4 Kings Playing Better than You Think

Nick Shore

Shore is a perfect example of how the eye test can fool us. No more than a week or two ago, I was remarking to a friend just how BORING Shore’s play was. He’s like the invisible man. You rarely notice him on the ice. He never seems to screw up, but he never does anything spectacular either. He’s just there. I wasn’t wrong that he’s boring, but I was wrong to use it derisively, as we’ll see below.

Shore’s play is also a great example of how the box score can fool us. He has one point all year – ONE!- and it came on a tip-in goal just a few minutes in to the first game of the season. That was about a month ago. Since then – zilch. Nothing. No goals, no assists, nada. And yet, of the 4 players we’re looking at today, Shore is the one whom I can most confidently say does not deserve flak for his low point totals.

For one, just look at him on the chart above. He, more than any other player on the entire roster, has been instrumental in driving play. But he does it in the complete opposite way of Jeff Carter and Tyler Toffoli. The remaining 2/3 of That 70’s Line (still love you Tanner Pearson) zips around firing pucks on net and being a total terror on opposing defenses. Shore, on the other hand, gets the job done in a much less aesthetically pleasing, but equally effective way – through shot suppression. Carter and Toffoli actually give up the most shots per 60 minutes on the team, but they make up for it by generating tons of high-quality shots and having superior finishing ability. Shore probably knows he doesn’t have top flight shooting talent, so he controls play through sound defensive positioning and intelligent offensive play. As a result, he not only leads the Kings in the traditional possession stats (i.e. Corsi and Fenwick), but he also leads them in Scoring Chance For % and High Danger Scoring Chance for %, at 60.98% and 62.00% respectively. Both of these would place him in the league’s top 10 centers. For sake of comparison, Kopitar’s percentages are 52.84% and 54.67% respectively.

So how the heck does he have only 1 goal and 0 assists? There are three big reasons. First is how the Kings are utilizing him during 5-on-5 play. Shore clearly knows his role is a defensive, checking center. Unlike Jarret Stoll, whom he has replaced, he’s actually good at it. As a result, his focus is to shut down the opposition, and he has been remarkably good at this. Take a look at this chart:

He’s not only leading the Kings in suppressing scoring chances against, he’s leading them by a mile. The difference between Shore and 2nd place Tanner Pearson is basically the same as the distance between 2nd place Pearson and 11th place Milan Lucic. (Also notable are perennial Norris-nominee Doughty and perennial Selke-nominee Kopitar at the bottom of the list). So Shore’s job isn’t to score goals, it’s to stop them from happening, and he’s doing an amazing job of that.

Second, and somewhat related to the first, is that he gets almost no time on the powerplay. He’s gotten only 4 minutes all season, good for 14th on the team, and behind such luminaries as Trevor Lewis and Jamie McBain. This is understandable, as offense isn’t his role. But we need to keep this in mind when talking about his point totals. The lack of time on the man advantage does not give him the high scoring opportunities that guys on the first and second line get.

Third, his SH% and that of his on-ice teammates has been unsustainably low. While there is definitely skill in having a high shooting percentage (take Alex Tanguay or our very own Marian Gaborik, for example), there is also a lot of luck involved, and Shore and his linemates have undoubtedly had some bad luck this season. Shore’s shooting percentage of 6.25% isn’t outlandishly low, (league average is usually around 9%) but considering his average shooting distance of 25.18ft is closer than that of Jeff Carter, Anze Kopitar, or Milan Lucic, he’s bound to start knocking in a few more. What’s really hurt him is his teammates inability to bury the puck. The Kings’ shooting percentage while he’s on the ice is 2.5%. This is just stupidly low, and places him 2nd to last on the Kings. When that comes up, so will his assist totals.

Final verdict: cut him lots of slack. While I do think we can expect to see an increase in scoring from Shore, I think we also need to realize that that’s not really his role, and that what he’s been asked to do – shut down the opposing teams – he has done remarkably well, especially for a rookie.