How Rickard Rakell went from Beloved to Underrated
Rickard Rakell is just two years removed from posting his second straight 30-plus goal season, and somehow we are now at the point where plenty of Ducks fans consider him to be one of the more disappointing stories of the past season.
In the 2016-17 season, Rakell put up 33 goals and 18 assists for 51 points in 71 games, and followed that up with an even more impressive 34 goals and 35 assists for 69 points in 77 games in the 2017-2018 season. A deeper dive into his numbers will allow us to see if these numbers were mainly driven by Rakell or driven by his linemates, or perhaps an unsustainably high shooting percentage.
Fans of my other writing know that I am drawn to an examination of numbers and statistics. I like analytics, and I find fascination in look at trends over time. Thus, right now is a good time to divulge the importance of understanding shooting percentage and streaks in hockey for those potentially unfamiliar. There is a rule of thumb utilized by many people in the advanced stats community; look at a player’s average shooting percentage, and if over the course of the season they have significantly out performed that rate, then more likely than not it is not sustainable. Sometime down the road, that player will inevitably fall into a slump that will cause his shooting percentage to regress to the mean. Some will view this as the player struggling, when in reality he never was the shooter we all perceived him to be in the first place. This course correction is just the stretch of the player’s skills resolving over time, and adjusting from the prior level of output.
Matt Beleskey is a good example of this for all Ducks fans. Everyone remembers his 2014-2015 campaign where he scored 22 goals in 65 games, all while shooting 15.2%, a high mark for him at the time. As it turns out, Matt Beleskey is not a 15% shooter. His career average now is 9%. The eventual decline in scoring was predictable if you looked at shooting percentage.
Now that this tangent is done, back to Rickard Rakell. Here are his splits for from an individual perspective for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons:
2016-17:
33 goals
18 assists
51 points
8 individual shots on goal per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
15 individual shots attempts per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
0.74 individual expected goals per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
18.6 shooting percentage in all situations
10.82 on ice shooting percentage at 5v5 (shooting percentage for the Ducks while Rakell was on the ice)
2017-18:
34 goals
35 assists
69 points
8.12 individual shots on goal per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
14.78 individual shots attempts per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
0.78 individual expected goals per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
14.8 shooting percentage in all situations
10.50 on ice shooting percentage at 5v5
Over these two seasons Rickard Rakell mainly played with Ryan Getzlaf, who was significantly better with Rakell than without. Getzlaf had a 55.29 xGF% with Rakell and only a 46.41 xGF% without Rakell. Rakell also did fall off without Getzlaf, posting a 49.64 xGF% without him, but these numbers reveal that Rakell’s production was not simply a result of playing with Ryan Getzlaf. He helped to improve Getzlaf’s game as much as Getzlaf helped to improve his.
Now comes the really interesting part, which is a similar deep dive into the 2018-19 and the 2019-20 seasons to see how they compare.
2018-19:
18 goals
25 assists
43 points
8.36 individual shots on goal per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
15.23 individual shots attempts per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
0.67 individual expected goals per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
9.3 shooting percentage in all situations
7.23 on ice shooting percentage at 5v5
2019-20:
15 goals
27 assists
42 points
9.11 individual shots on goal per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
15.38 individual shots attempts per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
0.9 individual expected goals per 60 minutes of ice time at 5v5
8.1 shooting percentage in all situations
8.82 on ice shooting percentage at 5v5
Over this time period Rakell also played significant minutes with Getzlaf, but their xGF% slipped as a pair. This could be due to age related decline in Getzlaf or simply the downturn of the Ducks’ overall play. Regardless, it seems unlikely that Rakell was simply being propped up by Getzlaf.
The most interesting part of looking at these numbers is individually, Rakell has improved almost every year, with this past year potentially being the best season he has ever had. He put up the highest individual shot rate and expected goal rates of his career, even though he saw his goal total fall off.
Rakell might not be a consistent 30 goal scorer, as many people expected of him, but he also is not a 15 goal scorer. He more likely than not will stay a consistent 20-25 goal scorer until an eventual age-related decline comes to bear. If people are able to adjust their expectations for him, then he might not be underrated any more and be properly rated.
He also could just go on a scoring binge next season as a regression to the mean and make this entire article look out of date.
Hope you enjoyed my first article on Crash The Pond. Numbers are my forte, but don’t worry I plan to do some more light-hearted articles also. Coming up, I plan to do a ranking of the Ducks lines and D pairs from this past season. The topic to go along with it will be wrestling pay-per-views from the past year seeing as Wrestlemania is coming up.
All stats are per naturalstattrick and hockey-reference.