By The Numbers: Vincent Trocheck’s Breakout Season

On their way to winning the Atlantic division, there were many storylines to follow along for the Florida Panthers, one of which was the breakout season enjoyed by Vincent Trocheck.

At some point teams are going to no longer hesitate when it comes to drafting players with less than prototypical hype. Martin St. Louis carved out a Hall of Fame career despite being undersized and undrafted. Johnny Gaudreau is starting to establish himself as one of the better players in the league, he fell to the fourth round partially due to his height.

By The Numbers: Vincent Trocheck’s Breakout 2015-2016 Season

Another name to fall in the draft due partially in part to his size, Trocheck, was grabbed up by the Panthers and has done nothing but score no matter the level he has been at.

In his final year of juniors, Trocheck led the Ontario Hockey League in scoring, splitting his year with the Saginaw Spirit and Plymouth Whalers. In 264 games at the major junior hockey level, Trocheck registered 299 points (120 G, 179 A), increasing his output each and every season.

Moving on to the professional ranks, Trocheck played in 78 games in the American Hockey League his first two years, as well as 70 with the Panthers. While in the minors, Trocheck scored 61 points in those 78 games, and 30 at the NHL level over the 70 games.

Last year though, the 23 year old Pittsburgh native exploded for 53 points (25 G, 28 A), in 76 games and finished third in goals as well as fifth in both assist and overall points.

His efforts earned him a brand new six year contract, worth a total value of $28.5 million, an average annual value of $4.75 million and instantly installed himself among the key core group of forwards that features Aleksander Barkov, Nick Bjugstad, and Jonathan Huberdeau.

A lot of expectations come with signing a long term contract, but if the season that Trocheck had is what the Panthers’ can expect, it will be money well paid, maybe even being a value buy.

Just how good was the young centers season? The Rat Trick went beyond the base numbers and examined just how Trocheck fared analytically, compared to the rest of the league.

Point Production

While plainly looking at the 53 points, and stacking him up against his peers, he still comes out as one of the better centers in the look, breaking down his numbers a little further is where you really see how great a year Trocheck had. The 21 year old forward finished 34th in scoring among all players designated as centers on NHL.com (

The problem with using those numbers is that it doesn’t take into account for minutes played. Obviously players who have played more minutes will be in a position to score more points. That’s why using metrics like Goals-per-60 minutes is so useful. It counts how many goals a player scores per 60 minutes worth of ice time. Using that, Trocheck finished just outside the top ten among goal scorers a year ago, taking into account all forwards that played at least 1,000 minutes at even strength last season.

No shocker, Alexander Ovechkin paced the league with a 1.39 mark. More of the usual names followed as in Tyler Seguin, Vladimir Tarasenko, Patrick Kane and James Neal.

And then there is Trocheck, finishing .001 behind Filip Forsberg and a top ten finish, as well as a quarter-goal-per-60 behind the champ Ovechkin.

A few notable players he was able to beat out? John Tavares, Corey Perry and Phil Kessel. Not a bad list of players to finish ahead of, all elite goal scorers in their own right.

In overall points-per-60, Trocheck finished in a tie for the 16th highest mark, and the names he matched were impressive on their own – Seguin, Jamie Benn, and Brandon Saad. Panthers’ teammate Jaromir Jagr, 44 years young, finished with the highest P/60 mark this year with a 2.82 total.

On Ice Influence

It wasn’t just his the point column that Trocheck made an impact, when he was on the ice, he made the entire Panther team better around him.

When Trocheck was on the ice, the Panthers’ shot at a 10.04% clip, a two percent increase relative to when he was on the bench (the RelSh% stat). That number again put him in a tie with Patrick Kane for the tenth best mark in the entire league (with the same minutes parameter as before). Jagr and Jonathan Huberdeau finished with the first and fourth, respectively, in the same category, and with the lines success

Finishing 13th in the league, 61.73% of the even strength goals scored while Trocheck was on the ice was done so by the Panthers. When he was not on the ice, in even strength situations, the Panthers 10.58% lower mark than when Trocheck was playing.

His speed and creativity, which he has shown flashes of every since coming up, has helped him open up opportunities for the rest of his teammates, making both everyone – Trocheck included – better.

Looking Forward

It happens every year, especially in a contract season. A player explodes for an offensive output way above what he had done so in the past, earning himself a huge raise. The question will be now, with a new contract in hand, will Trocheck be able to not only repeat his success, but build upon it?

The 10.04 Sh% will be a little hard to replicate, as just 12 players who played 1,000 plus minutes at even strength finished with a higher than 10% mark. Even when you expand it to players with 750 or more minutes, it goes up to 21. That’s a small margin of the players in the league to reach a hard number to hit, especially since it is also based on the rest of your team’s ability to put the puck in the back of the net.

Trocheck did an amazing job on capitalizing when the puck was on his stick, though, relying on his own playmaking ability to put up points. His 1.91 primary points-per-60 was the tenth best mark in the league. Relying on secondary assists to rack up points will only increase the probability of a regression. Trocheck finished with just 0.30 A2/60 (five overall on the year).

Even his ‘HERO’ chart shows that his probability of regression is low, and that he has a higher percentage of a chance to maintain his first line production from last season.

Barkov scored a career high 28 goals in his third season, establishing himself a future top line center, and Nick Bjugstad led the team in scoring just a few short years back. When it comes to centers, the Panthers have no shortage of options down the middle.

Next: Florida Panthers: Top 10 Moment From 2015-2016

He may not have been the most highly touted of the bunch, but Trocheck’s 2015-2016 season showed he has the skill set to be included in the same conversation as the rest, giving Florida one of the best young cores in the entire game.