If you're a Columbus Blue Jackets fan, you're probably sick of hearing about William Karlsson.
I like William Karlsson, and I'm tired of William Karlsson.
After scoring his 37th, 38th and 39th goals of the season for a natural hat trick in Vegas' win over the Calgary Flames, it's a foregone conclusion that Wild Bill will score 40 goals this season.
Wild Bill. @WKarlsson71. Whatever you call him, the man's a scoring machine this year. pic.twitter.com/Ry0EWjDEBw
— NHL (@NHL) March 19, 2018
Hockey twitter exploded on Monday morning when The Athletic's Justin Bourne tweeted the following:
If you expose a player in an expansion draft who scores 40 the next season you should auto-lose your job. I know player evaluation is hard but I dont think most guys wouldnt even be mad. Yeah I know, Im fired, thats fair.
— Justin Bourne (@jtbourne) March 19, 2018
Bourne, a well-respected writer, posed that Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen should be relieved of his duties as he – and his scouting department – were unable to correctly identify that Karlsson would be this type of player.
I, like many others, take issue with that, and am here to dispel the bad take.
As a prospect in Sweden, Karlsson was seen as a scorer though he wasn't a "can't-miss" prospect. He was drafted in the middle of the second round by the Anaheim Ducks in 2011. Here's what one scouting service had to say about Karlsson at the time:
"A speedy and skilled player. Karlsson has good hockey sense and is fairly all-round overall. Works hard both ways and is reliable defensively. Nice passing ability. Creates a lot of scoring changes with his skating. Has a creative side and some nifty moves too. Needs to get stronger."
That's a fair assessment that largely holds true today. He was a good prospect, which doesn't exactly scream "future 40 goal guy", but I digress. When Karlsson cracked his first NHL lineup, he played 18 games with the Ducks, posting two goals and one assist. Then, in 2015, he was traded to the Blue Jackets in a larger deal involving Rene Bourque and a pick (that eventually became Kevin Stenlund) in exchange for James Wisniewski.
He eventually settled into a bottom-six role with the Jackets, and while he certainly flashed some skill, he totaled just 15 goals over 162 games in two seasons. By the time he was picked up by Vegas, Wild Bill had played 183 NHL games over three seasons with two teams, amassing a grand total of 18 goals and 32 assists for 50 points. He was unquestionably an NHL player, but his 7.7% shooting percentage was below league average, and he seemed to have carved himself a nice niche as a third-line center who can kill penalties and contribute some – some! – offense.
This theory that Karlsson was somehow "missed" by scouts is misleading. Chris Morehouse, Assistant Director of Amateur Scouting for the Blue Jackets, took to Twitter before promptly deleting his frustration with Bourne's tweet:
annnnnnd original tweet deleted lol, here's what it said: pic.twitter.com/AQvk8qXIeh
— Jeremy Crowe (@307x) March 19, 2018
The Blue Jackets brass liked Karlsson, but this notion that the club is entirely responsible for not knowing that they had a 40-goal guy on the 3rd line is over-simplifying it. Pavel Datsyuk was passed up on two consecutive drafts before the Detroit Red Wings took him with the 171st pick in the 1998 NHL Draft. Was it because Detroit just knew that nobody else was going to pick a future Hall-of-Famer until the sixth round? The third time he was available to be drafted? Give me a break.
Give credit to Karlsson. He was given an opportunity to play higher in the lineup with more skilled players than he was ever granted a chance in Columbus. But what he's doing this year is statistically improbable.
Karlsson's shooting percentage of 23.8% isn't just good, it's insane. It's the kind of staggering statistic you'll stumble upon on hockey-reference, only to find that "Player X" played 13 games and took 25 shots, or something to that affect.
I decided to do a deep dive, and see how many players in the past 20 years have been able to score 35 goals or more in a season in which they shot 23% or better.
The list: William Karlsson.
Can we agree that Karlsson was probably deserving of more of an offensive chance but is also likely not a perennial 40-goal scorer? Is this season at least a slight exaggeration of his skills?
I would argue that assuming a player with a career shooting percentage on the low end of things would just magically jump to a 23.8% - and protecting him over more proveable assets - is a much more common fireable offense. https://t.co/7y304SK5wH
— Catherine Silverman (@catmsilverman) March 19, 2018
The elephant in the room here is that Columbus went out of its way to protect Joonas Korpisalo, and – more notably for this exercise – Josh Anderson. Anderson was having a terrific year for the Blue Jackets, though it's fair to say his performance has been overshadowed by Karlsson's surprise season.
Anderson, who with 18 goals may miss the 20-goal mark due to injury, has (wait for it) more shots through less games than Karlsson. Anderson, in 61 games, has taken 184 shots on goal, and his 9.8% shooting percentage is slightly above league average. Karlsson, meanwhile, has taken 164 in 72 games. That's nearly a full shot-per-game difference, which is significant over an 82-game stretch.
If Anderson shot 23.8% this season and had been healthy throughout, he would have 44 goals.
History hasn't exactly been kind to players who come from seemingly nowhere.
Great season for William Karlsson, but putting together some comparables for him gets ugly. https://t.co/liCdZBWlK9 pic.twitter.com/9Mfnm9taKS
— Chemmy (@felixpotvin) March 19, 2018
Corsica.hockey, which does a fine job to track the NHL's underlying numbers, suggests that based on Karlsson's shots and shot locations, the young Swede should "expect" to have scored 22.36 goals this season. That's definitely a step up from prior seasons, but it's mostly in line with his increase in ice time, coupled with the quality of player he's been lining with for much of the season.
If he had 22 goals, would people blame Jarmo Kekalainen for giving him up instead of Anderson?
Per NaturalStatTrick, in 2016-17 Karlsson was responsible for 42 "high-danger" scoring chances at 5-on-5, down from 47 the year prior. In those two years, he tallied five and nine goals, respectively. This season, his iHDCF is up to 57, but he's managed to pot 26 goals. This isn't sustainable.
Yes, it is clear that Karlsson is having a fantastic season. I hope he continues to have success, though I'm sure I'm in the minority. He deserves credit for what he's been able to accomplish for an expansion team with minimal expectations in its inaugural season. He's going to see a pretty significant pay raise next year.
But let's not pretend that the writing was on the wall that Karlsson was going to be a star in the NHL, or that Blue Jackets' brass should be fired because they couldn't foresee an all-time statistically-improbable season.
Follow 1st Ohio BatteryFacebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube
