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By Mitch Cole (@DirtyWaterBuzz)
Reilly Smith was a nice surprise for the Bruins last season. After scoring 20 goals and adding 31 assists for 51 points, he was expected to have something of a breakout year this season. Except that hasn’t happened.
You’d need more than two hands to point to who’s to blame for this Bruins season, but one of those fingers should definitely be pointing at Smith. He’s given the Bruins a mere 12 goals and 25 assists this season, good for 37 points, while largely playing on a line with Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand.
Why has Smith struggled so much this season? Well, there’s a number of reasons why.
Since the beginning of the 2013-2014 season to today (March 25), Smith has skated 1373:14 of 5v5 ice time with Bergeron, and Smith has accumulated a corsi% of 60.6. Insanely high, right? But here’s where you see a problem. When Smith is not skating with Bergeron (he’s skated 608:45 TOI in 5v5 situations since the start of last season), Smith’s corsi% drops drastically from 60.6 to 48.4. Additionally, when Smith and Bergeron have skated together at 5v5, they’ve generated a goals% of 60.1. However, when Smith is away from Bergeron, his goals% drops to 52.5. Evidently, Smith is a product of playing with Patrice Bergeron, and he’s become a passenger on the Bruins’ second line.
So far this season, smith has a S% of 11.2. It’s higher than his S% of 10.3 from last season, but this is misleading. Smith has a total of 146 shots on goal last season, and he’s only taken 125 shots on goal this year, leading to a higher number.
But he has 12 goals this season, right? Well, five of Smith’s 12 goals this year came in December, when he shot 21.7%; an insanely unsustainable number. Taking out Smith’s hot streak in December, Smith has a S% of 7.6 (seven goals on 92 shots). Is this what Smith is? It’s difficult to say. Before this year, Smith’s S% for his career was 11.4, so it’s impossible to say that Smith is going to be a player that shoots around 7-8% every season for the rest of his career, or whether his S% will rise back to his career average.
The point is, however, that Smith’s struggles this year can be explained by a low shooting percentage (which could be bad luck, or could be regression), and the fact that he’s proven to be a mere passenger on the Bruins’ second line, spending a lot of time in his own zone when apart from Bergeron. Regardless, Smith must be better than he has been throughout his career in Boston, or he may end up not being a part of the Bruins’ future plans.
All stats courtesy of Puckalytics and War On Ice
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