Jakub Voracek had 56 assists last season, good enough for 2nd place on the Columbus Blue Jacket's single-season assists leaderboard. What's even more impressive is that those 56 assists were only the third most for him personally. The 33-year-old winger has tallied at least 40 assists in half of his 14 seasons in the NHL and at least 30 in all but two of them. He is a wily veteran and one of the best playmakers on this young team.
Despite all of this success as a facilitator, Voracek had a down year when it came to scoring goals. In fact, he set his own personal record for the least goals scored in a season, with just six. The question is whether the Czech forward will see an uptick in goals this year.
There are a couple of factors that lead us to believe that he may very well see that uptick that he is looking for. The first is his performance thus far in the preseason. He has only played in two games and the preseason doesn't always bring the stiffest competition, however, he has scored a goal in each game. It goes without saying that he won't be able to keep up this goal-per-game pace for much longer, but it is a good sign nonetheless.
Another factor is his shooting percentage. He scored on a measly 4.1% of his chances last season, but his career average was more than twice that with 9.4%. So it stands to reason that he would progress toward the mean. He also averaged 15.9 goals up until last year, making it even more likely that he will be closer to that average next season.
Voracek has never been known as a great goal scorer, but last year was particularly rough in that department. Fortunately, he will most likely have more success with this, this season.
