime. On the power play his production increased, but his icetime increased more. Basically, he got a better coach, or a coach who liked him more.
Is a reversion likely? Yes, he’s going to go back to 12.5% or so. Is Latendresse likely to turn into suck? No, because he never was suck, he was just thought of that way by inept Montreal coaches. He will not score at the blistering pace he did in his 55 games in Minnesota — but he shouldn’t dip much lower than his pace over the full season, which still makes him a 25ish goal scorer over 82 games, probably with a high number of even strength goals.
He has been a productive NHLer and one of Montreal’s better even-strength scorers for a couple years. And then he got into the coach’s doghouse and got traded for a guy who has never been a NHL regular. There is no reason to believe he couldn’t have continued to be productive in Montreal if handled with even the slightest bit of care. Trading him for Pouliot was an awful, obvious, and entirely avoidable mistake by Montreal, and highway robbery by Minnesota.
The Habs are going to regret this one for a long, long time, methinks.
Was this the unveiling of a new player, was it due to Minnesota’s system or was it Latendresse’s new linemates?
Yes. And none of that changes next season.
18.8% is not sustainable for Latendresse
You said this in one other post. Why isn’t it? (In case anyone wants to jump me for being a jerk, I am really asking, not trying to say it isn’t the case.)
so in order to maintain these increased offensive numbers, he must again increase his shot rates.
Judging from the comments of Todd Richards, an increase in SOG is a key focus for the entire team. In order to accomplish that, Latendresse will be front and center of that effort.
Rule #17: You may not impersonate representatives of Hockey Wilderness and handout NHL themed wrist bands.
You said this in one other post. Why isn’t it? (In case anyone wants to jump me for being a jerk, I am really asking, not trying to say it isn’t the case.)
As Derek outlines, like goalies sv , a players shooting % fluctuates throughout their career. Latendresse had a 4 jump this year, like a .915 career goalie posting a hot .919, then next year the goalie may have a slump, posting .911, keeping in line with the mean.
It’s likely he was “hot” this year, and may cool down. Or, as Derek stated, he may have found a way to improve his shooting talent and location talent and his career % will grow, as he is still young.
I really doubt he’s an 18% career shooter. How many NHL players shoot 18% consistently? Alex Tanguay, anyone else?
His shooting percentage will go down. That won’t make him useless, but he’s not going to be a 35-40 goal scorer either.
Sorry.
I didn’t mean to imply that 18 would remain his % but to imply it might not regress back to below 10 if he is indeed growing, on average.
I don’t think he’s suggesting it drops below 10, but if it drops to his career average of say 13%, it’s a big difference.
His time in Minnesota saw him pro-rate his goals to 37 over 82 games, whereas his career average would see him score about 28 in the same season.
28 is a very good number, but it isn’t 37 and it’s important Minnesota doesn’t pay for 37 goals if it’s a one off thing.
Burrows
The Behind The Net article only studied even-strength, non-rebound shots. And it also mentions that shooting percentage depends on the shot location and some players shoot from better locations than others, something that is not random.
For Burrows, his shooting percentage is probably much lower if you consider even-strengh, non-rebound shots. His high total is very likely to be caused by the low difficulty of his shots. If you look at his 5 shorthanded goals, 2 came from clear breakaway, 1 came from a rebound off his clear breakaway, 1 came from a goalie giveaway into an empty net, and 1 came from a 2-on-1 with an easy tap-in into the open net. His 4 power play goals include: 1 deflected off his body when he stood in front of the net, 2 tap-ins from a Sedin pass when Burrows was alone in front of the goalie, and 1 deflection off a point shot when he stood in front of the goalie. And deflections are probably close to 100% shooting percentage play (you either miss the net or the puck goes in) Playing with the Sedins at even strength, he probably got a lot of in-close chances that are expected to have a lot higher shooting percentage than the average even-strength, non-rebound shots. So one could argue that there’s a chance of his shooting percentage to remain high because he mostly make easy shots, by working hard to place himself into prime scoring positions.
Latendresse
He was rushed into the league by Montreal. He should have stayed in Jr and played in the AHL.
The reason he’s more prolific in Minnesota is he figured out that going to the net is actually a cool idea. He couldn’t be bothered to do that in Montreal. Pouliot does seem to have some potential, but whether that’s as a decent second liner or a poor man’s Andrei Kostitsyn remains to be seen.
Amazing Montreal won two rounds with the dimwit twins of Andrei and Benny taking up space on the top two lines.
Good starting point is, it’s French for “William”
Hard G sound as in “Gear”
‘E’ vowel as in “be”
‘Y’ link as in “yes” (or William)
“Ome” sound as in “home” (but no H)
Don’t pronounce the “H”…Gee Home or Geeyome.
Lost in all this analysis are the facts that Latendresse was a goalscorer in junior and with Minny was put back on his proper wing. Having him come at goalies from the right instead of the left has made all the difference in world.
Addionally, there is great truth to the fact that shifting linemates in Montreal regressed his growth. Through three plus seasons, he barely ever played with the same two players for five games straight.
All this player needed was a regular center he could acclimate himself to.
Gui is a shooter, but the Canadiens tried to make him into a crash and banger. A crease basher a la Holmstrom, he’s never been.
Regress?
He’ll score between 35 and 40 next season.
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