Beyond the Box Score: Kirill Kaprizov
An in-depth look at the rookie’s expected goals impact through his first 20 games.
Kirill Kaprizov has taken the hockey world by storm with his tantalizing edge work, elite passing and incredible hockey IQ. He’s made the Minnesota Wild fun to watch, just ask any past critic of the team and they’ll tell you they’re going out their way to watch the Wild play because he’s made them interesting.
In the first edition of “Beyond the Box Score,” we’re taking a deep dive into analytics to analyze Kaprizov and just how good he’s been, but also to provide some constructive criticism.
The Raw Numbers
The first and easiest thing to do is just lay out all of the facts on the table, so here’s what Kaprizov has done so far. We’ll start simple with the non-advanced stats and the straight-from-the-box-score numbers.
In 20 games played, Kaprizov has six goals, 11 assists, 17 points, is +7, has totaled 40 shots on goal, blocked five shots, dished out 10 hits and has only taken one penalty. He leads all NHL rookies in assists, points, points per game and +/-. He’s Top 5 in virtually every other stat.
At the surface, he’s been nothing short of fantastic. He’s looked the part and has been one of the most lethal forces on a suddenly prolific Wild offense. But let’s go one step further and look at Kaprizov’s advanced stats at even strength.
- Corsi For per 60 (CF/60): 45
- Corsi Against per 60 (CA/60): 46
- CF%: 49.4%
- Expected Goals For per 60 (xGF/60): 2.21
- Expected Goals Against per 60 (xGA/60): 2.43
- xGF%: 47.5%
- Individual Expected Goals (ixG): 6.17
These are the first two instances where we really start to uncover a few potential deficiencies in Kaprizov’s game. His on-ice offensive creation can’t be denied as his 13.46 total xGF is second among Wild forwards behind only Joel Eriksson Ek and his ixG of 6.17 is third among all Wild skaters. However, in addition to generating a lot of offense, he’s also been on the ice for a lot of chances against. His xGA/60 of 2.43 is third worst among Wild forwards.
Now, this isn’t to say Kaprizov is bad defensively, but it’s something worth diving into to uncover who the real liability is between Kaprizov and his linemates, or perhaps both.
Is Kaprizov Struggling Defensively ?
The short answer is kind of. First off, no matter which stat you choose to look at: Corsi, Fenwick, Expected Goals or straight up shots, Kaprizov doesn’t eclipse the 50% mark in any of them. But none of that is completely his fault.
Through the first handful of games, Kaprizov found himself on a line with Zach Parise and Nick Bjugstad. That line actually performed pretty well at 5v5. Per Evolving Hockey, they had an xGF% of 55.68% accumulating 2.59 xGF/60 and only 2.06 xGA/60. Their CF% was also a respectable 51.34%. This line overall controlled play pretty well.
Following the Wild’s COVID outbreak, the Lettuce Line was assembled, uniting Kaprizov with Victor Rask and Mats Zuccarello. This is where things started to change a bit.
The line exploded for 10 goals in 10 games with all three players chipping in their fair share of points: Kaprizov with 4 goals and 5 assists, Zuccarello 3 goals and 8 assists and Rask with 2 goals and 4 assists.
That all seems great… right? Well, not exactly.
The line has actually been pretty badly outplayed sporting just a 42.94% xGF% (2.18 xGF/60 and 2.90 xGA/60) and 43.6% CF% (47 CF and 61 CA).
Why don’t things add up? It can be mostly attributed to PDO — essentially the advanced analytics term for luck.
Better to Be Lucky than Good
PDO is the sum of a player’s, line’s or team’s, on-ice shooting percentage and save percentage. In general, the baseline for PDO is 1.000 (.900 save percentage and .10 shooting percentage). The Lettuce Line has had unbelievable success shooting the puck and have a shooting percentage of 20.18%, the second highest mark among all NHL lines who’ve played at least 50 minutes together — trailing only the Alex Ovechkin, Niklas Backstrom and Tom Wilson line in Washington.
The Wild goaltenders have bailed this line out quite a bit too, stopping 95.37% of shots. A top 30 mark among 125 line combinations who again have played at least 50 minutes together.
This gives the line a PDO of 115.55, which is absurdly high. It’s currently the second highest PDO in the NHL behind only the Parise, Ryan Hartman and Marcus Foligno line, which is at 117.50.
Long story short, this line’s success probably isn’t sustainable and that was seen in the first game against Vegas where the trio was torched. They were out-attempted 8 to 17 and surrendered 0.82 xGA while only racking up 0.18 xGF for a team worst 17.91%. That’s obviously way lower than their average, but a bad game wasn’t necessarily unexpected given what the trio had done in their previous games.
Is There a Finger to Point?
Getting back to Kaprizov, the above sample sizes of the two lines he’s played on shows it’s not him who’s anchoring his lines and dragging them down defensively. Culprit one is Rask.
Using Natural Stat Trick’s line tool, we can isolate both Kaprizov and Rask’s individual numbers when they’re playing together and what those same numbers looks like when they’re away from one another.
Together, the pair has a 45.37% xGF% at 5v5. Kaprizov, away from Rask, has an xGF% of 54.62%. Rask, away from Kaprizov, has a 60.58% (though that’s in very sheltered minutes).
Culprit two is Parise who’s struggled mightily this season. He has a team worst 40.8% xGF% at even strength this season. Using the same methods as Rask and Kaprizov, here’s what Parise and Kaprizov looked like:
- Kaprizov with Parise: 49.2% xGF%
- Kaprizov without Parise: 50.02% xGF%
- Parise without Kaprizov: 45.86% xGF%
So it’s pretty safe to say that Kaprizov’s low xGF% is not as much a knock on him, but more a testament to incompatibility with Rask and Parise being a defensive black hole.
The change in xGF% for Zuccarello and Kaprizov with and without one another are very minimal, and Kaprizov has actually performed better alongside Bjugstad.
What’s Next for Kaprizov?
Kaprizov is going to continue to do his thing and attack defenders and do his best to create chances offensively, even if it means making some mistakes that could lead to chances for the opposing team.
He’s only played 20 NHL games and he continues to look more confident every night. He could benefit from shooting some more and getting back to his KHL average of three shots per game instead of the two shots he’s averaged per game so far. His shooting percentage is 15 percent right now meaning if he maintained that and averaged one more shot per game, he could potentially net 16 goals in his final 36 games, giving him 22 total in 56 games, or an 82-game pace of 32 goals.
The next step for the Wild to help him toward that mark may be to remove Rask from between him and Zuccarello and try someone like Eriksson Ek, Bjugstad or even Nico Sturm at center to see if one of them can create some more sustained pressure offensively and improve the overall line’s defensive performance.
Kaprizov is well on his way to becoming the first-ever Calder Trophy winner in Minnesota Wild history and though his game has a few holes in it, he’s got a long career ahead of him to continue to learn and get better and there’s every reason to believe he will.
